Juan Mata, a Mexican immigrant, really feels at home this month in the United States.

In October, he was honored along with 35 million other Hispanics across the country by Hispanic Heritage Month. Schools took time out to honor Latino literature, history, music, food and other cultural gems. Juan, however, like many Hispanics in the United States today, didn't feel a need to honor the religious heritage of most Hispanic Americans — the Catholic faith. Juan isn't Catholic.

Not long ago, when you met a person with a Hispanic name like Juan Mata you assumed that person was Catholic. History backed this common assumption. For centuries, Latin America has been overwhelmingly Catholic. The millions of Hispanics that came to live in the United States have traditionally held to the Catholic faith. Now, that's changing.

It's changing not because Hispanics no longer believe in God or religion like the progressive American secularist. Latinos do believe. In fact, 53% of Hispanics say they strongly believe in God, and only 4% professed a strong disbelief in God. If secularism isn't responsible for Hispanics abandoning Catholicism, what is?

The reason stems from an American religious cultural phenomenon commonly known as Church shopping. It consists in choosing a house of worship where you feel comfortable.

Although Protestant in nature, many Catholics see nothing wrong with the idea of choosing another Christian denomination if a person feels comfortable with that option. Many Hispanics have caught onto the American idea of a consumer approach to religion. The Church you chose depends on your personal needs and interest. For this reason, people need to shop around.

The need for everyone to feel at home within the Catholic Church raises a legitimate pastoral concern. This concern demands that we look for acceptable solutions. Yet it can never justify the notion of Church shopping since it contradicts one fundamental truth about Christianity: The fact there is one true Church.

With more than 20,000 different brands of Christianity in the United States, how can anyone recognize the true Christian Church? As early as the third century, Christians could distinguish four marks or characteristics of the true Church. We recall every Sunday at Mass in the Creed these marks: “We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” Let's take a closer look at these marks.

For many, to claim that there is one church requires some explaining. The matter can be summarized like this: Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, founded one universal or Catholic Church for all his disciples or followers.

Consequently, he did not found many churches but one. This is not a matter of faith or belief but of history. Anyone who reads and studies the earliest Christians writers will discover that Christ founded one catholic Church, meaning one universal church for all Christians.

The Church is one basically because her founder — Jesus Christ — is one. Sacred Scripture emphasizes this: There is “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). Despite the fact that Christ founded one Church, Christians remain divided into numerous factions. Reunification of Christians will occur when all Christians place the will of the Lord for one Church above their own. If the Church is one because of its founder, then it is holy as well because of its founder. Holiness marks another fundamental trait of the Catholic Church. Many wonder how the Catholic Church can stand by this claim with the scandalous behavior of some of its members recently in this country.

The Church is holy in a way her members are not. Due to Christ's pure holiness as God and head of the Church, the Church will always remain holy in her doctrine, sacraments and moral precepts. In this sense, the Church draws her sanctity from an objective and inviolable holiness.

The fact that the Church poses an irrefutable holiness doesn't mean Catholics may do whatever they like. Let no one doubt this: Christ condemns sinful behavior. He will hold accountable those who persist in sinful lifestyles. Yet Christ remains forever merciful and forgiving. He calls everyone in his Church to holiness of life. If Christ calls everyone to holiness, this means his Church is universal, or catholic.

This is another mark of the Church founded by Christ. The word “catholic” means universal. There doesn't exist any other religion on the face of the earth with the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity like the Catholic Church. Christ extends a hand of welcome to everyone — without exception — who wishes to follow him. This invitation will remain until the end of time because the Church is apostolic.

This last mark of the Church points to the fact that Christ founded his Church upon the apostles and their successors, the bishops, to give continuity to its mission of evangelization. Christ commissioned his apostles to preach and to teach everything he taught them to others. The apostles, in turn, commissioned their successors, the bishops, to teach future generations of Christians what they received directly from the Lord Jesus. Consequently, in the Catholic Church, the teaching of Christ passes from one generation to the next through the apostles.

These marks of Christ's Church helped the early Christians to shun what we call today Church shopping.

These same marks can help us now to not go shopping for something we already have: the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Legionary Father Andrew McNair is a theology professor at Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, Rhode Island.