On May 14, Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life convened a panel entitled “The Latino Voice in a Divided Nation,” featuring four panelists with deep Commonweal ties: mission and partnerships director Claudia Avila Cosnahan, former writing fellow Amirah Orozco, board member and Boston College theology professor Hosffman Ospino, and contributing writer Santiago Ramos.
The wide-ranging dialogue focused on the position of Latinos in U.S. public life, both ecclesial and political, during an especially challenging moment in contemporary politics. Despite the fraught nature of the American political scene, the participants agreed that Pope Leo’s ascension afforded Latino Catholics opportunities for new forms of witness—especially as someone with uniquely deep ties to both Latin American and U.S. American culture. Reflecting on Leo’s connections to Peru, Orozco explained this point: “Latinos have had it in our bodies for so long that to be American is to be complex. Much has been made of the language thing, but it’s beautiful to me that this is the first pope who speaks Spanglish.”
Ramos agreed, emphasizing how Leo forces Catholics to reckon with the complexity of the American experience. “To tell Leo’s story, you have to talk about New Orleans and Creole culture. You have to talk about Chicago and Chicago Catholicism. You have to talk about Peru. You have to talk about what it means to be a missionary, and you have to talk about what it means to speak two languages,” he explained, opining that Leo’s backstory provides an opening to remember that “the American experience has always been plural.”
At the same time, participants engaged in a much wider discussion about principles for Latino pastoral-political action, especially in an ecclesial moment marked by the turn towards synodality and an ecclesiology from the grassroots. Ospino identified three key principles for this activity: “faithfulness to the Gospel;” “alliances, partnerships, and relationships” across and beyond racial lines; and a prophetic voice. “We need to speak up and address the questions of our day convinced that God walks with us, convinced that when we stand up for the immigrant and the refugee, for the person who is poor, for the mother who has lost a husband or a child, for the person who doesn’t have access to healthcare or education, that we are standing for the Gospel,” Ospino said.
Participants even discussed the role of Catholic media outlets like Commonweal in shaping the Church’s voice amid a changing body politic and a supposed era of division. At Commonweal, “We always think of the things we publish as a conversation—as inviting the reader to see themselves as part of this conversation,” explained Avila Cosnahan. “It’s not really our role to unite you. Our role is to set the cards on the table and invite us into difficult conversations.” She argued that outlets like Commonweal, by setting the stage for rigorous, civil discourse, might help Catholics achieve a truer unity that works through differences rather than papering over them.
A full video of the hour-long panel can be found here.
