Endowment gives $8M to support Hispanic Catholic pastoral leaders
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Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. is making a $7.9 million grant to the University of Notre Dame for a collaborative initiative to form the country’s next generation of Hispanic Catholic pastoral leaders. The university, in partnership with Boston College, will work to bring together 16 other Catholic institutions to lead the Haciendo Caminos initiative.
The goal of Haciendo Caminos’ are to reduce barriers and increase support for graduate theological education for U.S.-born Hispanic Catholics. Through the initiative, the partners also aim to grow interest in ministerial professions and create a consortium of higher education institutions working to form pastoral leaders at the graduate level.
Notre Dame says despite the growing Hispanic population of Catholics in the U.S., the number of U.S.-born Hispanic lay ministers, seminarians, priests and deacons serving in Catholic faith communities is relatively small.
“The evangelizing outreach of young leaders to their peers is our most effective means as a Church to inspire healing and faith among our younger sisters and brothers today,” said Timothy Matovina, professor and chair of the Department of Theology at Notre Dame and co-lead on the project. “If we desire a more vibrant and youthful Church, we need to personally invite young people to leadership and prioritize our collective support for them in their formation. The present and future of Catholicism in this country will largely depend on how we engage and support young Latinas and Latinos in their faith journeys.”
Other partners include Aquinas Institute of Theology, Barry University, and Fordham University, among others.
“Theological schools play an essential role in ensuring that Christian congregations have a steady stream of well-prepared leaders to guide their ministries,” said Christopher Coble, the endowment’s vice president for religion. “Many theological schools believe that their paths to the future depend on their abilities to form strategic partnerships with other schools and church agencies. These grants will help seminaries develop innovative and collaborative approaches to theological education that we believe will strengthen their efforts to prepare and support excellent leaders for Christian communities into the future.”
The funding is part of Lilly’s third phase of its Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, which was launched in January 2021.