When Father Virgilio Elizondo was growing up in the west-side barrio of San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican immigrants, he found the church to be a refuge. "The parish was the only institution in the city where we felt fully at home," he recalls, "fully free to express ourselves in our own language, our singing, our festivities, our worship." As rector of his city's historic San Fernando Cathedral for 12 years, Elizondo became a leader in bringing Mexican religious customs and traditions into the Catholic service. His annual Christmas posada, for example, re-enacts the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph, with the couple trekking through the neighborhood and being turned away at city hall, the courthouse and hotels before finding shelter in the cathedral. Elizondo also launched an internationally televised, bilingual Mass from his church.

Still, Elizondo struggled with the church's paternal attitude toward Mexican Americans and vowed to go beyond simply elevating cultural traditions in church services. He wanted to develop a theology within the context of the living faith of his childhood neighbors, a