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Nadie,

I understand why you objected to being characterized as a racist in the exchange you described.  It was silly of the principal to do so.  Are you saying that there is nothing that can be accurately described as racism out there.  If I hate you because you are Latino, or black, or white or Asian or whatever, why isn't that racist?  

I just would steer clear of calling a Catholic, a racist.  Give them the benefit of the doubt. Don't jump to conclusions.

A kind of analogous technique that I use when people get violent with me (face to face), is to act as if I don't understand what they are doing, usually, they will just leave me alone since they see that I'm not scared at all. But if they are really intent on harming me, and anyone is watching, after hearing me be verbally abused for so long, the witnesses will testify that they would have acted the same way as I (break a broom over their head), LONG before I did. Actually in 30 years of using this technique the result has always been that "they will just leave me alone since they see that I'm not scared at all", so don't conclude that I'm some bar room brawler.

Give them every opportunity to explain themselves, ask them all manner of questions. If you finally conclude that they really are racist, by that time "the witnesses will testify that they would have concluded the same way LONG before you did".

The biggest source of a mis-diagnoses of racism in Americans is that they don't know how to differentiate class difference from racial difference. It is the biggest sources of error. Scarcely any Americans realize this. Class difference is the source of "discomfort?" (nothing in common?) between people, not race. A upper class white baptist would be more at home with an upper class Latino, than he would be with a lower class white baptist. The worst scenario of "discomfort"  would be  the combination of an upper class white baptist with a lower class Latino, and similarly an upper class Latino, with a lower class white baptist. The "discomfort" is mutual between upper and lower classes. The lower class Latino does not feel comfortable around upper class Latinos, just like a lower class white baptist would not feel "at home" with an upper class white baptist.

Quote from: Telesphorus

While it was certainly very wrong for those people to walk out, I can understand the feeling of those who believe that in the United States sermons should be in English unless the parish is specifically spanish speaking.  It is a big deal for the English speaking members of the congregation to have to listen to a sermon in a foreign tongue once a month.  It does feel like displacement.

I disagree with you Telesphorus.  Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church in the United States catered to different Catholics of many ethnic backgrounds by having the priests do the sermons in their native langue as well as Catholic hymns.

My Polish Catholic teacher who grew up with the traditional Latin Mass related to me that her parish gave Sunday sermons in Polish and English.  Catholic hymns in her parish were sung in either Polish or English.  She even stated this applied to the Czechs, Lithuanians, Italians and their respective dialects, Hungarian, German, etc.  These European-American Catholics preserved their culture within their Catholic parish while remaining in their mother tongue, English.  

  When I was in the Novus Ordo, we had a Spanish, Chinese, and English sermons.  Making our parish "multicultural" also increased the Catholic devotions that American Catholics seem alien to.  We had Catholic fiestas, especially for the Santo Nino (Holy Child).  In fact, we had Anglo-Americans who became devoted to the Infant Jesus of Prague as a result of sharing our Spanish Catholic culture to them.

We had no problem with the diversity because lots of the immigrants belonging to the older generations have difficulty comprehending "big words" in English.  Imagine saying, "sanctification" or "propitiation" to an elderly Chinese Catholic who only knows basic communicative English skills.

During the pontificate of Pius XII, Cardinal James Francis McIntyre (the Metropolitan of Los Angeles & close friend of Cardinal Francis Spellman) had to increase the usage of Spanish sermons for the Filipino Catholic community because of their population increase within the Los Angeles archdiocese.

Here in the Philippines, we have American and Canadian priests giving sermons in English in the traditional Mass and they don't have any intention of learning how to speak Tagalog in my family's country which I find absurd.  In the Novus Ordo, the foreign Western priests speak Tagalog in order to teach the Catholic Faith to their congregation and they adapt to the locals' culture.

請問你會說國語嗎？或粵語？我忘了在菲律賓華僑說什麼。對不起我國語說得不好！