Editors note: This week The Tidings continues a four-part series on the experience and impact of African-Americans in the Archdiocese with a focus on healing the tensions between African-American and Latino Catholics.

Over the past decade Marian Fussey has seen her parish, Transfiguration in South Los Angeles, go from a majority African-American parishionership to heavily Latino. It is a change, she says, that has not been without its challenges.

But it is a change that reflects changing demographics that have happened, and are happening, in parishes all over Los Angeles, changes that are being addressed by the local church in an effort to bridge the gaps that have separated these groups.

In 1996, Building Bridges Black and Brown (BBBB), a group of African American and Latino Catholic leaders, began meeting to address issues that surfaced as a result of Hispanic movement into some of South L.A.'s traditionally African-American churches.

"For decades African-Americans had maintained these parishes," noted Louis Velasquez, BBBB co-founder and special projects coordinator in the Vicar for Clergy's office. "We're trying to help Latinos understand the sense of sadness African-Americans felt that many people were not aware of this beautiful history. Tensions occurred here because there was a different culture and different language, but we want people to first remember that we are all Catholics."

Coming together in worship and community
Tensions occurred in part because, as churches became more and more Latino, some pastors began adding numerous Spanish Masses, sometimes at the expense of African-American tradition. "Latinos needed to hear how this was affecting the African-American community who had been in the parish for decades," said Velasquez. "It was very tense."

In addition to feeling pushed out by the church, leaders noted that some African-Americans felt Latinos were discriminating against them, joining in the historical discrimination against African-Americans in this country.

"African-Americans were feeling put out, put down and not wanted," said Fussey, a member of BBBB and a long-time community activist. She also said there were African-Americans who thought the leadership of the archdiocese "had more empathy for Latinos."

Thus, Building Bridges Black and Brown was initiated to mediate these tensions before they got out of hand.

"The oppressed can never become the oppressor," explained Fussey, who said that much cultural awareness education was necessary. "A lot of churches in South Central now have multicultural assemblies, and the different groups work together well."

In convening the first Building Bridges Black and Brown Conference in 1997, Father Fisher Robinson, then head of the African-American Vicariate Office, realized that the main concern for both groups was respect.

"In parishes where the Latino population grew rapidly, there were just separate Masses and no effort to dialogue together," Father Robinson said. "Through dialogue the groups realized that they had much more in common than society would make us feel and believe."

For the six years that BBBB met regularly, it was able to create open dialogue between the communities and ease the tension of misunderstanding.

"We built bridges between two communities living next to each other and created a safe place to meet," said Velasquez. "People had a place to speak honestly without being accused of insensitivity. It is very difficult to share how beautiful it was to sit there with two Catholic communities talking to each other."

But with the closing of the offices of ethnic ministry following archdiocesan cutbacks announced in 2002, BBBB lost its momentum. "It's not been easy to get together without a structure," said Velasquez.

However, he is hopeful that the meetings will be able to continue in the future and even incorporate the issues that have arisen between communities that may be racially similar but very different culturally --- Salvadorans and Mexicans, for example, and Africans and African-Americans.

Beyond cultural borders
Coming together in the name of faith is not new in Los Angeles. In 1781 a multicultural mix of African, Spanish and Native American Catholics were the first settlers in the area. These 11 Catholic families were recruited by Governor Don Felipe de Neve to settle this new area that would become Los Angeles.

Currently in Los Angeles, there are Masses celebrated weekly in more than three-dozen languages. With that in mind, the archdiocese is looking at the history and the changing face of the church, and is implementing plans to bridge the cultural gaps among its many cultural and racial groups.

Earlier this year Cardinal Roger Mahony ordained Filipino-American priest Oscar Solis as Auxiliary Bishop to head the Office of Archdiocesan Ethnic Ministries. Bishop Solis had spent 15 years as pastor of a predominantly Cajun parish in New Orleans before coming to Los Angeles.

"L.A. is the biggest melting pot in the country, and it is a good gesture to consider a way to reach out to all ethnic communities," Bishop Solis told The Tidings. "The value of my presence in Louisiana was that I was able to relate to other cultures. I had a church that was so rich and so white that was linked to a predominantly African-American and poor church, and I was able to make them look beyond their borders."

In Los Angeles, Bishop Solis hopes to use this experience to open the minds and raise the awareness of communities for one another.

"There should be an effort to prepare the minds of the people, and recognize and appreciate the other's existence, values and gifts, as well as commonalities and differences," said Bishop Solis. "We will then be able to transcend the boundaries of the culture in order to live together and worship together as one family of God."

Chandra Johnson, a scholar of theology at the University of Notre Dame, noted that teaching and uniting communities is a big task because "even many African-American Catholics don't understand how instrumental we were in crafting a Christian Church."

Johnson, a native of Los Angeles who served as a master catechist in the Los Angeles Archdiocese before moving to Indiana to attend Notre Dame, works with black Catholics all over the U.S. to preserve African-American traditions in the church.

"I began working with the diocese in Saginaw, Michigan, when they became concerned that the number of African-American Catholics dwindled from 1,200 to 200 members over ten years," said Johnson. "This is indicative of what's happening all over the country."

Johnson has created new catechesis for black Catholics, which incorporates North African traditions into the Mass to help African-Americans feel more an important part of the church.

"The tensions arise [between African-Americans and other groups] because there is an innate fear that we are no longer on the scene, " said Johnson. "I believe that black Catholics have to re-envision their faith and see themselves in the very making of what the church is."

Next: Have young African-Americans lost faith in the church?