Florida is a strong presence of the Catholic church in the USA together with California, both states being the home of a very large Spanish population. On the spanish side, you can find a very devoted group of Catholics in some of the parishes, but you also find a massive presence of lukewarm Catholics that have been badly impacted by the materialistic life they are facing as immigrants from third world countries, where the majority don't have the comforts and opportunities in their countries of origin as they have here. It's very common also in the Caribbean Catholics, to find them very irreverent to the Blessed Sacrament. Some of them will hold a conversation aloud right at the pew of the church in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Something very difficult to stand. Not to judge them, because, no one can tell the true state of holiness of any individual other than God.
It is only very painfull to see.
There is another factor among the Catholic Spanish immigrants and that is in the dangers they face with the Christian sects. All these Protestant churches are the home to a waterdown Christianity where the Catholic faith is their main target of persecution. They recruit Catholics from the third world by the hundreds, because most of them come to America with very little knowledge about their faith and their Catholic church. The opportunists will take them and strip them of the sacraments and talk down about all Catholic devotions and sacred traditons, and turn them into simple worshippers of the word of the Lord and singers of praises focused on a gospel of abundance and deliverance. A gospel that does not speak about calvary, pain or suffering. Only about the resurrection of the Lord and salvation. A typical preaching of a materialistic society that does not want to deal with pain, because for them: Christ paid it all for everyone already. This creates a very weak society where psychologists are more prominent than the sacrament of confession, which is erased from these weak Catholic hearts.
There is hope though. We need to evengelize our Catholic brothers and sisters. We need to teach them about their faith and give testimony of our christianity to them in everything we do in our daily lives.
On the English-speaking Catholic side, we find a large group of commuters from the north of the country who come to spend winter in Florida, and a small share of locals. They are your typical American Catholics where you find a liberal church which practices Yoga and Reiki and at the same time prays the Rosary and participate in all of the sacraments and of the orthodox Catholics who faithfully follow the true teaching of the faith and who are the pillars of the Catholic church.
There are great carismatic activities and missions of many different spiritualities with the Catholic church of Florida.
I do speak at many different places and groups of the church in the Spanish community as well as in the English speaking one. During this visit I recorded two T.V. Catholic programs based on the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This year I had the opportunity to mission in Florida three times.
Let's pray so that the Catholic immigrants from third world countries do not fall into the hands of these waterdown Christian churches that do not pay attention to Saint Paul when he said: "I do not lay down a foundation where one already has been laid before. God forbid I ever do that". These Christian evangelists forget that we Catholics are Christians too, and that we have been already baptized in Christ our Lord. So they are laying a foundation where there is already one.
Let's then intercede for these intentions in the name of our Lord Jesus and our Lady the Virgin Mary.