Is America's cultural climate hostile to Latino faith? Consider this American success story a cautionary tale: A legal immigrant comes to the United States from Honduras as a teen-ager, speaking little English. He learns the language, applies himself to studies, and one day graduates from Harvard.

As a successful lawyer, he unanimously receives the American Bar Association's highest rating. The League of United Latin American citizens express strong support for him. The president of the United States calls him up. He wants him to be a federal judge.

But that's where the success story of Miguel Estrada has hit a brick wall.

Democrats in the Senate threatened to filibuster Miguel Estrada's appointment to keep him from becoming the first Hispanic on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Why?

Because he believes what the overwhelming majority of Latinos believe about abortion. If Miguel Estrada were to renounce his religious beliefs on this one issue, he would be welcomed as a compadre by the Democrats and be seated as a judge.

Consider his a high-profile version of what our page-one story describes. Latinos are forced to assimilate — and to assimilate often means to reject their faith.

An aggressive push is underway to integrate Latinos into the worst aspects of American society. Contraceptives are forced on them. Misogyny is celebrated in the music our record companies push in their communities. The self-prostituting entertainment styles of Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera are encouraged; the two are awarded as exemplars of Latinas in the arts.

To gain the white man's acceptance, Latinos have to sell their souls, it seems. We should give them an alternative. They should be sought out as an untapped resource of the Catholic Church. They are tomorrow's Catholic America. Their faith, though often unformed, is strong. With direction, it could set a new tone for our country.

Those pastors who have had success with Latinos — big success, the kind that brings in the numbers, and attracts the immigrant community — have focused on a few important things.

The sacraments. Latino Catholics haven't “matured” in their faith to a point where they feel the sacraments aren't necessary. They're still as hungry for them as we all should be. Confession and the Eucharist bring them in.

Popular piety. Our Lady of Guadalupe is queen in the Latino community. And she's eager to share the rosary with them. Other practices — stations of the cross, Divine Mercy chaplets and novenas — are treasured in immigrant communities.

Real doctrine. Evangelical Christians have had great success preaching to Latino Catholics about the basics: Christ's saving act, the need for grace, the moral truths that should guide daily living. Catholics should feed this need for real Christianity even more.

It is not inevitable that Latino Catholics will fall away.

Jesica Santillán, the Mexican-American Catholic teen who died of a botched transplant operation, showed this. She used to call her friends to say “Let's go to church! Let's go to church!” Her family invoked the saints at her bedside.

Or one thinks of the news reports about the long line of pilgrims stretching through the new Los Angeles cathedral on its opening days. Made up mostly of Latino immigrants, the pilgrims were waiting in line behind the cathedral's realistic crucifix. Many were approaching it on their knees, weeping and kissing it.

News reporters complained that, when they interviewed them, these pious pilgrims knew little about the scandals in the Church, and weren't up on the latest news.

Perhaps, but they knew one very important thing: that Christ crucified is the center of the faith. The rest is easier to teach.