Holy Family Catholic Community, Fond du Lac, WI

About the church

Holy Family Catholic Community is a multicultural parish situated in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a mid-size city at the foot of Lake Winnebago. With 17,500 registered members, it is the largest parish of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. There are four worship sites that offer 12 weekend masses and 10 masses spread throughout the week. Parish wide, Holy Family has one children’s choir, two teen choirs, a senior choir, and a hand-bell choir. Each site also has an adult choir, with one formed of Latinos singing entirely is Spanish. Additionally, there is a Hmong mass sung a capella in Hmong by worshipers.

Creating a Church Community through Cultural Diversity
In addressing the goal of creating a church community, our project seeks to explore the dimensions of church unity and the paths of openness to receive diversity. Recognizing the difficulty of change and the resistance to cultural change, the project seeks to develop strategies for fostering open dialogue and communication with all of the members of the parish and the community beyond.
Although Holy Family Catholic Community has had worship services for the Latino Community for over 30 years, the Anglo and Latino congregations have worshiped separately. Identifying common hymnody (same melody and harmonic structure) is a never-ending challenge, although Holy Family Congregation has managed to identify hymns common to both traditions in both languages. Through outreach to various diverse communities, additional common hymnody can be identified and shared.
Having a medium through which young people can come together and share culture is a direct extension of creating church. Our project will also explore recruitment options for determining available and interested young singers. Part of the reason for identifying Latino singers is to help preserve the cultural heritage and to enrich the community by sharing the sounds of another culture, and to promote a sense of pride among their peers. This would enable young Latinos to develop an appreciation for their cultural heritage, while providing an opportunity to share their cultural heritage with other youth in the community.

Address:

271 Fourth Street Way
Fond du Lac, WI 54937
http://www.hffdl.org/

Team Members:

Patricia Eby, Musician
Fr. Max Tzul, Clergy
Marisol Cortes, Hispanic choir coordinator