Local demographics and the Synod.

When I was growing up, the Parish we normally attended, if it had a noticeable ethnic component, which I can't say that it truly did, would have been Irish.  First and second generation Irish Americans, as well as some native born Irish.  There were also people of other European extractions, and a Hispanic population, although the latter was nowhere near as large as it currently is.

When I attended university in Laramie, as an undergrad, I normally went to the local parish rather than the Newman Center.  That parish had a large Hispanic population and the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe was a big deal.  A king and queen were chosen from the local Catholic school, and a complete brass band played at the Mass, which was partially in Spanish, although most Hispanics in Laramie are multiple generation Albany County residents whose ancestors moved up from New Mexico in the mid 20th Century.  I.e, they didn't all speak Spanish.

By the 2000s, one of the three parishes in my home county had a fairly large Hispanic population, as did many other parishes around the state, that included many people born in Mexico, typically Chihuahua.  This is still the case.  By the 2010s, a Spanish language Mass had been added.  By the late 2010s the downtown parish had fairly clearly, if silently, been dedicated to serving the immigrant Mexican population, with a priest who is a native speaker of Spanish (from Puerto Rico), the second priest there to have a fluent command of Spanish.  The first had been a very conservative priest who was not universally liked by the English-speaking population, but interestingly, as is sometimes the case, was loved by those who spoke Spanish.  Interestingly, the priest prior to that was an immigrant himself, from Zambia.  He didn't speak Spanish, but incorporated a little of it into some Masses, otherwise taking a "we're all Catholics and we're all in this together approach".

Additionally, an immigrant population in the county that hailed from Vietnam saw the introduction of periodic Vietnamese language Masses in one of the three parishes.  The same parish very occasionally has a Tagalog language Mass.

The priests, which at one time jokingly included a fair number of the "FBI", "Foreign Born Irish", now include Africans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Indians.  Wyoming has never generated enough seminarians to supply its own needs, and has always relied on priests from elsewhere, mostly Ireland at first (although there was an English-born priest at one time).  Now, other nations supply the need.

Wyoming has sent a lay delegate to the Synod, or rather, the Pope, through some means, has chosen a Wyomingite.  The handful, and they are just a handful, of lay delegates from North America, according to the Diocese of Cheyenne, are:

Canada 

• Sami Aoun is a Maronite academic from Montreal immersed in issues touching the Church in the Middle East. He is Professor Emeritus at Université de Sherbrooke and professor, at the Center for Contemporary Religious Studies in Quebec. He is Co-founder of the first Global Chair in the prevention of radicalization and violent extremism.
• Catherine Clifford is a theologian at St. Paul University in Ottawa who has written and lectured on ecclesiology and synodality. Dr. Clifford has been invited as a panelist, presenter and guest keynote speaker on numerous occasions; especially on topics such as: “Theological and Pastoral Contributions to Synodality from North America,” “Synodality: What Have We Learned along the Way?”, “Leaning into the Distant Goal of Vatican II: Pope Francis, Synodality, and Christian Unity,” among others.
• Sr. Chantal Desmarais s.c.s.m. is a woman religious from the Diocese of Joliette who was involved in drafting the Canadian National Synthesis as well as the North American Final Document. She is very involved in catechesis and evangelical animation for her diocese. Sr. Desmarais also studied religious education and physical education.
• Linda Staudt is the Director for Safe Environment Services for the diocese of London. She has extensive experience as a leader in Catholic education in Ontario. The Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario appointed her chair of the committee to prepare the provincial synodal report.

United States 

• Cynthia Bailey Manns, D.Min, is the Adult Learning Director at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis and adjunct professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Dr. Bailey Manns was a delegate from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to the Continental Assemblies. 
• Richard Coll is the executive director of the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was appointed as the liaison for the U.S. bishops for the Synod in the United States in 2021 and is a member of the North American Synod Team. Mr. Coll is a parishioner at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.
• Rev. Ivan Montelongo is a priest of the Diocese of El Paso and serves as the diocesan contact for the 2021-2024 Synod. Fr. Montelongo is Vocation Director and Judicial Vicar for the diocese and was a delegate from the Diocese of El Paso to the Continental Assemblies.
• Wyatt Olivas is a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming. He serves as music minister at his parish, St. Paul’s Newman Center in Laramie. Mr. Olivas was a delegate from the Diocese of Cheyenne to the Continental Assemblies.
• Julia Osęka is an international student from Poland attending St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She has been active in the Synod through her participation in Synodality in Catholic Higher Education in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (SCHEAP). Ms. Osęka was a delegate from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to the Continental Assemblies.
• Sr. Leticia Salazar, ODN is with the Order of the Company of Mary Our Lady, a religious order. She is the Chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernardino, and the diocesan contact for the Synod. Sr. Leticia was a member of the U.S. National Synthesis Writing Team, and a member of the North American Synod Team, and she was a delegate from the Diocese of San Bernardino to the Continental Assemblies.   

The NCR regarding the participants notes the following regarding Wyoming's contribution are:

Wyatt Olivas

Non-episcopal pontifical appointment

Wyatt Olivas is a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where he is studying music education. He attends St. Paul's Newman Center, where he is a music minister and works with high school parishioners. He is one of the youth representatives on the Cheyenne Diocese's Pastoral Council.

Olivas believes the synod is especially important for young Latinos, who recent studies suggest could make up more than half of U.S. Catholics under 30.

"It hurts our feelings when people don't want to listen to us and when people push us aside and make us 'tomorrow's church' and not part of our universal church," Olivas said. "The youth feel pushed aside and not getting bigger responsibilities because it's not 'their turn.' "

Olivas is from Cheyenne, where he attended St. Joseph Parish. He served as a music minister and catechist there, teaching third graders and assisting with confirmation classes. This past summer, he served as a missionary with the Catholic youth evangelization program Totus Tuus.

I'd note, this states, as other things do, that he's from Cheyenne, and he does seem to have graduated from high school there.  Other things claim him for St. Rose of Lima in Torrington. That's significantly different.

I know very little about him personally, and what I do know is solely from what's available online.  He seems to have graduated from high school in Cheyenne a couple of years ago, and is, as noted, a music minister at the Newman Center.

Cheyenne has a large Hispanic population. Torrington, however, not so much.  Cheyenne's Hispanic populations' origins are much like Laramie's, and both are tied to the Union Pacific Railroad. 

 I have known a fair number of Hispanics in Natrona County over the years.

I have no doubt that Olivas is a devout Catholic.  I have some reason to doubt, although its all just preception, that he may be either conservative or fully orthodox in his view, but that's preception only.  Beyond that, I wonder how representative he may be, but then maybe representative isn't what was fully sought.

In southern Wyoming, the Hispanic population, as noted, stems from New Mexico originally.  It's interesting for lots of reasons, one of which is that the original Wyoming Hispanic population that came in after the Mexican War also did.  That population had roots dating back to 1598 when Spain first colonized what is now New Mexico.  In that region, which includes Southern Colorado, they formed their own, very long-lasting, culture, which still exists.  That population supplied immigrants for railroad and agricultural labor to Wyoming starting probably around the 1910s and stretching into the 1950s.  For a fairly long time, the population actually had a significant number that moved back and forth, but of course not everyone did and that ultimately ceased.  The agricultural employment eventually faded, but the blue collar railroad jobs were still going strong in the 1990s.  Perhaps they still are.

The post 1990 oil booms, and the collapse of American border enforcement in the 1970s, brought in a new Mexican immigrant population since then. They do speak Spanish, of course, but they are particularly well represented by people who were born in Chihuahua.  They've found employment in the oil and gas industry and in the trades, where they are very heavily represented.  

Olivas has stated, “once younger generations begin to take ownership of the church, things will change”.

That may be the point.  It will, and it has been, but not really in the direction that would seem to be indicated by the photo of a young man wearing a rainbow wristband and majoring in music, quite frankly.

That recalls the Church of the 1970s more than the one of the 2020s, save for the fact that the Boomer generation that took so influenced the Church back then is partially still in control, but less and less every day.  Indeed, Masses today, nearly anywhere, incorporate more of what once was, than those of the 80s.

And hence the point.

I don't know if Olivas' parents were born in Mexico or not, but a lot of the Hispanics locally were born there, including the young. They're in early adulthood or high school right now. They don't tend to go to university, just as their earlier immigrant predecessors from other countries didn't.  And there's a lot more of them working construction than attending university, anywhere.

Olivas has been asked what Hispanics want from the Synod.

What not ask a 20-year-old from Chihuahua working laying concrete in Rawlins? It wouldn't be hard to find one.

And hence the concern.

Julia Osęka isn't an American at all, but Polish. The young woman is also a university student and has expressed her support of LBGQT causes.  Her native land is sending very conservative representatives to the Synod.  In  her, they get a liberal one, by some appearances, unless of course she stays in the US, which we have no reason to suspect will be the case.

Fr. James Martin, SJ.  Well, we hardly need to comment regarding him, other than perhaps noting that he was born in 1960 and therefore is a late period Baby Boomer.  Fr. Martin became deeply involved in the faith, ultimately leading to him becoming a priest, after watching a documentary on Thomas Merton, which is interesting in that the Merton was both a priest and a monk, and a deeply mystic one who was attracted to Eastern Mysticism.  He was, in some ways, a mystic for his age.

Cardinal Robert McElroy is another, like Martin, who has called for a radical reassessment of what St. Paul condemned in this area.  He called, in the case of divorce and remarriage, for the allowance for Communion in an article in the Jesuit publication America.  This lead to an American Bishop to accuse him of heresy.

Fr. Iván Montelongo is from Chihuahua, Mexico.  He's commented that he has no agenda but wants to address the divorced and remarried, migrants and members of the LGBTQ community.

The others?  

Well, I don't really know anything about them.  You don't either.  The Canadian ones, which are four in number to the American six, seem to be more conventional and potentially conservative.  Interestingly, given though the population of the US is about ten times that of Canada, Canada has nearly equal representation.  Also interesting is that while two hail from Quebec, which makes sense, only one is a French Canadian, which is the most deeply Catholic, and most deeply imperiled Catholic demographic, in that country.

The idea, of course, was to get a cross sample of Catholics from around the country, and indeed from around North America.  That makes some sense in the abstract.  A Hispanic, for example, from a rural state would fit that description.  But only if he's representative of real rural Hispanics. . . A Polish student at an American university isn't representative of a significant American demographic at all.

And the ongoing focus, at least to some degree, of accommodation for sin that St. Paul expressly warned against is interesting.  Indeed, it's worrisome.  It's so threaded through this by now that the Synod almost has to make some statement about it, and it won't be what St. Paul stated.

Indeed, while this body isn't as slanted as often suggested, there remains a bizarre ongoing focus on homosexuality.  No matter which way the bread is sliced, this present three pretty significant problems, which are: 1) St. Paul is blisteringly blunt on condemning homosexuality and gender bending conduct, 2) its mostly a culturally European (which includes American culture) thing for whatever reason which also burdens a very small, but very vocal, percentage of the population; and 3) no mater what people wish to say, its the demographic that in the Church has been heavily associated with scandal.

In other words, if we wish to present problems and joint approaches to healing them, ratifying them as non problems really isn't hte solution, to African and Asian Catholis this must appear hopelessly strange and largely irrelevant, and to non Catholics that already suspect every Catholic Priest is a homosexual this goes a step or so in reenforceing that view.

Or perhaps it distreassingly just tells a select group that their cross to bear need not be borne.

And if we're discussing representation from the young, and we should, why are the increasing number of young Trads I see at Mass every Sunday not represented.  Even five years ago, I rarely saw a young woman wearing a mantilla at Mass.  I see that now.  I have no reason to believe that the young, unmarried, early 20s woman I see every Sunday morning so adorned doesn't represent her generation, or an aspect of it, just as well as Olivas does. Why is he there, and she isn't?

In short, the lay panel isn't as one sided as some suggest, but it does have an unusual number of people who express views that are outside of the historic norm of Catholicism with there being no clear reason why that should be done.  And at least locally, if I were a Mexican man driving 80 miles one way to the oil patch each day, and trying to catch Mass on Sunday, with a Mexican wife at home taking care of the children, I'd wonder what a musically inclined University of Wyoming student had in common with me.