The only Spanish-language Mass in St. Cloud got canceled. The congregation is fighting back.

Latino members of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Waite Park are calling on the diocese to resume a long-running Spanish-language Mass. Photo by Madison McVan/Minnesota Reformer.

The one place Eylin Sosa felt at home in the U.S. was at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Waite Park.

Every Sunday, she walked to St. Joseph’s from her home for the Spanish Mass. There, she worshiped alongside other people from her home country of Nicaragua — and those from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries.

“It’s the only thing I have from my country here,” Sosa said in Spanish.

Sosa doesn’t speak English, and she doesn’t have a car. When the Diocese of St. Cloud abruptly ended the well-attended weekly Spanish Mass at St. Joseph’s at the end of June, she and other congregants felt blindsided.

In May 15 letter to the congregation, St. Cloud Bishop Patrick Neary explained that the priest who led the Spanish Mass had been reassigned to another parish.

“Unfortunately, we do not have any other Spanish-speaking priest who can replace him at the church of St. Joseph’s in Waite Park,” the letter reads, before suggesting members instead attend Spanish-language services at a smaller parish in Rockville, a 15-minute drive from St. Joseph’s.

The congregation was stunned. In response, they wrote a letter to the bishop proposing possible alternative solutions — there are other Spanish-speaking priests in the diocese who serve much smaller populations and could potentially be reassigned, they wrote. Maybe the smaller congregation in Rockville could come to St. Joseph’s, or Spanish-speaking deacons could help out the English-speaking priest of St. Joseph’s to give a bilingual Mass.

“The Spanish Mass is a lifeline for us, offering spiritual nourishment in a language and context that we fully understand and appreciate,” the congregation wrote in their letter to the bishop.

But the church didn’t entertain any of those options, the members said.

Church and diocese leadership did not respond to the Reformer’s multiple requests for comment.

Since the Spanish-language Masses began as a bilingual service in 2001, volunteers created classes on baptism, first communion, confirmation, marriage and more — all in Spanish. The church became a hub for community organizing; members put together a monthly free health clinic and traveled together to the state Capitol to express support for “Drivers Licenses for All” and guaranteed sick and safe leave.

The Spanish Mass at St. Joseph’s was the only Spanish-language Catholic Mass in the cities of St. Cloud and Waite Park, which together are home to more than 80,000 people, more than 3,000 of whom speak Spanish at home, according to 2020 census data.

But in the years since the census data was collected, even more Latino immigrants have arrived in St. Cloud, many finding work at a nearby Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant.

Around 43% of Latinos in the U.S. identify as Catholic, and Latinos born outside the U.S. are more likely to be religious than those born in the country, according to the Pew Research Center.

For many of St. Joseph’s Spanish Mass attendees, the service served both a religious and cultural purpose; it was a place to celebrate holidays, preserve the family language and to organize around issues affecting immigrants and people of color.

For the churchgoers, the sudden cancellation of their service followed a pattern of mistreatment towards the Latino population in central Minnesota, they said.

Yoanna Ayala-Zaldana said her family has been berated for speaking Spanish in a St. Cloud restaurant. Denise Cruz said a church staff member treated her with hostility while she was volunteering in the building.

When Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rallied in St. Cloud on July 27, the audience cheered as he called immigrants “criminals” and compared them to Dr. Hannibal Lecter from the horror movie “Silence of the Lambs.”

“We feel discriminated against,” said María Maldonado of St. Cloud, who regularly attended the Spanish Masses for more than 20 years.

On July 7, more than 100 people marched from St. Joseph’s Catholic Church to St. Mary’s Cathedral in St. Cloud, wearing white and holding signs asking for the Spanish language service to be reinstated.

The congregants say their calls have fallen on deaf ears, but that they will not stop calling for the return of their Mass.