Since my last entry, I've left the capitol and moved to a medium sized pueblo of about 15,000 souls. I'm here for what is called CBT: Community-Based Training. Having learned the rules and been assessed for Spanish, the time has come for Peace Corp to teach me the job Iv'e been sent to do. I won't say much about this particular pueblo because (A) I can't and (B) I won't be here much longer.
My life here is similar to the resedencial in Santo Domingo - host family, days dominated by training sessions - but one thing that has changed is that I've begun attending Catholic mass every Sunday. I bitterly split with the Church of Rome in my adolescence - not long after my confirmation, which itself was not long after I was conscripted by my parents - but since then my spiritual outlook has evolved considerably and I am now far more simpático than when I was a rabid teenage atheist. I now recognize in the Church an authentic spiritual root hidden within the drawers of it's international bureaucracy. Even if we disagree on many particulars, I feel comfortable enough to accompany my doña to la misa like a good son.
Regardless of its ambivalent place in my life, the Catholic Church is a major part of life in the DR, so it makes sense that I should know it a little better. The padres showed up shortly after Columbus and it's been a major part of the Dominican spirit ever since. Catholicism is the official state religion in the DR. Catholic holidays are government holidays. The country shuts down for Semana Santa (Holy Week). The president required be Catholic - it's literally in the Constitution - and the warm that the current prez has shown towards Evangelicals (who are in ever increasing numbers here) has lead some Dominican conservatives to whisper that he is a closet Protestant, much like how American paranoids worry that Obama is secretly Muslim.
La misa is the same. I stand and sit along with the crowd. I skip eucaristía (communion) but throw a few pesos into the collection basket and exchange peace with the crowd. It feels good. On the morning of the day I write, this my dona and I sat in separate pews and she seemed really overjoyed to see me after 40 minutes of separation.
I pay close attention to the padre. It's great Spanish practice! During the homily, he he lectures the flock on their general disloyalty to the sacraments. It's true, while faithful (literally every guagua and taxi bears a banner attesting to the drivers trust in God) your average Dominican is not very devout. Semana Santa is mostly an excuse to go on vacation. In many communities, cohabitation is more common than marriage by church or state. Today, the padre takes pains to remind the flock that Protestants can't be padrinos (godparents) no matter how good they are at dominoes.
It is the only Catholic church I can recall without an imposing crucifix looming over the nave. There is a small one adjacent to the altar but behind it, in place of the suffering Christ, is a mural. It is ably painted, though in a style more reminiscent off a comic book than the renaissance. Above a banner reading "Resucitó!" Jesús hovers among white clouds, looking as powerful and healthy as Superman. He is exactly as white as I, the whitest person in the room. The angels that surround Him are nearly as white as the clouds in His painted heaven.
This interests me because Dominicans are a deeply mulato people. I know the English equivalent of that word is no longer polite in the US but Dominicans use it as a neutral description with no shame. There are of course, white Dominicans, but I there are none in this church and I've yet to see any in the pueblo. Virtually all the parishioners have clear African ancestry, with skin tones ranging from caramel to roasted coffee. There's a lot to say on this topic, but Dominican ideas about race, and its attendant landmines, will have to wait for another entry.
The parishioners are many. Unlike lots of churches I have been to in the US this place is packed. Every pew is full. Many stand in the aisle and those who were really tarde stand outside where the motos are parked. In Michigan, where I was born, some dioceses are so desperate that churches are being consolidated or closed altogether. Many churches are so vacant that they only have one mass a week, delivered by an itinerant priest who roams the parish like a regional auditor. This is partially because of the brain drain - like many of my educated peers, I left my home state for greener pastures - but I've seen it in thriving cities too.
In San Francisco I lived on a block mostly filled by a Catholic church. The attendant school was filled with White and Asian children whose parents were terrified of the public schools. Shortly before leaving, my wife and I met a young married couple who was new to the church. They told us that of the hundreds of children in the school, the only two or three of their families actually attended church. The priest was so excited to have new young family join that he wanted to feature them in the newsletter. This is a city founded as a Catholic mission and historically home to working class and Irish and Italians.
The simple fact is that young American men simply don't want to be priests and increasing numbers of Americans don't want to be Catholic altogether. In the suburbs of San Francisco, my mother-in-law attends a church predominantly filled by immigrants from Southeast Asia and Latin America.
I wonder if the DR is in for a similar shift in the near future. Protestants (Evangelicals, Mormons, Testigos de Jehova, etc.) are a growing presence. And the Church's eternal prohibition of female clergy poses another problem. In this church their are five altar girls assisting the priest. This may seem surprising in such a macho culture, but girls are conditioned to responsibility by traditional roles at home and better prepared to assist the padre. Boys take to Church about as well as they do to school (la delicuencía is a huge problem in the DR; that, and gender roles, warrant a later entry). The majority of the muchachos in the pews are young enough that their mothers can still drag them by their ears.
Given these conditions, I can see a future where the DR clergy is much like in the US. The priest, if young, is from Nigeria, the Philipines, or Vietnam. If he is native born he is very old. I wonder if the pews will still be full.
My life here is similar to the resedencial in Santo Domingo - host family, days dominated by training sessions - but one thing that has changed is that I've begun attending Catholic mass every Sunday. I bitterly split with the Church of Rome in my adolescence - not long after my confirmation, which itself was not long after I was conscripted by my parents - but since then my spiritual outlook has evolved considerably and I am now far more simpático than when I was a rabid teenage atheist. I now recognize in the Church an authentic spiritual root hidden within the drawers of it's international bureaucracy. Even if we disagree on many particulars, I feel comfortable enough to accompany my doña to la misa like a good son.
Regardless of its ambivalent place in my life, the Catholic Church is a major part of life in the DR, so it makes sense that I should know it a little better. The padres showed up shortly after Columbus and it's been a major part of the Dominican spirit ever since. Catholicism is the official state religion in the DR. Catholic holidays are government holidays. The country shuts down for Semana Santa (Holy Week). The president required be Catholic - it's literally in the Constitution - and the warm that the current prez has shown towards Evangelicals (who are in ever increasing numbers here) has lead some Dominican conservatives to whisper that he is a closet Protestant, much like how American paranoids worry that Obama is secretly Muslim.
La misa is the same. I stand and sit along with the crowd. I skip eucaristía (communion) but throw a few pesos into the collection basket and exchange peace with the crowd. It feels good. On the morning of the day I write, this my dona and I sat in separate pews and she seemed really overjoyed to see me after 40 minutes of separation.
I pay close attention to the padre. It's great Spanish practice! During the homily, he he lectures the flock on their general disloyalty to the sacraments. It's true, while faithful (literally every guagua and taxi bears a banner attesting to the drivers trust in God) your average Dominican is not very devout. Semana Santa is mostly an excuse to go on vacation. In many communities, cohabitation is more common than marriage by church or state. Today, the padre takes pains to remind the flock that Protestants can't be padrinos (godparents) no matter how good they are at dominoes.
It is the only Catholic church I can recall without an imposing crucifix looming over the nave. There is a small one adjacent to the altar but behind it, in place of the suffering Christ, is a mural. It is ably painted, though in a style more reminiscent off a comic book than the renaissance. Above a banner reading "Resucitó!" Jesús hovers among white clouds, looking as powerful and healthy as Superman. He is exactly as white as I, the whitest person in the room. The angels that surround Him are nearly as white as the clouds in His painted heaven.
This interests me because Dominicans are a deeply mulato people. I know the English equivalent of that word is no longer polite in the US but Dominicans use it as a neutral description with no shame. There are of course, white Dominicans, but I there are none in this church and I've yet to see any in the pueblo. Virtually all the parishioners have clear African ancestry, with skin tones ranging from caramel to roasted coffee. There's a lot to say on this topic, but Dominican ideas about race, and its attendant landmines, will have to wait for another entry.
The parishioners are many. Unlike lots of churches I have been to in the US this place is packed. Every pew is full. Many stand in the aisle and those who were really tarde stand outside where the motos are parked. In Michigan, where I was born, some dioceses are so desperate that churches are being consolidated or closed altogether. Many churches are so vacant that they only have one mass a week, delivered by an itinerant priest who roams the parish like a regional auditor. This is partially because of the brain drain - like many of my educated peers, I left my home state for greener pastures - but I've seen it in thriving cities too.
In San Francisco I lived on a block mostly filled by a Catholic church. The attendant school was filled with White and Asian children whose parents were terrified of the public schools. Shortly before leaving, my wife and I met a young married couple who was new to the church. They told us that of the hundreds of children in the school, the only two or three of their families actually attended church. The priest was so excited to have new young family join that he wanted to feature them in the newsletter. This is a city founded as a Catholic mission and historically home to working class and Irish and Italians.
The simple fact is that young American men simply don't want to be priests and increasing numbers of Americans don't want to be Catholic altogether. In the suburbs of San Francisco, my mother-in-law attends a church predominantly filled by immigrants from Southeast Asia and Latin America.
I wonder if the DR is in for a similar shift in the near future. Protestants (Evangelicals, Mormons, Testigos de Jehova, etc.) are a growing presence. And the Church's eternal prohibition of female clergy poses another problem. In this church their are five altar girls assisting the priest. This may seem surprising in such a macho culture, but girls are conditioned to responsibility by traditional roles at home and better prepared to assist the padre. Boys take to Church about as well as they do to school (la delicuencía is a huge problem in the DR; that, and gender roles, warrant a later entry). The majority of the muchachos in the pews are young enough that their mothers can still drag them by their ears.
Given these conditions, I can see a future where the DR clergy is much like in the US. The priest, if young, is from Nigeria, the Philipines, or Vietnam. If he is native born he is very old. I wonder if the pews will still be full.
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