Illustrations by Raquel Aparicio

Fatima Vasquez-Molina grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., the eldest child of Latino immigrants. She attended parochial schools and a predominantly Hispanic girls Catholic high school before matriculating to The Catholic University of America, just a few miles from her home, as a commuter student.

In high school, she told her parents she wanted to study theology, and recalls them asking, “How is this going to pay the bills?” She persisted, and earned a bachelor’s degree in theology with a minor in Hispanic Studies in 2023.

“It was hard going into those theology classes,” she recalls. “I was the only Latina in a predominantly male environment, and while I wouldn’t say the odds were against me, there were a lot of things that were just a culture shock.”

Attending during a pandemic presented another challenge, but CUA exposed her to the diversity of the Church, she says, enabling her to see theology in multiple dimensions. By senior year she was back on campus, now living in the dorms and serving as a minister through the Center for Cultural Engagement, where she introduced a Spanish-language Mass, Las Mañanitas for Our Lady of Guadalupe, and a COVID Día de Muertos altar.

“These were experiences I made for the community, and not just for the Latinos,” she says. “Those experiences really opened my eyes to how we all see theology and seek it in such varied ways.”

 

Matters of demography

By the time Vasquez-Molina graduated and returned to her high school alma mater as a campus minister, her parents had warmed to her dream of studying theology, and encouraged her to pursue graduate studies. At CUA, she had read some of the groundbreaking demographic research of Hosffman Ospino, Ph.D., a professor of Hispanic Ministry and Religious Education at Boston College since 2007, and chair of its Department of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry. A Colombia native, Ospino has served as the principal investigator and author of a series of nationally recognized studies on the transforming presence of Hispanic Catholics on parishes, schools, and organizations in the United States, including the 2014 National Study of Catholic Parishes with Hispanic Ministry. At that time, there were some 4,300 such parishes; today there are 4,500, representing about 27 percent of American Catholic parishes.

As a doctoral student attending a conference of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians in 2004, Ospino met Timothy Matovina, Ph.D., a professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame; the two struck up a professional and personal friendship around shared interests in faith and culture, notably the experience and influence of Latino theology in the U.S. Church.

A prolific author and dedicated teacher, Matovina’s award-winning 2014 book, Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church, explored 500 years of Latino Catholic experience in America and the ways the Church, its evolving Latino plurality, and American culture continue to transform one another.

“Hispanic ministry in the Catholic Church is often perceived, even by the leadership, as Spanish language ministry,” Matovina says. “So it’s for immigrants. But there are second and third generations that are either bilingual or do not even speak Spanish very well. As a Church, and as universities, we haven’t done nearly enough to engage this younger generation and call them forth.”

Their research reveals that some 45 percent of the Catholic population (roughly 32 million people) in the U.S. is Hispanic. Moreover, Hispanics comprise 60 percent of Catholics under the age of 18, and they primarily speak English. These trends are occurring as the Euro-American Catholic population is declining, with a median age of 55 as compared to 29 for Latinos. And, as Ospino notes, birth rates among second, third, and fourth generation Hispanics exceed the growth from immigration.

“We had been dreaming of a project that would be directed at younger people,” Matovina says. “Not just Latinos, but people who serve in Hispanic ministry, young people who have a deep and abiding interest in and the ability to engage graduate-level study beyond the Diocesan certificate and to actually earn a credential to exercise leadership in many different arenas.”

 

A way forward

The dream project eventually became Haciendo Caminos, literally “making way,” a multi-level effort conceived and led by Notre Dame and Boston College under the leadership of Ospino and Matovina. Funded by an $8 million Phase III Pathways for Tomorrow Lilly Endowment grant, Haciendo has brought together four regional Catholic partners and 12 Catholic partner institutions to develop inter-institutional capacity through theological and ministerial graduate degree programs; to identify and help train a new generation of ecclesial leaders serving the Latino Catholic Church; and to build support networks among local dioceses, parishes and/or other organizations.

The largest portion of the grant ($3 million) is dedicated to a competitive Fellowship fund, with grants awarded annually on a sliding scale at a maximum of $30,000 per student for master’s level study. Haciendo will provide at least 100 fellowship grants throughout the five-year grant period, awarded on a rolling basis; the funds can be expended by the Fellows as needed to assist them in the completion of their courses of study – be it tuition, housing, or personal support.

As of mid-August, 82 total fellowships had been awarded, and 78 fellows were actively enrolled in graduate programs at 16 of the 18 partner institutions. Three fellows graduated in May 2024, and four have withdrawn. A total of $1.4 million in funding has been awarded, and $1.6 million remains in the grant.

 

“Somebody finally understood”

Vasquez-Molina graduated from Catholic University in 2023, returned home, and spent a year working as a campus minister for her former high school while taking online graduate theology classes at Boston College. She had met Ospino as an undergraduate, and had immersed herself in his writings; she recalls vividly the way he described the Latino experience of faith, how a community comes together to “share the bread of life. And it was at that moment that I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ Somebody finally understood.”

Vasquez-Molina is now a Haciendo Fellow, and her grant will allow her to spend the 2024-25 academic year studying in Boston to complete a master’s in Theology. “I’m still sometimes the only Latina in many of my classes, and I’m OK with that,” she says. “I’ve learned not to be afraid of sharing my story through the Latino ministry lens.”

Rafael Quevedo is a Haciendo Fellow studying at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego. He, too, is a first-generation undergraduate, the eldest child of Mexican immigrants; he completed his undergraduate degree at San Diego State University at 24 with the assistance of Pell Grants.

Quevedo worked for years in youth ministry for the Diocese of San Diego and is now part of Cristo Rey (a national network of high schools offering rigorous academics and professional work experience). He is married and the parent of three children, all of whom are younger than age five.

“I started taking classes at the Diocesan Institute, and I just fell in love with theology,” he says. “But they teach at basically an undergraduate level, and I wanted more.” He enrolled in the M.Div. program at Franciscan School of Theology of the University of San Diego, and shortly after learned that his two-year-old daughter needed back surgery.

“God put the Caminos Fellowship in my lap,” he says. “We were trying to figure out how to pay for surgery and everything else. The flexibility of the Fellowship funds has been a gift.”

 

At the Summit

Quevedo is now on track to complete his master’s degree program in May 2025, he says. His story of determination and purpose is similar to many that Juan Miguel Alvarez, director of Haciendo Caminos, has heard since he took his position. The youngest of six children born to an immigrant family from Mexico, Alvarez grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and remembers the entire family engaged in migrant field work during summers. He earned an undergraduate degree in Theology in 2014 and an M.Div. in 2023 (working in parishes and a Catholic high school in between) both from the University of Notre Dame; in 2023, he was appointed to his current position, which includes coordinating admissions, data collection and analysis, and event planning.

In August 2024, he arranged for nearly 100 young men and women to attend Haciendo’s Vocations Summit, held on the serene campus of Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, near Chicago. Most of the attendees were undergraduates, seekers in the mold of current Fellows Vasquez-Molina and Quevedo (both of whom made the trip), discerning a call to serve a Church undergoing generational change.

Others included partner representatives, guest speakers, and a handful of current fellows. Ospino and Matovina made presentations. A smattering of faculty members and dedicated partners led panel conversations, plenary sessions, and small group discussions. Current students provided testimonies about their experiences. And morning prayer and Mass, dinners and socials celebrated community in the magnetic and joyous Latino tradition. The energy and spirit were palpable.

Alvarez is detail-oriented, energetic, unceasingly patient, and completely dedicated to leading a program that is continuously evolving even as it moves ahead at full-tilt. And he’s clear-eyed about the future, once the Lilly Endowment grant funding expires.

“We hope to continue the mission of Caminos opening doors for more people to pursue leadership positions. It’s just not feasible or realistic to be able to continue it equally once the funding from Lilly has ended, so we ask ourselves how could we continue to support these committed students through mentoring, networking, through smaller financial aid grants. We don’t know how it will look; we just hope that it doesn’t go away entirely.”

Boston College’s Ospino echoes Alvarez. “These young people are a gift that God is giving the Catholic Church in the United States – their leadership, their passion, their energy, their desire to evangelize and be apostles. There are many challenges, and there’s a gift sitting right at our doorstep.

“First and foremost, this initiative is about recognizing the gift that God wants to give us.”