Father John Sauer
This is an ethnographic account of one author's experience at the Sacred Heart Parish of Owatonna.
I met Father John the first time I went to Sacred Heart Parish for a Spanish-language service. A jolly man with a welcoming smile and bright eyes, he stood at the entrance of the church along with another lady saying hello and shaking hands with everyone who was arriving. Ordained in 1985, Father John has served at parishes in Winona, Rochester, Mankato, and Wilson and has also had the opportunity to teach high school students. In 2008 he joined on as Pastor of Sacred Heart.1
The first service I attended was the celebration of fourteen children receiving their first communion. The church was almost full of people, and at the very front you could see the fourteen children, all wearing white: the girls with beautiful princess-like dresses, and the boys with well-ironed button-downs and ties. As the service began, both Father John, and another man, Father Ubaldo, processed down the aisle. In front of them, there were three altar servers, two carrying large white candles and one walking with a large gold crucifix.
After the entrance and scripture readings, the time came for the homily. Father Ubaldo arose from his chair, walked down the alter steps and began to talk to the children about the meaning and importance of the first communion. He explained to the children that Sunday is a day to serve the Lord and how the first communion is one of the most important gifts a Catholic can receive because it is the gift of God and “stays with us forever”. He also touched on the importance of parents and Godparents in ensuring that the children grow up knowing, learning, and understanding what it means to be a good Catholic.
After Father Ubaldo finished talking he returned to the altar, and Father John stepped down. Everything Father Ubaldo had said, was now being repeated by Father John in English. After he finished the translation, the service continued in Spanish. I wondered why only the homily was translated, and for whose benefit this was done. Unfortunately, at the end of that service, I was unable to interview Father John because he had another commitment to attend at the end of mass, so we set up an interview for the upcoming weekend: Mother's Day.
How do we serve the next generation? …You want them to maintain their culture and their heritage. At the same time at a certain level, they're going to feel more comfortable in English. -Father John
On Mother's Day, it was only Father John who was going to be leading the service. Father John began the service in Spanish. After he finished the Gospel and the homily, he began to translate it to English, which again, caught me by surprise. What was the purpose of translating the Gospel to English when we were in church with so many Hispanic people? I looked around the church with a little bit of confusion on my face. I then noticed that the kids who were sitting at the front were the ones paying very close attention to Father John, their eyes glued to him as he spoke in English. Was it for them?
When the service ended, Father John happily took me into his office for me to conduct the short interview we had set up since last week. Father John preferred to be interviewed in English. Because there was not much history of the Parish online, I asked him to begin with the history of the church and how he arrived there.
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Sauer, John. Interviewed by Adriana Castillo. Personal interview. Sacred Heart Parish, Owatonna, MN. May 8th, 2016.↩
When he first arrived in 2008, there were about fifty members of the Hispanic community who would come to the Spanish-language services. Because of this, Father John made the commitment to serve the Hispanic community as best he could: "I just made the commitment that we would always offer Sunday Mass for them." I found Father John’s dedication to growing the Hispanic community very interesting, especially considering his positionality as a white pastor. The funny thing though, was that he did not speak much Spanish when he first arrived and still speaks very little. The following is a small piece of what he said during our time together:
"I basically learned... I had studied in Italy and so I knew Italian. So when I was on sabbatical before I came here, knowing that I was going to come here, I just worked on being able to speak the Mass. I really don't speak Spanish. I basically do the mass... I did study Spanish at the Mexican-American college down in San Antonio for one month and that has helped me a little bit. If people speak slowly to me, I understand but then if they speak too fast, I can't."
Through this interview, I was able to see that language was a barrier between Father John and the Hispanic community. I decided to ask him why he always translated the Gospel from Spanish into English:
"It is more for the kids. Most of them are more comfortable with English than with Spanish. Although, you know, they speak Spanish at home with their parents and my Spanish is elementary. Even when I am giving the service in Spanish I sometimes don't know if I am saying what I am supposed to say. But I just got the feeling that you know, they were not connecting that much, and so you know, I said, I'll do it in Spanish, which is why I went to the school, to say the homily in Spanish. But that time when I do it in English, you know most of them [the parents] can understand English, a lot of them feel uncomfortable in English, but I get it, you know."
You want them to learn their prayers in Spanish, to feel comfortable at Mass in Spanish…you want them to maintain their culture and their heritage.
One of the most important things for Father John is the idea of "serving the next generation".
"How do we serve the next generation?.. you want them to learn their prayers in Spanish, to feel comfortable at Mass in Spanish…you want them to maintain their culture and their heritage. At the same time at a certain level, they're going to feel more comfortable in English. And I just think we need to start transitioning towards that."
As new generations begin to emerge, questions of how to preserve tradition, and how tradition will develop, become more pertinent. As of 2020, the current pastor at Sacred Heart is Father Swaminatha Pothireddy.
