Only about 8 percent of teachers in Catholic schools are Hispanic, compared with 17 percent of students. Low salaries and a weak professional pipeline make it difficult to diversify the teaching staff.

Encuentro, which means “Encounter,” is an initiative from the U.S. bishops that seeks to better serve the growing Latin American community and will continue through 2020.

“For Hispanics, whatever the priest says goes. But that’s not right. The priest is not God. Nobody is above God.”

The 14th annual Hispanic Charismatic Congress for the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, was held July 14-15 at a conference center in South Sioux City, Nebraska, just across the Missouri River. Although Adrian Paz of Denison, Iowa, was pleased that attendance had increased at this year's Hispanic charismatic congress, real-world issues may have kept some away.

Alicia Carrillo is one of the 20,000 new Hispanic Catholic ministry leaders that the National Fifth Encuentro of Hispanic Latino Ministry process aims to identify and train.

In an unremarkable-looking conference room at a hotel in downtown Portland -- a city known for its dearth of traditional religious practice -- a gathering of Catholics from five states did something remarkable.