National Profile
Hispanic Ministry’s standing in the dioceses can also be measured in terms of the directors’ access to their Bishop, their collaboration with other diocesan departments, and their experience with hiring and workplace discrimination.
Access
Fory-four percent (44%) of the directors report directly to the Bishop, and another 23% report to the Chancellor, the Curia Moderator or the Vicar General. In other words, two-thirds of the Hispanic Ministry directors (67%) have access to the Bishop or to his central staff. Only 17% report to another diocesan department head. Another 11% report to the vicar for Hispanics.
Not surprisingly, most directors express great satisfaction with their degree of access to the Bishop. Thirty-seven percent (37%) described this access as "excellent." Another 31% describe it as "good." Only 16% describe access as "poor or non-existent."
Key Influences Access to the Bishop does not vary by gender, nativity, or level of education. As one might expect, Hispanic Ministry directors who are priests or sisters feel they have better access to the Bishop than do lay persons, but the difference is not statistically significant.
The only important predictor of a director’s access to the Bishop is his or her prior experience working at the diocesan level. Eighty-nine percent (89%) of the directors who previously worked in another diocesan department reported good or excellent access to the Bishop, compared to 62% who lacked such prior experience. There was no variation in this finding due to gender or other demographic characteristics.
Relations with Other Departments
Most Hispanic Ministry directors also expressed satisfaction with the cooperation they have received from other diocesan departments. However, their level of satisfaction was much lower than their satisfaction with access to the Bishop.
Forty-five percent (45%) of the directors described their relations with other diocesan departments as "good" or "excellent.” However, another 32% described these relations are "poor or non-existent.'
Key Influences: Female directors appear to be slightly more adept than are men at "negotiating the system." Fifty-two percent (52%) of the female directors enjoy a high level of cooperation from other diocesan departments, compared to 45% of their male counterparts. This difference is not statistically significant, however.
The most important influences on diocesan-level cooperation are: ethnicity, ecclesial status, length of tenure, geographic region, and prior diocesan experience.
For example, 60% of the Hispanic directors but only 21% of the non-Hispanic directors reported "good" or "excellent" relations with other diocesan departments. In part, this finding may reflect the contrasting ecclesial status of the two groups. The non-Hispanic directors are overwhelmingly priests and sisters, compared to the Hispanic directors, who are primarily laypersons.
Why the Hispanic directors report substantially better relations with their diocesan counterparts is not immediately apparent. Hispanic directors by virtue of their culture and prior training may have superior communication and "team-building" skills than their non-Hispanic counterparts. The non-Hispanic directors are primarily priests who would be more accustomed to hierarchical relationships and less familiar with collaborative structures and procedures.
On the other hand, Hispanic directors who have personal experience with racism and discrimination may harbor fewer personal expectations of cooperation from their diocesan counterparts. The Hispanic directors may also be more willing to judge even small steps toward dialogue and cooperation as evidence of a "good" or “adequate” relationship. Non-Hispanic directors, by contrast, may demand a higher degree of responsiveness from their diocesan counterparts, who are usually of the same culture. If this response fails to meet their standards, these directors may be more likely to say that diocesan cooperation is “inadequate.”
Geographic location is also an important factor. In Regions 10, 11 and 12, 70-80% of the directors reported high levels of diocesan cooperation; in Regions 1 through 5, only 20-40% of the directors reported such cooperation. Regions 10, 11 and 12 consist of dioceses in the West and Southwest. These dioceses have the largest number of native-born Hispanics and the highest percentages of Catholics who are Hispanic. By contrast, Regions 4 and 5 are located in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast where the Hispanic population is overwhelmingly foreign-born and where Hispanics are generally a minority of the Catholic population.
Longevity also affects cooperation, but its influence is complex. Fifty-seven (57%) of the directors on the job four years or less reported good or excellent relations with other diocesan departments; this compares to just 32% of the directors with 5 or more years of tenure. However, at the highest level of tenure (10 years or more), the rates of cooperation begin to equalize.
Finally, as with access to the Bishop, a Hispanic Ministry director’s past diocesan experience critically influences the degree of support he or she receives from other departments. Seventy-two (72%) of the directors with previous diocesan experience reported good or excellent relations with their diocesan counterparts, compared to just 32% of those without such experience.
Discrimination Issues:
Forty percent (40%) of the directors said they "rarely if ever" experience discrimination; however, 38% said they "occasionally" experience such discrimination and 22% said discrimination was daily or regular.
Experience with discrimination appears to be evenly distributed between males and females, the US- and native-born, and religious and lay persons.
Effects of Discrimination:
Discrimination appears to strongly influence whether some directors' enjoy regular access to the Bishop as well as the degree of cooperation they receive from other diocesan departments.
For example, 55% of the directors who enjoy little or no cooperation from other diocesan departments also say they experience daily or regular discrimination. By contrast, only 6% of the directors who enjoy a high degree of diocesan cooperation complain of daily or regular discrimination. The Pearson r correlation between these two variables is .517, which indicates a strong positive correlation between discrimination and lack of diocesan cooperation.
The relation between discrimination and access to the Bishop is less striking, but still apparent.
Thirty-six percent (36%) of those with weak access to the Bishops also say they experience discrimination regularly or daily. By contrast, only 15% of those with good or excellent access to the Bishop say they experience discrimination this frequently. The Pearson r correlation between these two variables is .365, which indicates a moderately strong correlation between discrimination and lack of access.
Discrimination is also a factor in the hiring process. While only 7% of the directors have ever applied for a diocesan director position outside of Hispanic Ministry, this same 7% say that another, less-qualified person got the job. Thus, while the incidence of hiring discrimination is limited, the perception of its influence is actually quite strong.
AUTHOR: Stewart J. Lawrence, Puentes, Inc.,
September 20, 2000, Washington, DC
Previous Page 
Next Page (Follow-Up Interviews)
