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Texas church to host Latin American-themed service as a celebration and ‘joyful protest’

September 04, 2026

[Episcopal News Service] Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, will host a “Celebrate the Feast” bilingual Latin American Signature Music Mass on Sept. 6. Texas Assistant Bishop Héctor Monterroso will preach. The special service is both a celebration of sacred music traditions from Latin America and the Latin American diaspora and a celebration of the 30th ordination anniversary of its rector, the Rev. Hannah E. Atkins Romero, the first woman ordained a priest in El Salvador. She has been serving as Trinity’s rector since 2007. The service will include prayers for migration ministries and justice for migrants. “We’re wanting all of the songs to reflect Latin American culture and history and be a celebration of the values and goodness that immigrants who are being persecuted in our country now bring to our country,” Romero told Episcopal News Service. “We couldn’t fit every country in Latin America, but there will be a good sampling of genres and classic and contemporary traditions.” Plans for the Latin American Signature Music Mass began in January, after Monterroso was scheduled to make his official bishop’s visitation to Trinity on Sept. 6, which also is Romero’s ordination anniversary. Monterroso and Romero have been good friends since they first met in El Salvador in 1996, the year Romero was ordained. The prayers and music, which will be directed by church musicians Ernesto Vega, Sandra Montes and Paul Mortilla, will reflect the service’s theme, “Cuando el pobre crea en el pobre” – “When the poor believe in the poor.” Trinity’s choir, instrumentalists and musical guests will additionally perform the premiere of two commissioned works composed by Trinity music ministry members, “Trinity Cha-Cha-Cha” by Ernesto Vega and “Canto de Hannah” by Angela Ortiz. “We’re blessed with so many talented musicians here at Trinity, and I’m proud to call them my friends,” Romero said. The service will mostly be in Spanish and English, but one Brazilian musician will sing the hymn “Our Father of the Martyrs” in Portuguese to include Brazil, the largest country in Latin America by population and land area. The service will end with singing a Swahili arrangement of “Siyahamba,” a South African hymn originally written in Zulu, to acknowledge Africa’s heavy influence on Latin American culture, including music. “It’s an embrace of different cultures and a reminder that the church exists not only for itself, but for the sake of the world,” Monterroso told ENS in a phone interview. Dedicating the service to migrants was important for Romero because, she said, “so much has happened lately in Houston.” In July, for example, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived in the United States for 35 years, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas, while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was searching for another individual. As the co-founders of the Houston Migration with Dignity Coalition, Romero and her husband, Elmer Romero, an El Salvador native, led prayer vigils for Araujo and his brother, who was recently released from ICE custody. Prayers will also be dedicated to migrants who are in the United States under a federal program known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, that has long been supported by The Episcopal Church. It allows the Department of Homeland Security to declare certain foreign nationals protected from deportation if they would face hazards in their home countries from conditions such as natural disasters, civil unrest or other violence. Romero noted that TPS for El Salvador is scheduled to end on Sept. 9, and work authorization for certain Venezuelans under TPS is scheduled to end on Oct. 2. The Latin American Signature Music Mass, Romero said, is her ministry’s latest protest – a “joyful protest.” “We wanted to do something joyful in a time of terror and murder and oppression, not in a Pollyanna way, but to come together and still proclaim that God’s love and inclusion is stronger than all the hate and rhetoric out there,” Romero said. Protesting through Latin American music is “appropriate,” according to Monterroso, because their melodies and lyrics have historically been performed as expressions of resistance. “The music is joyful, but it also comes from communities that have learned to sing through suffering, struggle and hope, and I think that understanding has been an important part of Hannah’s formation as a priest and experience in life,” said Monterroso, who is Guatemalan and previously served as bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Costa Rica. “As a priest, many times you must lead pastorally people who suffer and struggle, but at the same time are waiting for hope. …It feels completely natural that the words and rhythms will carry our prayers on this special day.” -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.