From the Canção Nova News and Vatican Radio

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The recently named bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, Bishop James D. Conley, says that the people of the United States can learn much from the Latino Community on living their faith.

“The Latinos bring a strong sense of family, a great love for the Catholic faith, for the sacrament and the blessed Virgin Mary”, he guaranteed in an interview with the news agency CNA. “They work, have children, seek employment and try to try to insert themselves and we should be at their side.”

Bishop Conley took possession of the diocese in November of 2012. He worked with the latinos for the first time in his priesthood when he lived and served as auxiliary bishop of Denver, where the community there reprsented 51% of the faithful.

More than half  of the Catholics of the world live in Hispanic America, and according to Bishop Conley, the growing hispanic population in the United States has a strong impact, of form that  should be brought to the full life of the Church.

The prelate, 57 years old, also reflected on the positive impact of the youth that are in the Church in America. “There is a contagious joy when the youth live their faith. I discovered when I worked with youth that the world needs their example of commitment, faith and joy.”

Brought up in a presbyterian family, and a native of Missouri, Bishop Conley, converted to Catholicism when he was a student at the University of Kansas.

The bishop said that he feels blessed to be bishop of Lincoln, because the faith and the family life are very strong there. We not only have a great number of priests, but they are very good, they work hard and are holy priests.”

There are actually 153 priests in Lincoln, with a median age of 48 years old and there are 44 seminarians. And the bishop believe that the city with close to 260,000 inhabitants has the greater percentage of seminarians in the United States.

translated from portuguese