As an example of what I am trying to get at in a previous post, it was not at all healthy when the "Italian" mass was pushed into the basement by then dominant Irish Catholics (and this in a pre-Vactican II atmosphere, where the Mass was in Latin!). Nor was the answer then for the Italian Catholics to alone change, to give up being Italian to become more Irish. That would be over simplifying for one thing, but in an equally real sense, it is just wrong. The Irish-Americans needed to change also, an uncomfortable process then, just as it is now. And so while I dislike change as much (if not far more than) the next person, I realize that our culture is and must be in flux. Hopefully it will improve, I fear it all to possible it could further degenerate.
While my family was still at St. Joseph's, the pastor was at one point heard to infer (if not outright state, my memory is that he said) that there are no poor people in the parish. He was denying the need for a traditional St. Joseph's festival of the kind not seen in this area in longer than I can remember, where the food collected would be used to help out needy families in the parish. That sort of attitude was ignoring a substantial population right there in Herndon. They were not (and are not) noticed in the parish by and large, and that is not right. While St. Josephs is a "non-Hispanic" parish, that problem probably will not be addressed. But the better alternative would not be to have some sort of outreach to the "Hispanic community," but to have a single Herndon community that includes the Hispanic population (and the other groups that I am not mentioning for simplicity). The latter is far harder to obtain. I am not enough of a people person to know how to realistically approach that goal.