May 25, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS – The Latino population is a pastorally challenging polyculture. This diversity requires spiritual caregivers to approach every Hispanic individual with humbleness. To equip ministry professionals in their work with and for Latino/as, the largest minority and fastest-growing group in the U.S., R. Estaban Montilla and Ferney Medina have written Pastoral Care and Counseling with Latino/as, centering their presentation on families and rituals as the heart and soul of the Hispanic community and the key to caregiving.

In that context they unfold a variegated picture of the particular cultural guideposts for Hispanics in the U.S. today, especially their symbols and rituals, attitudes toward health and healing, abiding faith, and contemporary quest for creative agency and dignity. They close by exploring pastoral strategies with issues of discrimination and racism, and contemporary issues in providing pastoral counseling with Latinas and Latinos.

Praise for Pastoral Care and Counseling with Latino/as

"A comprehensive guidebook. . . Montilla and Medina discuss appropriate clinical helping skills and cultural competence by recognizing the importance of spirituality in Latinos' lives and how the family structure and daily life are influenced by this connection to a high power. They have created an informative and pragmatic text on an under-recognized paradigm for helping and healing-the integration of spirituality into the counseling relationship." –Patricia Arrendondo, Ed. D., President, American Counseling Association, Past-President, National Latina/Latino Psychological Association.

R. Esteban Montilla is an ordained minister certified as Chaplain, Pastoral Counselor, and Clinical Supervisor directing the Specialty in Pastoral Counseling program for the Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health, San Antonio, Texas, and the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program for Driscoll Children's Hospital, Corpus Christi, Texas. Ferney Medina is a Board-Certified Clinical Chaplain and Pastoral Counselor serving as the Director of pastoral services for the Mission Regional Medical Center in Mission, Texas. He is a graduate of the Universidad Pontificia Bolivarania, Medellin, Columbia, and St. Thomas University in Houston, Texas.

Pastoral Care and Counseling with Latino/as, Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling series from Fortress Press, By R. Estaban Montilla and Ferney Medina, Item Number: 0-8006-3820-4, Specs: 144 pages, 5.5" x 8.5," paperback, Price: $16.00.

To order Pastoral Care and Counseling with Latino/as please call Augsburg Fortress at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the Web site at http://www.augsburgfortress.org/.

Fortress Press