Our Ninety-Five Theses

IN 1992 I ASSUMED MY NEW POSITION as professor of theology at Concordia University Wisconsin. Concordia University had recently acquired a new campus at Mequon, Wisconsin, from the Sisters of Notre Dame. This campus had served for many years as a convent and regional quarters for this religious order. That very year, several retired sisters who had lived for many years on this property came for a visit. Their former Mother Superior also came along with this group. It so happened that at one time my office had been her office, where she administered the affairs of the order.



We engaged in a wonderful and friendly conversation, and detecting my Spanish accent, she asked where I was from. I told her that I was born in Cuba. She already knew that I was a Lutheran professor of theology and director of the lay ministry and diaconate program at the university. She asked, somewhat surprised: "How is it possible that you are not a Catholic? She became even more amazed when I told her that I was raised Roman Catholic and that in Cuba we were practicing Catholics. "How is it possible that you abandoned your mother church?” she asked me. For this loving and sweet sister, it was more congruent for a Cuban like me to be a member of the Catholic Church. According to her way of thinking, as well as many other Catholics, becoming a Lutheran, Protestant, or Evangelical goes against all that is culturally valid for a Latino.