where is the real diversity…

… looking at photos of my son singing in the church choir the first thing I noticed was all the different ethnicities of our parish represented in the faces of the youth. It is one of the few Catholic parishes I have ever attended that has been so racially diverse. You can get a true sense of how universal the church is on any given Sunday at this particular church.

And here is why I think that is. This particular parish refuses to have a separate mass in Spanish. In deliberately choosing to not self segregate ourselves, everyone then attends mass together. I am sure many parishes have a large Hispanic population too, but you would never know because they go to their mass and you go to yours. And the two shall never meet.

I understand the desire to maintain cultural identity and be among your own. But is church the place to preserve this identity? Is this what She really needs; a divided and segregated church with masses in different languages? I also think it does just as much damage to have entire parishes devoted to one specific ethnic group.

Discuss.