 He spent the next two years serving in parishes of the archdiocese before he was appointed the Director of Religious Education for the archdiocese, which turned his career to a more academic focus.Lucey relied on him as a liaison to the Mexican-American population and brought Elizondo with him as a translator and advisor to the Conference of Latin American Bishops held in 1968 in Medellin, Colombia, which advanced a progressive agenda for the Catholic Church in the Americas.After this experience, Elizondo returned to San Antonio and soon began to organize the Hispanic population to work to protect its rights.