A Church Divided

Sacramento's Our Lady of Guadalupe is a 'national shrine.' But tension between its priests and some parishioners now threatens its future.

Sacramento Bee/March 2, 2002
By Jennifer Garza

Dolores Bribiescas is a woman of habit. Every Sunday for more than 12 years, she has faithfully attended the noon Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in downtown Sacramento. So there she was on a recent Sunday, sitting in a pew near the front, facing the right side of the altar. The best place, she insists, to hear and see the priest. Beside her are other longtime parishioners, their voices heard in the back of the packed church when they pray in unison. Many of them are members of the Society of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Bribiescas, 70, is president.

The society, or the Guadalupanos, as members are called, is the oldest Latino lay organization in the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento. For years, members have been an active and vocal part of the parish. And major fund-raisers. To make money for their church, the Guadalupanos have made and sold tamales, menudo and posole. Now, Bribiescas says, they feel they have been pushed aside.

"I have to call the church office to find out what's going on and ask if we can be a part of it," says Bribiescas, sounding hurt. The group, she says, has been allowed in the church kitchen only once in the past year. "We're treated like we're not wanted here. ... But this is our church and we're not going to give up."

At this Catholic church across from Southside Park, some longtime parishioners such as Bribiescas are not happy. They feel the church they helped build from a small chapel into a national shrine for Latinos -- one that has played a crucial role in promoting Latino issues for more than 40 years -- has been taken away from them. They complain about the treatment shown to lay organizations such as the Society of Guadalupe and others. They complain that members who held church positions for decades were unceremoniously shoved aside in favor of newcomers, that church groups who met at the parish for years were told they no longer could use the facilities.

Mostly, though, they complain about the new order of priests at the church, the Legionaries of Christ. They say the priests, installed about a year and a half ago, are rude, distant and disrespectful. Some parents have even accused one priest of asking their teenage children sexually inappropriate questions during confession.

Now, a group of parishioners -- some in their 60s and 70s -- is doing something its members never imagined. It is calling for a boycott against the church. Specifically, members are calling on Latinos in the 20-county diocese to boycott a $50 million fund-raising campaign launched last fall. "We want our complaints to be taken seriously," says Senon Palacioz, a retired warden who has been a member at the church for 23 years. "This is our church -- a lot of us have been here for many years. Now we're being treated as if we don't matter."

Church supporters say no one is being pushed out. They say changes were made because the church needed newer members to assume leadership roles. And they defend the new priests as hard-working. "These priests never take a day off," says Elena Guttierez, who lives next door to the church and has been going to Mass daily for more than 30 years.

The diocese investigated the allegations about the improper questions during confession and concluded they were "a cultural misunderstanding." The priest, who had spent 25 years in Mexico, had recently arrived in the United States.

'It is, after all, their church, too'

So what is going on? Many say these complaints are not really about the priests, but about change. They say what is happening at Our Lady of Guadalupe is typical of many churches when people who have held positions for years are asked to make way for new members. One woman describes the ongoing friction as "an awful family fight." Members who have known each other for decades have stopped talking to each other. Some have refused to speak to the priests. Some have taken their complaints to the streets, leaving shocked parishioners to watch on Spanish TV as members picketed their beloved church.

The Rev. Salvador Gomez inherited the situation when he became pastor late last year. He says he will do "anything I have to do to reach peace and harmony." Many churches go through this kind of transition. Some handle it well. Others don't. Sacramento Diocese Auxiliary Bishop Richard Garcia, who has met with the unhappy parishioners, says the change has been particularly hard at Our Lady of Guadalupe. "I wish things had been handled differently," he says, sitting in his office recently. "There has been an awful lot of hurt here. I have caused a lot of hurt, and I'm sorry. "I blame myself for not staying more in touch with this church, with these people." He calls the boycott unfortunate and asks, "What good is it going to do? How is it going to make things better?" But Garcia says the changes made at the church needed to be made. "New people have to be allowed to come in and take over responsibilities. It is, after all, their church, too," he says.

Pope calls church a 'shrine'

Our Lady of Guadalupe is dedicated to the patroness of Mexico. The church sits at T and Seventh streets and is painted a vivid salmon, the color believed to be on the Lady of Guadalupe's gown. Its first official Mass was in December 1958. The church was built by and for immigrants. To raise money, many of its early parishioners made and sold food at festivals. Others traveled to Mexico and brought back relics for the altar. From the beginning, Our Lady of Guadalupe was a special place for Latinos in Sacramento. It was the first parish in the Sacramento diocese to have a Spanish Mass and the first church to have a Latino priest. The late Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, the beloved Catholic leader who died in 1991, was a pastor here.

In 1978, the church that started as a mission of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament 20 years before became even more symbolic. The pope declared it "the national shrine of all Hispanics and Mexican Americans in Northern California." Every week, nearly 4,000 people -- the majority of them recent immigrants -- attend one of its six Spanish Masses. Some of the founding families still attend. Their children and grandchildren may now worship at other parishes, but a lot of them consider Our Lady of Guadalupe their home church.

"It's like going to your parents," says Rolanda Herrada, who grew up attending Our Lady of Guadalupe with her family in the 1960s and recently returned to the church. "You may not go home a lot, but you still keep up with what's going on there and you still want it to be the same." She says one thing they could always count on was the social activism of the church. Our Lady of Guadalupe was instrumental in the formation of El Concilio, a consortium of groups in Sacramento that helped Latinos. Over the years, the church's members have been strong supporters of many causes, including labor conditions, immigration laws and farmworker rights. "I can remember marching for the farmworkers," Herrada says. "The church was very active."

In 1966, Cesar Chavez and his supporters walked from Delano to the state Capitol, protesting working conditions for farmworkers. When they reached the steps of Our Lady of Guadalupe, demonstrators handed over a bell and a large cross they had carried for the entire 250-mile journey. That night, many of them stayed at the homes of parishioners. "In the past, it was a very politically active, liberal church," says Pepe Ramirez, founder of the Sacramento diocese's Spanish Catholic Herald. "I don't think it's that way anymore."

And that's one of the criticisms leveled at the new order of priests, the Legionaries of Christ, an order that began in Mexico in 1941. Garcia praises their work ethic and their commitment to education. But parishioners such as Palacioz are unhappy with the new priests, who implemented many of the recent changes.

Changes came in 2000

The priests arrived in August 2000. Within a few months, they removed many longtime members from their Eucharist positions, told lay organizations that had met at the church for years they were no longer welcome and turned out the Guadalupanos from the kitchen. The reason? "We needed to get other people more involved," Garcia says. Unfortunately, Garcia concedes, "The situation wasn't handled as I would have liked." Dolores Bribiescas says the Guadalupanos were told the church was going to paint the kitchen and they had to remove their supplies. Afterward, they were told they could not return because they "weren't a group approved by the church," she says.

The Legionaries of Christ priests also earned a reputation for being aloof. Several parishioners complained the priests would barely speak to them. They dubbed one of the priests "icicle" because he did not shake hands after church. That priest is no longer there.

There also have been more-serious allegations. In September 2000, several parents became angry when a priest asked what they considered to be inappropriate sexual questions during confession to teenagers preparing for a quinceañera, a special Mass and ceremony for Latina girls when they turn 15. The parents complained to the diocese but were unhappy with the response they received. The Rev. Charles McDermott, vicar episcopal for theological affairs for the Sacramento diocese, investigated the allegations. "He (the priest) assured me that these were ordinary questions that he had been trained to ask in his parish in Cancún. I warned him about excessive questions of this kind in our culture." "All they told us is that they talked to him," Morales says. The priest left the diocese last December. He has returned to his former parish in Mexico. Diocesan officials say the complaints about the improper confessions have nothing to do with his departure. "Absolutely not. (The priest) has great gifts, but we felt it wasn't the best mix for that particular parish," Garcia says.

'Every church needs new blood'

Many in the church praise the changes the new priests have made, such as the increase in the number of confessions. Before, confession was heard once a month. Now, it's heard before every Mass. "People need it and they want it," Gomez says. Guttierez says she likes the new priests because "they don't keep office hours. I have never seen priests who work so hard...They had to make changes and maybe some people weren't happy. But I would say the majority of the people who come here don't want to get involved in this kind of thing."

Palacioz says he has about 200 people in his group, people unhappy with the direction of the church under the new priests. Others say it's time to give them a chance. "These people (the old guard) have been running the church for years," Ramirez says. He says the Guadalupanos have made "great contributions to the community" over the years. "But every church needs new blood, and it was time for these people to move on, for the good of the church," Ramirez says. Ramirez and others say it's time for the new immigrants at the church, who make up the majority of parishioners, to play a more-active role in the same way that new immigrants played an active role in the church when it was built nearly 45 years ago. Palacioz says they are more than willing to have other people take over some of the work. Bribiescas agrees. "Believe me, some of us are getting older and it's getting hard," she says, "but we didn't deserve to be treated like this."

Tension in the kitchen

It is early December, on the birthday of the church's patron saint, one of the busiest days of the year at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Hundreds of worshippers show up before dawn just to get a seat for the 6:30 a.m. mariachi Mass. Later, many make their way to the kitchen for hot chocolate and Mexican sweetbread. Gomez, the church's new pastor, is one of them. He knows he is walking into territory where he may not be welcome. As he enters the kitchen, several of the families sitting around the cafeteria-style tables look up, smile and say, "Good morning, father" in Spanish. But the reaction from the people behind the counter is quite different. This is the first time the Guadalupanos have been allowed in the kitchen in more than a year. Though everyone is polite to Gomez, it's clear the interaction between the priest and some of the oldest members of the parish is tense.

"I can't believe he comes to the kitchen and acts like everything is OK," says Palacioz, later. "Everything is not OK." But Gomez is determined. "I think things are getting better," he says. Gomez also says he has learned from some of the mistakes made in the past and has gone out of his way to talk to some of the older parishioners. "We value their knowledge and their love for the church," he says. Bishop Garcia agrees. He prays that people will forgive each other and work out their differences. "I think it's wonderful that these people love their church so much," he says. "... What I really want to do is celebrate Mass together and focus on what brings us all together."

To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.