(RNS) — Oliver Ortega, a doctoral English student at the University of Notre Dame, said he began attending Mass regularly after arriving on campus, immersing himself in a faith he held only loosely while growing up in Queens, New York. “ I’ve become more Catholic, I think, in large part because of being here,” he says.
But at Notre Dame, Ortega said he has spent less time investing in his Latino identity. At Northwestern University, where he was an undergraduate, he was part of a robust community of Latino students.
Sixty percent of Catholics under 18 identify as Hispanic, but Latinos are underrepresented at Catholic universities. Latinos are also a minority among campus ministers and make up less than 10% of theology students. Experts worry that this lack of access will mean fewer Latinos becoming priests, sisters and others serving the church, even as the church works to transform its institutions to reflect its changing demographics.
Liza Manjarrez, senior associate director of campus ministry at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, said Latino ministers were rare in the Catholic spaces she knew growing up and at the Catholic schools where she earned her bachelor’s degree and two master’s. When she came to St. Edward’s, where about half the students are Latino, in 2008, Manjarrez was “really intentional” about promoting “Latinx leadership on campus in a variety of different ways, but particularly within the church, within trying to create new leadership in the church univ …