(RNS) — Take a look at the Best Christian Album (Spanish Language) category at the Latin Grammys, and you might think the vast majority of Latino Christians in Latin America and the U.S. are evangelical Protestants. Most of the winners have been a rotating collection of evangelical pastors and praise musicians.
But that doesn’t reflect the numbers on the ground. While Catholicism has seen a steep decline among Latinos in the United States and across Latin America, in the two decades since the Latin Grammys added the category, Latino Catholics still outnumber their evangelical counterparts in the U.S. and Latin America by more than 2 to 1.
Evangelical Latino performers benefit from the more established evangelical Christian music industry.
“Christian music has an industry that we don’t have,” said Juan Delgado, the most recent Catholic winner of the award, using “Christian” as shorthand for non-Catholic Christians. Nonetheless, he said, research shows that many Christian music listeners are Catholic.
Now, Delgado and another veteran Latino Catholic musician have partnered up to create their own label with the aim of bringing new professionalism to Spanish-language contemporary Catholic music. “Our goal is to advance Catholic music as an industry,” Delgado said of Via Cantus, the new nonprofit label.
Delgado, a producer as well as a musician, won a Latin Grammy for Best Contemporary Tropical Album in 2007 for his engineering on Oscar D’León’s “Fuzionado” and took home a Spanish-language Christian Latin Grammy in 2019 for his own album, “Todo Pasa.” His co-founder, Pedro Rubalcava, a composer and music minister originally from California’s border area, was nominated for Best Mexican-American Performance for his 1989 album “Amanecer.”
Delgado and Rubalcava, who is now director of Oregon Catholic Press’ label group, had dreamed of a Spanish-language Catholic label for decades, but, inspired by Pope Francis’ call to “go out,” they officially launched Via Cantus in February 2023.
Music has been a key part of Delgado’s faith journey, which began with a severe bout of dengue fever as a teenager in Venezuela. His mother, seeking to ask God to heal him, reached out to a charismatic Catholic community. After he recovered, Delgado said he went early to pick his mother up from Mass, and as he approached the sanctuary, Delgado could see the priest lifting the Host to consecrate it as he heard 800 people sing, “Vive Jesús,” or “Jesus Lives.”
“I was in the presence of God. He let me see him. He let me feel him. And I fell to my knees, and I cried and cried and cried,” Delgado said.
“Music is the language God used to talk to me,” he said. As he moved to becoming a practicing Catholic, he found his path in music ministry.
Oregon Catholic Press, which just celebrated its 100th anniversary, has traditionally focused on creating resources for liturgical music, including hymnals and recordings. With Via Cantus, Rubalcava said that OCP is focusing on non-liturgical music as a “tool for evangelization.”
Delgado, based in Miami, and Rubalcava, based near Portland, Oregon, said Via Cantus, as a division of OCP, will be the first Spanish-language Catholic label with the level of backing that OCP can provide, including a team of music professionals spread throughout Latin America and the U.S.
