Desire. Passion. Call.
For almost 40 years I have lived out a call to diakonia as a lay ecclesial minister in the Catholic Church. As a child my family nurtured my faith, I longed for the sacraments and sought to draw closer to God. At all ages, I have desired to know God better and have lived passionately to serve God and others. It is a call.
As a young adult, this call to service was nurtured by my college community and theology studies which led me to volunteer in Chile for two and half years with the Holy Cross Associates. I fell in love with Christ incarnate in a people and their struggle for freedom and justice, and grew accustomed to a pastoral minister’s way of life. Thus began my unofficial diaconal ministry of walking and living with the marginalized.
After completing a Master of Divinity degree with an emphasis on Hispanic Ministry, the vocational tug led me to spend two years serving with the Archdiocese of Chicago at their mission site in Quechultenango, Guerrero, Mexico. There I was part of a pastoral team that embraced una pastoral de conjunto, whereby women and men, laity and priests, North Americans and Mexicans worked collaboratively in the shared mission of serving the 29 communities of our parish. I loved the work and thrived in this co-responsible setting as a liturgical minister, pastoral minister, and preacher.
From Mexico, I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where thirty years later I am still doing my best to live Jesus through word and deed as I serve our primarily Latino immigrant brothers and sisters here in the Twin Cities. During my tenure as Archdiocesan Director for Latino Ministry, our team opened ten new sites to minister to the Spanish-speaking faithful. I recruited and collaborated with priests, trained liturgical and pastoral ministers, preached, and worked with the dominant culture to create a vision for intercultural parishes. I am gente-puente, a bridge-builder across gender, generational, ethnic and linguistic divides, and continue to be consulted regarding intercultural ministry and cultural competency.
My personal discernment around diakonia continues as I study the Word, meet with a spiritual director, participate with Discerning Deacons, and volunteer with a parish team after serving for sixteen years on staff. It is a deep privilege to serve and accompany my local community, and my gifts are valued by committed lay ecclesial ministers, religious sisters and brothers, and ordained ministers with whom I have worked over the years. Yet, I have been asked repeatedly why I stay. “Why not become an ordained minister in another Christian denomination?” It is painful to be denied the grace conferred upon the ordained deacon, which would allow my baptismal grace to grow into its fullness in my own faith tradition.
I have academic credentials and training, but more importantly, I have the desire, heart and passion for liturgical worship and diakonia—Word, worship, and charity. What I have not had is the authorization in our society that comes with being ordained. The pastoral situation, however, that tugs most at my heart is that of our immigrant brothers and sisters who have languished in detention centers with too few ordained ministers to attend to them. A parishioner of ours was stopped on his way to work and issued a warrant for his arrest. My pastor immediately looked into what he needed to do to go visit him in person because only he could do that. Ordained clergy have always been considered “professional” visitors, in the same category as lawyers, who are allowed in-person visitation. Just a few years ago, one would have read the following on the Sherburne County website: “All personal visits at the jail are non-contact, except for pre-approved clergy and lawyers. Clergy may visit detainees at any time, having made prior arrangements with the Chaplain’s Office.”
Though I have extensive ministerial training and cultural competency rooted in decades of deep relationship with Latino immigrants, I have been restricted in ministering to immigrants in detention. I can accompany people to court or sit with their families and write letters. But as a Catholic, professional lay minister, regardless of my titles, I am relegated to short, tightly-regulated virtual visits. In this setting, and in many prisons across the United States, the distinction of the ordained matters!
I have a vocational call that has been lived out for decades. My young adult daughter supports me but also struggles with a Church that she says is “behind the times.” I, and many of my female colleagues, have been blessed and received by the communities in which we minister, and we believe the whole Church could be strengthened and enriched by welcoming women to receive the sacramental grace conferred upon deacons.
Anne Attea is the proud mother of Bela, age, 18, and is currently on sabbatical from professional parish ministry after 16 years as the Director of Latino Ministry, Faith Formation and Social Justice at Church of the Ascension in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and 10 years as the Director for Latino Ministry for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Prior to working in the Twin Cities, she served as a lay missionary in Mexico and Chile. She currently serves as adjunct faculty in the Theology Department at the University of St. Thomas, is a member of the Minnesota Discerning Deacons leadership group, and a parishioner at Church of the Ascension involved in liturgy and social justice.