Washington, USA - The Vatican's selection of Houston as the see for its newest American cardinal speaks volumes about the importance of Hispanics to the future U.S. Catholic Church.
According to a survey of more than 4,600 Hispanics in April by the Pew Hispanic Center, 33 percent of America"s 67 million Catholics are Hispanic and this percentage is projected to rise to 41 percent by 2030.
"It"s one-third and growing," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, although he also noted that about one-fifth of newly arrived Hispanic immigrants leave Catholicism for Protestant churches within a generation.
Galveston-Houston Archbishop Daniel N. DiNardo, 58, was Pope Benedict XVI's choice as Texas' first cardinal. This was a signal to some that the church's center of gravity has headed south.
"This is somebody who can tell the Vatican and the pope about the reality of Hispanics in this area," said Jorge Delgado, director of Hispanic ministry for the Houston archdiocese. "He'll tell the pope the growth of Catholicism over here is because of our presence."
About 69.5 percent of the diocese's Catholics are Hispanic, he said, with 19 percent white and 7 percent black.
The choice of Houston, the nation's fourth-most-populous city, as the first new American city to receive a cardinal designation for its bishop since 1952, when Los Angeles received its "red hat" from Pope Pius XII, surprised some who thought that San Antonio would get the honor. Not only is Archbishop Jose Gomez the nation's only Hispanic archbishop, but it was San Antonio, not Houston, that Pope John Paul II visited during his 1987 swing through the U.S.
"Rome usually goes for the big cities," said the Rev. Virgilio Elizondo, a professor at Notre Dame University. "Like with California, you would have thought it would have been San Francisco because of its history, but they chose Los Angeles.
San Antonio was the sentimental favorite, he said, because its San Fernando Cathedral, founded in 1731, has always been Spanish-speaking. Father Elizondo was its rector for 12 years until 1995.
"People always looked toward San Antonio as the place where things happened with Hispanics," he added. "It's hard for some of us to understand Vatican-think."
Rice University sociologist Stephen L. Klineberg agreed the reason is numbers. The Houston diocese's estimated 1.3 million Catholics — more than double the polling figure of 611,477 from 1986 — constitute the nation's sixth-largest diocese, the largest one in the South and the largest not to have had a cardinal. The San Antonio archdiocese, meanwhile, has 667,667 Catholics. It had more, but it lost territory in 2000 when it lost 21 counties to form the new Diocese of Laredo.
"Houston is Los Angeles' little brother," he said. "It is a reflection of the demographic revolution that is transforming America. The Catholic Church is in the center of that with large concentrations of Latinos and Vietnamese."
In a 1982-83 Rice University survey, Mr. Klineberg said, 65 percent of Harris County, which encompasses Houston, was Protestant; 22 percent was Catholic and 13 percent "other." A 2004-05 university survey revealed that the population was 38 percent Protestant, 32 percent Catholic and 30 percent "other," the latter including many Hindus and Muslims who have moved into the area.
The same survey, he said, showed Harris County has 38 percent Hispanic, 37 percent white, 18 percent black and 7 percent Asian inhabitants.
"It's the most ethnically diverse county in the country," he said, "in terms of having an equal distribution among four ethnicities."
Before last week's announcements, the 180-member College of Cardinals had 15 Americans, 11 of whom are among the 103 younger than 80 and thus eligible to elect a pope.