Yolanda Arizaga was on the verge of a second nervous breakdown when she walked into an outdoor Pentecostal revival meeting last July.
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Arizaga, 40, who was born a Roman Catholic, had come to the grassy corner of Humboldt Park as a last resort. Her third marriage was falling apart, a street gang was trying to pin a murder on her son, and the drugs she was taking had become an empty escape.
”I wanted to die,” said Arizaga, a Mexican-American born in Chicago.
”I prayed every night. I really wanted God to take me, but I didn`t want to take my own life.”
Now, as she stood in the chanting crowd, it seemed that Yiye Avila, the Puerto Rican televangelist who was pacing the stage, was speaking to her very troubles. When he urged the lost to save themselves, Arizaga was among the hundreds who came forth.
”When he talked, I felt something that touched my heart,” Arizaga recalled. ”I remember I went up there and felt a chill. I saw people change. I saw people get off their wheelchairs and walk. It changed my life completely, from one day to the other.”
The following night, Arizaga attended her first Pentecostal service in the converted warehouse of an automotive repair shop in Humboldt Park. Six weeks later, clad in a white robe, she climbed into a green ceramic tank and was submerged by a Pentecostal preacher.
When she surfaced, Arizaga had been officially converted. One of 30 Hispanics baptized in the church that night, she is part of a swelling wave of Roman Catholics born again into the Evangelical charismatic faith.
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For more than a quarter-century, Pentecostal churches have set up shop in the empty storefronts and abandoned temples of the nation`s barrios. Dubbed iglesias calientes, or hot churches, Pentecostal denominations attract poor Hispanics who have drifted from a Catholic Church they claim has become cold and distant.
Unlike iglesias frias, or cold churches-which include mainline Protestant denominations such as the Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans-the Pentecostals follow the Bible to the letter, speak in tongues, practice faith healing and predict the coming end of the world.
As often as four times a week, the wooden pews and foldout chairs of hot churches are filled with converts whose hard-luck lives had reached a dead end before they were born again. The intimate, emotion-packed services offer a small corner of comfort, a retreat from the drugs, illnesses and crimes that daily touch their lives.
”The Pentecostal church ministers to those who are marginized, those who have been deprived, those whose identities are not clear and who don`t have much self-worth,” said Jose Caraballo, a former Pentecostal minister and professor at the interdenominational New York Theological Seminary.
”The gospel makes them aware of who they are, and in spite of their poverty, they are given self-worth,” said Caraballo, who now pastors a Presbyterian church in New York. ”It gives them a reason to live. It gives them a place in society.”
Hispanics constitute America`s fastest-growing ethnic group and have become the object of one of the great struggles in American church history. Their steady defection from Catholicism to Protestant Evangelical
denominations threatens to undermine the longstanding role of the Catholic Church in the United States, which has prospered for two centuries by serving the nation`s immigrants.
A recently released Gallup poll conducted in 1988 found that 6 percent of the nation`s 17 million Hispanics, or some 1.2 million, are now members of Evangelical churches-twice as many as 10 years ago.
But many religion observers believe the numbers may be much greater.
Initially, Pentecostal churches attracted migrants from Puerto Rico, where an indigenous Evangelical charismatic tradition dates to the early part of the century. But more recently, the churches have spread to rural areas and border towns, where immigrants from Central America and Mexico, who are traditionally staunch Roman Catholics, are joining their congregations.
”The Catholic Church and mainline Protestant churches are not ministering to the poor,” said Ruban Armendares, a professor of ministry at the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. ”What has happened is that the Pentecostal churches have stepped into that vacuum.”
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Many poor, uneducated Hispanics, raised in the chaotic world of the barrio, are lured by the clear-cut, good-versus-evil view of the Pentecostals, who blame the devil for everything from alcoholism to adultery to cancer.
They also find comfort in the rigid rules imposed by Pentecostal sects. The doctrines dictated by these churches prohibit drinking, smoking, gambling and dancing, and, in some cases, forbid women to cut their hair, wear cosmetics, shave their legs or wear pants.
”If you have been brought up in a disorganized home where decisions are not made, the Pentecostals organize your life for you,” said Armendares of the McCormick seminary. ”They say: `Here are the rules.` ”
In addition, said Armendares, the rules help these cash-strapped members save money, since they no longer buy cigarettes and liquor, play bingo and the lottery, or go out on the town.
But the strict discipline also hinders a church`s efforts to retain many of its members, who often join seeking an overnight solution to their pressing problems.
”After we impose the discipline, the doctrine, some people leave,” said Rev. Cecilio Lopez, pastor of the the Spanish Pentecostal Church of Hammond.
”It`s not easy to leave the world and your relatives to serve God. It`s a difficult separation.”
Maria Aviles was 13 when she and her mother, who was addicted to bingo, converted to the Pentecostal faith.
”It`s something beautiful to be loved by God,” said Aviles, now 27.
”There`s a lot of love, joy, peace. But there are lots of temptations in the environment you live in, the people you deal with.”
Peer pressure got to Aviles when she entered high school. She would leave home in the long, dark skirt required by the Pentecostals, then change into a pair of jeans in the school bathroom.
”I wasn`t fooling nobody but myself,” said Aviles, who had dropped out of the faith by the time she was 17, and who is not practicing any religion.
”Why be a hypocrite?”
Rev. Samuel Acosta, pastor of the First Spanish United Church of Christ in Logan Square, a mainline Protestant denomination that has successfully attracted Hispanics, believes that many Pentecostals, particularly the young, are leaving their churches because the doctrines they preach are too ”rigid and intolerant.”
”These churches tell you how you can cut your hair, who you should marry,” said Acosta, who is a psychologist and counselor. ”The young people feel straitjacketed. They start looking for breathing room. I see Pentecostals coming to our church.”
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By day, Freddy Diaz works in a North Side body shop fixing battered cars. By night he saves souls in a former ballroom on a graffiti-scrawled side street in Humboldt Park.
For Diaz, 38, who lives with his wife and three children in the church basement at 3435 W. Wabansia Ave., it is like working a double shift.
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Four nights a week, Diaz and his wife must pick up and drop off parishioners with the church`s two mini-vans. And every Thursday night at 11:30, Diaz proselytizes as host of a late-night radio show.
”You have to dedicate your life completely,” said Diaz, who came from Puerto Rico 10 years ago. ”But you get used to it. You`re motivated when you see the changes in people.”
When Diaz, who was raised a Roman Catholic, took over the church five years ago, it claimed seven members. Today there are more than 50, most of them former Catholics.
”If the church grows and sustains us, it is due to hard work,” said Diaz. ”Most of us preachers don`t get money from the church. Many are small churches. The only benefit I have is that I live here.”
Unlike Catholic priests, who receive a rigorous education before they are ordained, many Pentecostal preachers are small-business men or janitors or steelworkers or cooks who feel an urgent calling-often, they say, in the form of a vision-to spread the gospel.
And while priests are supported by the Catholic Church, which gives them a salary and owns the church building, Pentecostal preachers must live by their wits to keep the doors open.
Like most Hispanic Pentecostal congregations, Diaz`s church belongs to a concilio, or council, which is often a loose coalition of churches. Diaz`s concilio, Asambleas de Iglesias Pentecostales de Jesucristo, for example, claims 18 congregations in Chicago and some 120 churches worldwide.
These concilios give member churches the sense of belonging to an international community whose representatives meet once a year to report on far-flung missions. But while concilios provide their member churches with a set of rules and regulations, they provide little or no financial support.
It is the members of the individual congregations who make many of the day-to-day decisions, and they must help pay the rent or mortgage, as well as the bills. Many members donate 10 percent of their salaries and help organize special events and bake sales.
If the preacher and his congregation are enterprising, their church, which may have been started in a living room or a defunct grocery store, can move to an abandoned warehouse or auto body shop; if they begin to prosper, they may be able to take over a temple or synagogue left behind by earlier occupants.
”Once a church grows, the landlord will raise the rent,” said David Cintron, the former pastor of Templo Getzemani, 3217 N. California Ave. ”Then the neighbors will complain about the noise. You have to be on the lookout for a new location all the time.”
It took Cintron`s congregation two years to raise $25,000 for the down payment on what was a warehouse to the adjacent Motor Medics auto shop. The church has considered moving to larger quarters but can`t afford it.
”Our biggest problem is growth,” said Cintron, who has started churches in Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay and Mexico, and plans to start one in Africa, where he has found a Hispanic community.
But many Pentecostal congregations, which are usually made up of poor, working-class families, often can`t make ends meet and are forced to shut down.
”The phone is the first thing that will be cut,” said Alfredo Torres de Jesus, a Pentecostal missionary who has helped start several churches in the Chicago area. ”The last thing is the light. Some will end up holding services in a house because they can`t afford to rent a storefront.”
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Because Pentecostal churches spring up, fold, spin off into separate organizations or are constantly on the move, it is difficult to tell how many congregations there are in the city, much less the country.
Of the more than 100 Hispanic Pentecostal churches listed in the current directory of religious organizations in the Chicago area, many have had their phones disconnected or are no longer at the listed locations.
”Pentecostal churches have a great turnover,” said Rev. Jorge Morales, a United Church of Christ minister and longtime community activist. ”In 15 years, a church can be divided three or four times as charismatic leaders emerge.”
While some small churches have folded, others, like the Iglesia Rebano Companerismo Cristiano, have grown steadily over the years.
When Iglesia Rebano began 10 years ago, a handful of members met in Rev. Angel Luis Mercado`s living room. Today, more than 700 members congregate in a reconverted automotive body shop at 2435 W. Division St.
Another church that outgrew its humble beginnings is the Asamblea de Iglesias Cristianas, 2840 W. Logan Blvd., where as many as 1,200 worshipers now get together inside the massive columned structure of a former Christian Science church.
Many of these larger, established congregations provide nurseries, Bible classes and bookstores.
”In 10 years, if God hasn`t come,” Mercado has boasted, ”the Evangelical movement will be taking control of the world.”
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For decades, Evangelical proselytizers have swelled the membership of their churches by combing the streets of the nation`s barrios and beaming their doomsday message into Hispanic homes: If you die tonight, will your soul be saved?
”When you are no good, when you feel worthless and there is no way out, come to Christ. Christ is coming soon. Time is ending,” a Spanish-language preacher pleaded on a late-night radio program in Chicago last month.
The preacher is one of 16 Hispanic Pentecostal pastors who regularly broker late-night religious programs on WEDC and WSBC, both on 1240 AM. By comparison, the station airs only one Spanish-language program sponsored by the Catholic Church.
Pentecostal churches also disseminate their message on videotapes, audio cassettes and weekend television programs. (But of the four regularly scheduled Pentecostal broadcasts that aired locally on WCIU-Ch. 26 two years ago, only one has managed to survive. WCFC-Ch. 38 broadcasts three Evangelical Spanish-language programs.)
Yet by and large, Hispanics are converted by friends and relatives who have joined the faith.
”The churches grow by themselves,” said Cintron. ”They grow by word of mouth.”
Some converts are recruited individually and, literally, off the streets. Miguel, a quiet, middle-aged man, had been looking for a way to free himself from cocaine addiction when he walked into a Pentecostal church on a brisk Sunday in late November.
After he entered the spacious lobby of the Assembly of Christian Churches on Logan Boulevard, he was ushered into a closet-sized room and offered religious counseling by three church members.
”I confessed my problem to a priest at my church, and he told me to say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys,” said Miguel, who asked that his real name not be used. ”It didn`t work. I`m still taking drugs and I can`t stop.” Ismael Soberanes, 24, one of the church`s proselytizers, delivered an emotional speech, waving his arms and pacing the tiny room. When he was finished, the three men held Miguel`s hands and bowed their heads in prayer. Then they invited him to the evening service.
”Right now Christ is knocking on your heart, but he won`t pound that door down,” Soberanes said. ”When you accept Christ, your life will be changed completely.”
Tuesday: The Catholic Church responds.