text: I just listened to a Webinar sponsored by Oregon Catholic Press about Encuentro V.  Members of my diocese (Salt Lake City) have participated in previous ones. Those responding here to this article by keying in on immigration,  have missed the focus and the importance of Encuentro.  It is a process of dialogue, of listening from the ground up, starting at the parish level, moving up to the national level. The objectives are to improve ministry to people of Hispanic spirituality by listening to what problems they face.  The process has its roots in how the Central/Latin American bishops responded to the hemorrhaging of Catholics to fundamentalist churches.  As an outsider looking in, I sense that the Encuentros, both in process and outcome implementation, are responsible for the vitality of Hispanics in the American Catholic Church, especially in the Southwest.  As a life-long US Catholic, I wonder what the English-speaking church might look like if we'd had similar opportunities.