New Diocesan Facebook pages

CLIFTON  In its ongoing effort to reach the faithful through social media and similar communication outlets, the Diocese of Paterson will launch a Spanish-language Facebook page to reach many of the faithful whose first language is Spanish. The page will officially launch on Dec. 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a major feast for the Mexican Catholic Church and its culture and celebrated widely by Hispanic communities. The page can be found on facebook.com/diocesispaterson.

While the content created will be in Spanish and carry content geared to the Spanish-speaking community, Facebook offers a feature that translates the posts to the default language of a Facebook account so all are invited to “like” the page and keep up to date with happenings in the Paterson Diocese.

“As the Church, we are the ‘One Body of Christ,’ as St. Paul tells us, and the ‘Body’ is made up of many parts,” said Bishop Sweeney. “A Diocese is one ‘part’ of that, One ‘Mystical’ Body of Christ. Part of the role and responsibility of a Bishop, as a Shepherd, is to try to reach out and bring together the different parts of the Church in the Diocese. As our Diocese has a long tradition of reaching out to and welcoming people from many different countries, speaking many different languages, this ‘outreach’ to our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters is just one more way of encouraging them and all to feel welcome and ‘at home’ here in the Church of Paterson. As we have tried to increase our presence and communication online and through technology and social media to those who speak English, we are now making that effort in Spanish as well.”

The Facebook page in Spanish will include different events hosted in Spanish throughout the Diocese as well as feature spiritual reflections and inspirational quotes especially as they relate to special feast days in the Church’s liturgical calendar. Those who follow the page can look forward to catechetical initiatives that will highlight the diversity of the cultural fabric of the many Latino communities throughout the Diocese while at the same time aiming to further the mission of evangelization. The page is operated under the Office of Communications and The Office of Evangelization in the Paterson Diocese.

Father Cesar Jaramillo, parochial vicar at St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Parsippany and Defender of the Bond in the diocesan Tribunal Office, will be managing the page. “The goal of the Facebook page in Spanish is to create a channel by means of which the Spanish-speaking faithful of the Diocese can be aware of the many different initiatives, at the parish and diocesan level, that exist with regards to Hispanic Ministry,” said Father Jaramillo. “Our hope is that it will become an effective platform on which we can highlight and promote the hard work of so many of our priests and lay faithful as they strive to better serve the physical and spiritual needs of our Hispanic communities throughout our local Church.”

The Spanish-speaking community, who mostly hail from South American and Caribbean countries, in the Diocese is a significant part of the overall number of Catholics in the Paterson Diocese. More than a third of the 109 parishes in the Paterson Diocese celebrate at least one Mass in Spanish on weekends. In addition, a large number of priests in the Diocese come from Spanish-speaking nations. For decades, the Diocese has had an office dedicated to serving Hispanics through the Diocesan Evangelization Office. St. Paul Inside the Walls already has a Spanish-language Facebook page at facebook.com/murosanpablo.

Father Jaramillo, who was born in Colombia and came to the United States as a youth, said, “This specific Facebook page, geared toward the recognition of the strong Hispanic presence within our Diocese, will be a great tool for evangelizing and reaching native Spanish-speakers who continue to reap the benefits of the virtual continent, especially insofar as it regards keeping in contact with their families and loved ones in their countries of origin. Now they will also be able to tap into the vast spiritual resources available to them by way of the Hispanic ministry in their own parishes and beyond.”

The Diocese also has an Office of Migrant Ministry, which is an outreach to the large Hispanic immigrant population. The ministry provides liturgy and spiritual opportunities, information on healthcare, location of English as a second language (ESL) classes and educational support for the children of migrants.

For the Hispanic community, social media such as Facebook is already a tool of communication they use to connect with families living in their homelands in Latin America.

Father Jaramillo notes that while the page will be in Spanish, the cultures from the different countries whose main language is Spanish are all unique. “The faith of the Spanish-speaking community is made manifest in a vast variety of ways. Every culture has distinct features in terms of how they express their Catholic faith and live out their Christian vocation,” he said. “However, every single one of them must be valued and well understood within the proper cultural context in order to appreciate its beauty and its essential role in fostering a deep love for Christ and His Church. The differences between cultures is often best expressed by way of popular religiosity and devotions that are embedded in every person’s upbringing and experience of Church in their countries of provenance.”