History and Mission
The Mexican American Catholic College is an independent, Catholic institution of higher learning. Our College was founded in 1972 by the Archdiocese of San Antonio and the Texas Catholic Conference as the Mexican American Cultural Center for pastoral formation and language study.
At the time, there were no pastoral materials for the growing Spanish speaking communities around the United States. Without well trained leaders and a lack of understanding of the Hispanic culture and traditions, the need for transformative agents seemed insurmountable. For that reason, PADRES and Las Hermanas, a Mexican American priests’ organization and a religious women’s group, respectively, worked with the Texas Catholic Conference and the Archdiocese of San Antonio to create MACC, a cultural center focused on opportunity and need.
When MACC came to fruition and addressed those needs, things improved. Soon, all the liturgical documents used by English-speaking Catholics were translated into Spanish.
MACC quickly became a national center for theological education and the catalyst for development of Hispanic Ministry throughout the U.S. In the 90’s the mission expanded to address systemic racism and foster intercultural understanding through a ministerial formation program accredited by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Certification and Accreditation, and in 2008 it became a Catholic college, the first post-secondary institution in the country to offer a bilingual Bachelor of Arts.
