The history of the Claretian community in the United States mirrors the development of Latino Catholic ministry in this country, according to “Pioneers of Latino Ministry: Claretians and the Evolving World of Catholic America” (NYU Press) by Deborah Kanter.
Kanter, professor emeritus of history at Albion College in Michigan, spoke at a book event hosted by the Claretians Oct. 23.
In Chicago, the Claretians run Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and the Shrine of St. Jude in South Chicago, as well as the St. Jude League and publish U.S. Catholic Magazine.
Kanter said she was invited to write the history of the Claretians in the United States after researching in their archives for her 2020 book, “Chicago Católico: Making Catholic Parishes Mexican” (University of Illinois Press).
The Claretians, a Spanish congregation founded by St. Anthony Maria Claret in 1849, arrived in Texas in 1902, following Mexican workers. Over the next decades, they ministered to Mexican agricultural workers in Texas, Mexican miners in Arizona, “traqueros” or Mexican railroad track workers in Dodge City, Kansas, and further into the Midwest.
Kanter quotes retired Bishop Plácido Rodríguez, a Claretian, saying in a 2022 interview, “We followed the migration of Mexicans to Texas, California, to New Jersey. We were following, ministering to Mexicans — and we were the only ones who accompanied them.”
The Claretians were often invited into U.S. dioceses to minister to Mexican workers because, in the early 20th century, many of their priests were from Spain and thus spoke Spanish, Kanter said.
“Understanding Claretian history is understanding Latino Catholicism,” she said. “This book puts Claretian ministry and Latino Catholicism into the same frame.”
By the 1920s, Claretians were in Chicago, taking on Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, 3200 E. 91st St., in 1924. Two years later, they were also ministering at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, 813 W. Roosevelt Road, providing church homes to Mexicans who came to Chicago to work on the railroads and in the steel mills.
St. Francis of Assisi has since reverted to archdiocesan ministry.
The the Claretian parishes in Chicago attracted mostly Mexican worshippers, with special devotions to Our Lady of Guadalupe and religious processions, but they also tried to integrate their parishioners, especially children, into a more American way of church life, by starting Holy Name and other lay societies and holding raffles to raise money.
Claretian Father James Tort installed a shrine to St. Jude Thaddeus at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish just before the 1929 stock market crash. European-Americans adopted the devotion to St. Jude, and the Claretians found themselves ministering to Mexican-American parishioners and European-American devotees of St. Jude, including the St. Jude Police League, almost as two separate communities under the same roof — much the same as Claretians who ministered in the Southwest found themselves with Anglophone and Hispanic congregations sharing space but not forming a united community.
The Claretians, who previously did not have a special devotion to St. Jude, later built a junior seminary in Momence, Illinois, named for St. Jude.
At the same time, the Claretians nurtured Hispanic vocations at their parishes. They also moved east, starting ministry to Puerto Ricans in New Jersey in 1945.
American Claretians also ministered as missionaries in Latin America, in the mid-20th century in Panama, and then, in the post-Vatican II years, in Guatemala, Kanter said.
Now, as with many international religious communities, the Claretians are experiencing “mission in reverse,” with men from Asia and Africa coming to minister in the United States, she said.