Religion: Billy con Hispanos

Fresh from his tent outside Berlin’s Red sector where he wound up his , successful German crusade. Evangelist Billy Graham moved into Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden last week. The message Madison of repentance and salvation was much the same as in his New York Crusade three years ago—but the words were different.

“Hispanos, Billy Graham con nosotros,” the signs proclaimed in buses and stores and the old favorite hymns they sang would have startled many a Bible-belter: The Old Rugged Cross was La Cruz de Jesus, What a Friend We Have in Jesus was Oh, Qué Amigo!, and Wonderful Words of Life was Oh, Contádmelas Otra Vez.

Billy Graham of Montreat, N.C. was making a special path to New York City’s nearly 1,000,000 Spanish-speaking inhabitants, mostly Puerto Ricans. Of the 43,500 who went to listen to him, 1,139 made “decisions for Christ.” New York, Puerto Rican population has been a surprisingly fertile field for Protestant proselytizing. Partly because of a shortage of priests in their homeland, as in all Latin America, many Puerto Ricans have had little or no instruction in the Roman Catholic faith to which they traditionally belong. Protestant churches have been quick to capitalize on this; they have set more and more of their ministers to learning Spanish, stimulated the Catholics to all-out competition. There are currently 258 Spanish-speaking priests, and the Protestant missionaries are scattered, like the P.R.s themselves, from the Bronx to the Lower East Side. Some The 40,000 of Bronx the hispanos are Protestants, about 500,000 Catholics most of the remainder are unchurched. Billy was delighted at the turn out, despite competition from a World Series and a Nixon-Kennedy TV debate. As usual, language was anything but a barrier to Billy-talking through an interpreter, he suggests, gives a his English-speaking hearers more of a chance to think. With the Rev. Rogelio Archilla of Manhattans Dewitt Reformed Church panting through a skilfull rapid-fire translation on the opposite side of the platform. Evangelist Graham kept the pace fast and the presure high. “You have made a great cultural contribution to New York ” he told them, “but now you must help throw back the forces of evil, in this city . . . Perhaps the Lord has allowed you to come to America* for this reason. Many churches in this country have lost their original enthusiasm for religion. You still have this enthusiasm, and you can make a great contribution.”

Church—or Else. Billy stabbed at Spanish with a thunderous “Christ died for you for usted!”, and the word somehow acquired a Dixie drawl. But when it came time for him to invite his listeners down, there was no doubt about his effectiveness. “I like religion” said senora Gloria de Rodriguez, 34. “I saw Billy Graham on television, and I decided I wanted to come and see him in person, I prefer the way he preaches to he way the Catholic priests preach” Like her there were plenty of nominal Catholics in he Garden. “The priest never said we shouldn’t come,” said 1 5-year-old HiIda Cintrón “and my father said we should.”

As part of the crusade, Billy mingled with 123 leaders of East Harlem gangs and their henchmen, gave them a tough-talking half-hour that ranged from sex to the United Nations. Said one leader when it was over: “My gang will go to church tomorrow — or else!”

*A mild political blooper: Americans from south of the border and out in the Caribbean consider themselves just as American as U.S. citizens. But Puerto Ricans are, of course, U.S. citizens