The Church in the 21st Century Center is a catalyst and a resource for the renewal of the Catholic Church.
C21 Resources, a compilation of the best analyses and essays on key challenges facing the Church today, is published by the Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College, in partnership with publications from which the featured articles have been selected.
c 21 resources editorial board
Patricia Delaney
Patrick Goncalves
Peter G. Martin
Jacqueline Regan
O. Ernesto Valiente
managing editor
Karen Kiefer
guest editor
Peter G. Martin
WE ARE ONE BODY: RACE AND CATHOLICISM
Ddear friends :
How are you? It’s been a long, hard year. In times like these, as we fight against the COVID-19 virus and the evil that is racism, we lean on our faith and ask some hard questions: Why did millions of people have to die from this virus? How can systemic racism continue to marginalize and take the lives of so many people of color? There are no easy answers to these questions, but our Catholic faith can teach us a lot about love, respect, human dignity, and hope.
We have dedicated this issue of C21 Resources magazine, “We are One Body: Race and Catholicism,” to serve as a catalyst for faith conversation on racial equality and justice, knowing that conversation requires listening and listening can lead to understanding and then to action. A special thank you to my colleague Peter Martin and our editorial board for their commitment to publishing a collection of articles on race and Catholicism that offer perspectives, lived experiences, and hope for the future.
As the magazine was ready to go to press, I was reminded of the prophetic words of Sr. Thea Bowman, “Sometimes people think they have to do big things in order to make change. But if each one would light a candle we’d have tremendous light.” Let this resource be a light that awakens us to what we can do to fight for racial equality in our Church and in our world. After all, our faith calls us to live the love of Christ.
Karen K. Kiefer
Director, Church in the 21st Century Center karen.kiefer@bc.edu
the church in the 21 st century center Boston College 110 College Road, Heffernan House Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467 bc.edu/c21 • 617-552-6845
top left: Fr. Michael Davidson, S.J., director of the Thea Bowman AHANA Intercultural Center at Boston College, offers Communion during the Mass of the Holy Spirit on campus. photo credit: Boston College Office of University Communications
bottom left: Students gathered on campus March 22, 2021, to remember the victims of the anti-Asian shooting in Atlanta. photo credit: Olivia Colombo, The Torch, Boston College
top right: Cross with stained glass windows in the background, St. Ignatius Church, Chestnut Hill, MA. photo credit: Boston College Office of University Communications
middle right: Boys praying in church. Photo credit: Getty images
bottom right: Holding hands at Boston College's Martin Luther King, Jr., Unity Breakfast. photo credit: Boston College Office of University Communications
Progress through Understanding
Peter G. Martin
Tthe killing of george floyd on May 25, 2020, will be regarded for years to come as a seminal moment in American history that sparked a long-awaited reckoning on racial justice in the 21st century United States. As much as that moment and the recent killings of other unarmed African Americans have come to define the times i n which we are living, racial injustice has been a part of the American landscape for hundreds of years. As U.S. society has made uneven progress toward racial equality, so too has our very human Catholic Church seen its share of prophetic visionaries as well as those who have undermined efforts to recognize the human dignity of all people.
With this issue of C21 Resources, we explore the relationship of Catholicism in America with questions of race. As Catholics, we have a rich history of social teaching to draw from as we contemplate these issues. Through the selections you find in this magazine, we hope to prompt introspection, spark conversation, and inspire social action. The frank views of some of the authors we have selected can be painful to hear and per-
haps difficult for some readers to reconcile with their own life experiences. However, we feel strongly that the first steps toward progress are listening, dialogue, and greater understanding.
This is not the first time that Boston College or the Church in the 21st Century Center has broached these subjects. The U.S. Catholic Church also has made various efforts to address racism in society and the Church. But we would like this magazine to contribute to a new and sustained discussion about the ways in which Catholics and fellow citizens can be agents of healing and hope.
We have organized this issue along the following lines:
PERSPECTIVES
This section offers some historical context for an examination of the Church and race. How did we get here as a Church and society? We hope that the contemporary and historical pieces we have selected will lead readers to investigate more deeply on their own the topics that are raised.
VOICES
People from various backgrounds have responded to this moment in a number of ways. We have attempted to give voice to the introspection and emotions, including anger, that Catholics and others are feeling at this time. We have included statements by contemporary Church leaders condemning racism as well as selections from Church doctrine on the issue. One highlight is an edited version of Open Wide Our Hearts, the pastoral letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning racism, written in 2018.
HOPES
How can Catholics and our Church help create a more just society? People of goodwill may disagree on the best way forward, but as Christians, our end goal is clear: we must promote the human dignity of all people. We describe the new Forum on Racial Justice in America, one of Boston College’s initiatives to address issues of race and racism in the United States. Several other commentators offer their thoughts on what is needed now.
Catholics of all ethnic and racial backgrounds have the opportunity and the obligation to act against the evil of racism.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, greets people after he celebrates the 50th anniversary Mass for the Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Massachusetts.
We cannot attempt in this short volume to offer a definitive examination of the Church and issues of race. Given the thrust of this moment in history, we have focused on anti-Black racism, touching only lightly on other groups such as Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans, which deserve careful consideration. However, we do hope that this magazine will continue and expand the discussion of racial justice and related issues among our readers and that this conversation will become a permanent fixture of our Church and community. Catholics of all ethnic and racial backgrounds have the opportunity and the obligation to act against the evil of racism. ■
Peter G. Martin is Chairperson of the Steering Committee of the Church in the 21st Century Center and a member of the Steering Committee of Boston College’s Forum on Racial Justice in America. He is Special Assistant to the President at BC.
photo credit : Dave DeMelia/ The Enterprise
Race in the Catholic Imagination
Bishop George V. Murry, S.J.
On September 11, 2017, Bishop George Murry, S.J., of Youngstown, Ohio, spoke at Boston College as a Church in the 21st Century Center Episcopal Visitor. Excerpts from his address are below.
Iin 1989, the united states bishops' committee on Black Catholics issued a statement commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Conference’s only pastoral letter concerning racism, Brothers and Sisters to Us. Sadly, this anniversary committee found little worth celebrating. It concluded:
“The promulgation of the pastoral letter on racism was soon forgotten by all but a few. A survey revealed a pathetic, anemic response from archdioceses and dioceses around the country…”
Two years later, at a symposium celebrating the centennial anniversary of modern Catholic social teaching, Bishop Joseph Francis, one of the first African American bishops in modern times, declared that the lack of attention given to Brothers and Sisters to Us made it “the best kept secret in the Church in this country.” He concluded:
“Social justice vis-à-vis the eradication of racism in our Church is simply not a priority of social concern commissions...While I applaud the concern of such individuals and groups for the people of Eastern Europe, China, and Latin America, that same concern is not expressed…for the victims of racism in this country…”
While racism is America’s most persistent sin, the Catholic Church has continued to be virtually silent about its significance in seminaries, churches, and every other segment of Catholic society. Which leads to the question, Why? What is the place of race in the American Catholic imagination?
...No one can enter full communion if one’s relationship to the other is marked by indifference or oppression.
ROOTS OF RACISM IN THE CATHOLIC IMAGINATION
The issue of slavery is one that historically has been treated with concern by the Catholic Church. Some argued against all forms of slavery while others pressed the case for slavery subject to certain restrictions. Initially, Church teaching made a distinction between “just” and “unjust” forms of slavery, with unjust slavery being that which enslaved those who had been baptized. Pope Eugene IV authored a papal bull, Sicut Dudum, in 1435 [that] condemned the enslavement of indigenous people that had converted to the Faith. A century later as Europe expanded into the Americas, Pope Paul III with his encyclical Sublimis Deus asserted that whoever is endowed with the capability to receive the faith of Christ and receives his Gospel, baptized or not, should “by no means be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property.” Such pronouncements helped to create some apprehensions among Catholic colonists in North America. But as the colonies began to grow, the institution of slavery was so entrenched in their fabric, at least in the South, that the complete abolition of slavery was not considered realistic.
Moreover, anti-Catholic nativism encouraged Catholics to not oppose some cultural ideas that were common among their Protestant neighbors. As a result, many Catholic communities developed an understanding of slavery similar to the Protestant colonists; namely, that masters and slaves, though unequal on earth, were equal in the eyes of God and would enjoy freedom in the next life.
In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued In Supremo, an apostolic letter that condemned the slave trade in the strongest possible terms. By this time, the slave trade and slavery were completely abolished in Britain. Nonetheless, both Spain and Portugal continued to participate in slave trading. Pope Gregory had hoped that this apostolic letter might persuade Spain and Portugal to enforce laws against slave trafficking. It did not, but in the United States, the Pope’s pronouncement initiated a debate within the Catholic community.
While some put forward Gregory’s letter to make the case that the Church opposed any and all forms of slavery, many American Catholic leaders sought to interpret the apostolic letter in the narrowest possible terms in order to minimize its significance…Many bishops in the South were slave owners. For some southern bishops, slavery was not simply an institution that had to be endured but was in fact a blessing for Black people…
Here it is important to point out that this negative attitude toward Blacks in the Catholic community was not unique to the South. Even in the North, the sentiments of the Catholic laity, most of whom were recent immigrants, was decidedly anti-Black. In the years leading up to the Civil War and even after the destruction of institutional slavery, there were few white Catholics who really believed that Blacks were equal to whites.
SEEDS OF HOPE
Despite [this], there was always a remnant of Catholics that worked diligently to advance race relations in the United States. One individual who was responsible for such efforts was Daniel Rudd. By the end of the nineteenth century, Rudd had made himself known to clergy and laity as the leading Catholic representative of the [Black] race. [According to Rudd,] “The Catholic Church alone can break the color line. Our people should help her to do it.”
Rudd developed the idea of a national congress of African American Catholics. Along with the Black lay congress, in 1909, another important movement among Black Catholics began in Mobile, Alabama: the Knights of Peter Claver, a national association for Black men to foster fellowship and bring about a spiritual awareness and interest in the Church’s tradition. In 1922, a ladies’ auxiliary was instituted within the organization.
The Knights and Ladies of Peter Claver became very important in the religious lives of Black Catholics. Many members worked on issues of civil rights and collaborated with organizations like the NAACP and the National Urban League.
Across the Atlantic, the efforts of Black Catholics caught the attention of the Roman Curia. [At the Vatican’s direction,] the Apostolic Delegate to the U.S. launch[ed] a series of initiatives to provide for the spiritual welfare of Black Catholics and further the evangelization of Black Americans as a whole. The Delegate enlisted the help of Father John Burke of New York, who organized the Catholic Board for Negro Missions. Burke’s primary effort was directed toward the creation of a Black Catholic clergy.
Burke’s work is exceptional because of its fairness. Unlike many Catholics of the early twentieth century, Burke, although white, never spoke about Blacks in a condescending and demeaning manner. He made no assumption of Black inferiority. Burke represented a small minority within the Catholic community that
pushed for an end to the racist rhetoric in America, especially within the Catholic community.
From the end of the nineteenth century to 1965, racial segregation was an official legal policy throughout the American South. Nonetheless, there were actions taken by local bishops and priests against the practice...
In 1951, Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans asked his people to end all vestiges of racial separatism within the Church. He worked toward the gradual integration of all Catholic schools, churches, and hospitals. Two years later, Rummel officially declared the end of racial segregation in all New Orleans Catholic institutions in a pastoral letter, “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” However, these clerical denouncements of segregation were regretfully rare, and certainly were not shared universally among the clergy.
During the civil rights movement, eight white Birmingham, Alabama, clergymen denounced [Dr. Martin Luther] King’s civil rights organization as outsiders seeking to destroy the racial harmony of the city. One of the authors was Joseph E. Durick, Auxiliary Bishop of Mobile, Alabama. The state archbishop, Thomas J. Toole, denied priests the right to participate in demonstrations or to speak out against racial segregation.
As a result, most Catholic parishes remained segregated during the first half of the twentieth century. Some dioceses created separate parishes for Blacks. In other areas, Blacks could attend any Catholic church, but often had to sit in the rear and were unable to receive communion until every white parishioner had received. Some parishes even placed screens between the two races.
A social appropriation of “communion ecclesiology” will require a radical conversion by which the Church acknowledges the sinful nature of the systems of oppression within its ecclesial institutions and society. The Church must then seek the forgiveness of those whom she has victimized by her past injustices. Finally, both parties must work together toward human solidarity rooted in their shared emphasis on communion.
Within the Church, this reconciliation must be manifested in the development of more inclusive patterns of relationship between people of color and the Church. These patterns must allow for the full participation of Black, Hispanic, and other people of color who are faithful members of the Church in decision making as well as ministerial and social actions.
The Church must seek the forgiveness of those whom she has victimized by her past injustices.
Still, some Catholics refused to accept segregation. The Southeastern Regional Interracial Commission, founded in 1948 by students of Loyola and Xavier Universities, held interracial Masses on college campuses. The Commission on Human Rights, organized in 1949, held integrated Masses and sent petitions to Church officials demanding integration in southern parishes. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church’s role during segregation and the civil rights movement remained ambiguous.
SO MUCH WORK TO DO
On August 23, 2017, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops established an Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, […focused] on addressing the sin of racism in our society and Church and the urgent need to come together as a nation to find solutions.
The Catholic social justice tradition, as illustrated in the life of Christ and evident in His Gospel, impels the Church to break her silence about the marginalization, devaluation, and systemic oppression of Blacks and Hispanics and other groups within the ecclesial, social, economic, and political institutions of this nation.
If race in the Catholic imagination is to exemplify the love of Christ, it must move forward with the realization that no one can enter full communion if one’s relationship to the other is marked by indifference or oppression.
As we progress, the Church has an opening to acknowledge her past contribution to the evils of racism, to ask forgiveness, and to commit herself to living in communion as the people of God that Jesus envisioned. People can become one with others only if they can speak the truth of their sinful pasts, asking and granting forgiveness and reaching out to each other in a spirit of reconciling love and solidarity. ■
George Vance Murry, S.J. (1948–2020), was the Bishop of Youngstown after previously serving as auxiliary Bishiop of the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Bishop of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. He served as the Chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism. He died in June 2020 from leukemia.
To watch Bishop Murry's full 2017 presentation, visit: bc.edu/c21spring21
Fighting for Interracial Justice
Well in advance of American society and most of his coreligionists, American Jesuit John LaFarge, S.J., condemned racism and promoted racial justice. In 1934, Fr. LaFarge founded the Catholic Interracial Council of New York, the most prominent Catholic organization involved in these issues. The following passage from his groundbreaking 1937 book, Interracial Justice: A Study of the Catholic Doctrine of Race Relations, uses the parlance of the day to make the case.
I“interracial justice...is but a branch of social justice. The alarm that some feel at its mention is parallel to the alarm felt by those who are not fully acquainted with the social-justice program of the Church as applied to other specific groups…As the general attitude of the Church in the matter of social relationships becomes better known, so the applications of the great principles of social justice and charity to the particular field of race relations will be better understood...
“To the white Catholic an interracial program presents the Negro not as a pitiful object of charity, to be added as another troublesome feature to a list of beneficiaries for kindhearted but worried sponsors; nor as a hopeless ‘problem,’ forever thrusting stubborn question-marks into the wheel of human progress. It shows the Negro as a constructive agent in our American civilization, as a mighty factor for national progress and a conserva-
tor of our finest national traditions, as a fruitful and unique contributor to the fullness of our religious life...
“...the success of a program for eradicating race prejudice and establishing social justice is the answer to the majority of the spiritual and material difficulties of those who now labor for the good of the Negro in this country...The two types of work are natural allies, they are aspects of the same program of justice and charity...
“Though the foregoing words are spoken of the Negro alone, they apply to all races and conditions of men. Earthly calculations, earthly selfishness and interest will never be wholly satisfied with the catholicity of a universal Church. Forever will this catholicity be opposed, and just so long will society suffer from its own shortsightedness; for by rejecting God’s wisdom they have rejected human wisdom as well. But the work of the Church does not live by mere earthly calculations. It is inspired by the Divine folly of the Cross, the vision of the Kingdom in which all tribes and races, Jew and Gentile alike, are united in the love and service of a King who in His own Person broke down the wall of partition and erased the handwriting of human hate and prejudice. In proportion as we further the Christian interracial spirit, shall we hasten the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth.” ■
John LaFarge, Jr., S.J. (1880–1963), served as an editor for America for 37 years.
John LaFarge, S.J.
A 1958 gathering of the Catholic Interracial Council of New York, with Father LaFarge second from left.
photo
Black Consciousness in the Church
Fr. Cyprian Davis, O.S.B.
In 1993, Benedictine Fr. Cyprian Davis sat down with the editors of U.S. Catholic Magazine to talk about Black Catholic history and the future of Blacks in the Catholic Church. The interview was reprinted in October 2020. Excerpts from it are below.
HHOW LONG HAVE BLACK CATHOLICS BEEN IN THE UNITED STATES?
Black Catholics arrived with the Spaniards in Florida in the 16th century. There is an article in the American Historical Review that looks at an event known as the Stono Rebellion in Georgia in the 1700s. Some of the slaves who rebelled in that incident had come from the Congo region, part of what is now Angola. The writer hypothesizes that these slaves considered themselves Catholic.
The Congo became Catholic in the 15th century, when the king, Alphonso the Good, converted to Catholicism. After they conquered the area, the Portuguese had converted many Congo natives to Catholicism, so there was definitely a Catholic tradition in the area.
Later there were many Blacks in Maryland and Louisiana who were traditionally Catholic because the Jesuits evangelized them there. But we don’t know for certain how many African slaves might already have been Catholics because the study of the Catholic Church in Africa is still going on.
WERE THERE ANY BLACK RELIGIOUS ORDERS EARLY ON IN AMERICA?
Yes, there were the Oblate Sisters of Providence and the Holy Family Sisters. The Black women who joined these orders became in a sense “super nuns” to prove themselves to all the people who were asking, “Can they make it? Can they do it?” For that reason they became very conscious of the demand that they always do better than everyone else. Much of their expression was less African American than I think would have been the case otherwise.
WERE CATHOLICS PART OF THE ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT?
The abolitionists opposed slavery on moral grounds and were very religious, well-educated people from
establishment backgrounds. Yet many had an intellectual disdain for the Catholic Church. They saw Catholics as lower-class immigrants with a bigoted religion, so Roman Catholics in this country saw the abolitionists as their enemy.
The first bishop in the country who really took a public stand in support of the Union and the emancipation of slaves was Archbishop John Purcell of Cincinnati, who, along with his brother, decried slavery at the outbreak of the Civil War. Later, however, Purcell met his downfall, because Cincinnati became bankrupt and the bishops were not happy that Purcell broke ranks.
Another outspoken Catholic abolitionist was Irish statesman Daniel O’Connell. Out of religious conviction, O’Connell saw slavery as a great evil. He castigated the Irish in America who were sending him money to fight for Irish emancipation from English rule while supporting slavery in the United States.
Claude Maistre, a French priest originally from the Diocese of Troyes in France, who worked a while in the Chicago area and ended up in New Orleans at the time of the Civil War, also took a very strong stand against slavery. In fact, the archbishop told him to stop preaching against slavery, but he refused. Ultimately the archbishop put Maistre’s church under interdict to get him to stop.
WHO WAS THE FIRST
BLACK PRIEST TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF AS BLACK?
The first Black priest who was ordained and identified as being Black was Augustus Tolton. His mother, Martha Chisely Tolton, was a Catholic slave from Kentucky who became part of the dowry of a young lady who married and moved to Missouri. Martha married a slave named Peter Paul Tolton, who was also Catholic…
Martha was insistent that her children get a Catholic education, despite being treated very badly by Catholics. Two priests in Quincy [Missouri], one German and one Irish, befriended Augustus. He then decided he wanted to become a priest, and the two priests tried to find a seminary for him. But no one would accept him.
Eventually the minister general of the Franciscans arranged for him to go to Rome and become a seminarian at the Urban College. It was almost like a fairy tale. He was ordained in 1886.
Tolton was supposed to go to Africa after he was ordained. When the time came, however, the cardinal prefect said that America was a great nation and needed to see a Black priest. So, he sent Tolton back to the United States.
It was a triumphant return, and the whole city of Quincy was there for his first Mass. But after he started work as a pastor of a parish, there was a racial con-
A photo of Cyprian Davis, O.S.B., is seen at St. Katharine Drexel Chapel of Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, surrounded by pictures of four Black candidates for sainthood.
flict between another priest and him. Tolton almost had a nervous breakdown...when word [got] back to the cardinal prefect, he was very upset. Luckily for Tolton, Archbishop Patrick Feehan of Chicago wanted to have a Black priest, so Tolton was sent there and formed the Black parish of St. Monica’s.
Tolton ended up in very bad health and died in 1897. He wrote in one letter that he wished there were 27 different Toltons, because Black people from all over the country were writing to him wanting him to do things for Black people everywhere. Black lay Catholics were very active in those days.
IN WHAT WAYS?
Five Black Catholic Lay Congresses took place between 1889 and 1894. We have the minutes for the first three. An address given in 1893 is extremely interesting because it included participants’ feelings about, their attitudes toward, and their understanding of what it meant to be Catholic and Black. They insisted how proud they were to be Catholic, how grateful they were to the Church, and then went on to say that they had to speak out against the racism that had existed, because it was contrary to Catholic teaching. The conference also determined that part of the Church’s mission should be to deal with social justice issues.
WHAT DID THE CONGRESS PARTICIPANTS DRAW ON FOR THEIR IDEAS AROUND SOCIAL JUSTICE?
One of the things they talked about was their past. They talked about their history in Africa and in the Catholic Church in Africa, and they mentioned the struggles of the Black saints—Augustine, Monica, Cyril of Alexandria, Perpetua, Felicity, and St. Benedict the Moor. What they were doing was exactly what the Irish, the Hungarians, the Poles, and every other Catholic was doing in the 19th century—establishing an ethnic identity with the saints. They created an identity and rooted themselves in the early Church. Their Catholicism was something that they had begun to assimilate.
WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE FIGURES IN BLACK CATHOLIC HISTORY?
Pierre Toussaint really grabs my attention. Toussaint, a Haitian, came with his owner, John Bérard, and Bérard’s wife to New York in the 1780s. Toussaint spoke French very well. He even read and wrote and evidently had a very Catholic training. The Bérards established themselves in New York, and John Bérard sent Toussaint off to be trained as a hairdresser
photo credit : Christine Bordelon/CNS, via Clarion Herald
I remember the arguments—it was a very soul-searching thing.
Bérard went back to Haiti, where he died. He left his widow with Toussaint, who by then had a good-paying job that took him to the houses of the wealthy. He became the confidant of many of his customers. They liked him because he was French, very gentlemanly, and evidently exotic—a violinist with earrings in his ear. But this was also the guy who went to Mass every morning before he began his work.
He kept Madame Bérard alive. She didn’t know it, but all of the assets that her husband had were worthless and she was really living off Toussaint. At the same time he was supporting Madame Bérard, Toussaint engaged in all kinds of acts of charity. Eventually she freed him.
After Madame Bérard’s death, he bought the freedom of his future wife and that of his sister, who died and left her daughter, Euphémie, whom Toussaint raised as his own. He also took in a lot of homeless Black children and taught them how to play the violin. He nursed the sick. He was admired by everyone…
When Toussaint died, there was a tremendous funeral, and everyone agreed that he had been a terribly holy man. He was buried next to Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where no Black people normally were buried. Toussaint practiced the gospel commands, lived an extraordinary life of religion and devotions, and helped both Black and white people at a cost to himself.
I hope Toussaint will be canonized, because it would be the canonization of someone who was a layman, a Black, a devoted husband, and a father to his niece.
DID BLACK CATHOLIC CLERGY GET INVOLVED IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS CALL?
The National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus was formed in 1968 in Detroit in the wake of the riots that started after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Herman Porter, a Joliet, Illinois, priest who was part of the Midwest Clergy Conference for Interracial Justice, said it was time for Black priests to do something…
It was the first time that Black Catholic priests ever got together as a group. It was mind-boggling, because the younger priests were very radical. One of the priests decided to draw up a manifesto that stated that the Roman Catholic Church in the United States was a white racist institution.
HOW DID THAT GO
OVER?
I remember the arguments—it was a very soul-searching thing. I remember one of the other priests yelling that nonviolence died when Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. There was all sorts of arguing going on. Finally, they drew up 10 demands addressed to the American bishops.
The letter was published…[T}he demands were rather reasonable...the letter asked that the clergy who
came into the Black community be educated regarding Blacks. It asked for encouragement of Black vocations. From that time on, the Black consciousness movement reached Catholic priests, sisters, and seminarians. That was a good thing.
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE CHURCH WILL OFFER BLACK CATHOLICS IN THE FUTURE?
We’re growing. In terms of race, we are a Church where Black and brown people now outnumber those who are white.
It is no longer outside the realm of possibility or even probability that there may be elected in the course of the 21st century a Black African pope. There certainly are cardinals who are capable. And it is probably more likely than a Polish pope was 20 or 30 years ago.
The Church in this country reflects the problems of the country, which has yet to solve the question of race; that has been America’s tragic flaw. We have never really come to grips with race. We went through the civil rights movement, but...there’s still an awful separation between people. The Church for a long time did not take a stand. It has started to.
I believe we will see a stronger, better educated, and more committed Black Catholic community in the future. That is the best news that the American Catholic Church could have, because it has a group of people who are dedicated and are going to make contributions.
In each diocese some of the strongest constituents are and will be Black Catholics. Black Catholics have something to give in terms of a moral sense and an appreciation of what it means to be a family, to be educated, to create hope, to help turn around the attitudes of young people who have so little moral fiber. But we, as Black Catholics, have got our job cut out for us in bringing about the regeneration of a whole people. We can do it; I think that’s our opportunity.
But it’s also the responsibility of the entire Catholic Church. That’s part of what evangelization is. Evangelization is our task and the whole social questions must be part of the agenda of the American Catholic Church. There is no other way. We just can’t ignore it anymore. ■
Cyprian Davis, O.S.B. (1930–2015), was an African American monk and renowned chronicler of Black Catholic history. He was an ecclesial historian of St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana.
Excerpted with express permission from U.S. Catholic , 205 W. Monroe St., Chicago, IL 60606; uscatholic.org. To read the article in its entirety, please visit: https://uscatholic.org/articles/202010/in-thebeginning-there-were-black-catholics/
The Church Speaks Out on Human Dignity
“The equality of men [and women] rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: ‘Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.’“
Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), #1935, cf. Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965), 29:2
“Despite the widespread aspiration to build an authentic international community, the unity of the human family is not yet becoming a reality. This is due to obstacles originating in materialistic and nationalistic ideologies that contradict the values of the person integrally considered in all his [or her] various dimensions, material and spiritual, individual and community. In particular, any theory or form whatsoever of racism and racial discrimination is morally unacceptable.“
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), 433
“My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.“
Pope Francis, June 3, 2020
Sister Thea Bowman and Catholic Spirituality
I got a crown up in-a that kingdom, Ain’t-a that good news!
I got a crown up in-a that kingdom, Ain’t-a that good news!
I’mma gonna lay down this world, Gonna to shoulder up-a my cross, Gonna to take it home-a to my Jesus, Ain’t-a that good news!
Happy new year
— “Ain’t That Good News,” a Negro spiritual
Iit‘s been nearly 30 years since Sr. Thea Bowman famously declared to a gathering of the U.S. Catholic bishops that her “Black self,” with all the Black songs, dances, and traditions she’d imbibed while growing up in Canton, Mississippi, was a gift to the Church.
“That doesn’t frighten you, does it?” she asked them, her eyebrows raised. By the time Bowman, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, took the stage in front of the bishops, she was already something of a celebrity. The dashiki-wearing, gospel-singing Black nun had been preaching the legitimacy of Black religious expression in the Catholic Church since the early 1960s. For that work, she’d been featured on 60 Minutes and The 700 Club and invited all over the country to speak. Bowman was Black and proud. And authentically Catholic.
The idea that Black religious expression isn’t truly Catholic was and is pervasive, said C. Vanessa White, an assistant professor at Catholic Theological Union who
teaches Black spirituality, including a course on Bowman’s writings. Some white Catholics are quick to dismiss as non-Catholic anything—like Bowman’s gospel songs and Negro spirituals—that seem too Black.
“People say, ‘Oh, you’re being Baptist; this is not Catholic,’” White said. But what those people fail to understand, and what Bowman sought to explain, is that spirituality—the ways believers exist and act—is inherently cultural.“If the leaders are all white, then that spirituality is going to be shaped by that cultural group,” she said.
Black people, of course, are not a monolith. However, the shared experience of enduring the United States’ systematic brutality against them has left a real and observable mark on how Black communities across denominations experience God.
“Black people, in ages past, have traditional ways of teaching the children to rejoice in grief, in adversity, in oppression, in slavery,” Bowman told [a] reporter...“It’s that kind of joy that helps a person keep going in faith.”
Some Africans were already Catholic when they were trafficked to the United States between 1619 and 1860. Others were outfitted with Catholicism when they became the property of Catholic slaveholders in Maryland and Louisiana. But the majority of Black Catholic families in the United States became Catholic after the Great Migration that began in 1915.
Forsaking the South, Black people began moving en masse into the urban centers of the North, filling the vacancies in formerly white Catholic schools and churches created by white flight into the suburbs. Respectability politics—the belief that Black people can gain white acceptance through respectable behavior—began taking
Dawn Araujo-Hawkins
hold in Black communities. Many middle-class Black Christians eschewed the religious expressions and denominations they’d grown up with, believing them to be too déclassé.
A European assimilation model carried the day within most 20th-century Catholic institutions. Even predominantly Black parishes were led by white priests and prioritized European-born spiritualities that frowned upon parishioners dancing in the aisles or punctuating homilies with shouts of “Amen!”
This was the state of affairs in the U.S. Catholic Church in 1953, when 15-year-old Bowman traveled the nearly 900 miles from Canton to La Crosse, Wisconsin, to become the first Black Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, the community of sisters that had educated her.
Although Bowman had converted to Catholicism six years earlier, up until that point, she’d always been surrounded by robustly Black religious expression. She herself had dabbled in historically Black Protestant denominations like the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Baptist Church before becoming Catholic. But there were no other Black Christians in La Crosse, and, according to the authors of the 2009 Bowman biography, Thea’s Song: The Life of Thea Bowman, the void of Black spirituality was a shock to the young Bowman.
Sister of St. Mary of Namur Roberta Fulton, current president of the National Black Sisters’ Conference, said organizing in such a way was an important step in standing up for the dignity of Black Catholics.
“We came together to promote not only positive self-image among ourselves and our people but to build up the spirituality” she said. “It was being able to say, ‘Yes, African American women can be vowed women religious and share our spirituality with the Catholic Church—and bring forth our gift of Blackness where we are not just promoting ourselves but we are always, always wanting to be about the business of our people.’”
Bowman was one of the founding members of the National Black Sisters’ Conference in 1968 and remained an active member until her death from bone cancer in 1990. In 1980, Bowman became a charter faculty member of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans, where she taught liturgical worship and preaching.
The idea that Black religious expression isn’t truly Catholic was and is pervasive.
Just before Bowman died, a group of students from the Institute for Black Catholic Studies visited her at her Canton home. White was among those students, and she recalls that although Bowman had, by that point, largely lost the ability to vocalize, at the end of the visit, she expressed a desire to sing one of her beloved gospel songs.
“It was...a challenge to refrain from whole-body, whole-spirit, whole-voice living,” they write. “She learned it was not ‘proper’ to sashay, to sway, to prance, to dance, to break into song at the least provocation any time of day or night. She strove to please, and mostly she hid her cultural identity.”
Two things happened in the 1960s that would electrify Black spirituality in the Catholic Church.
First, a swelling Black-pride movement convinced many young Black Catholics that being Black was nothing to be ashamed of. Second, the Second Vatican Council confirmed what some Black Catholics had come to suspect: Black spirituality was just as valid an expression of Catholicism as the European-born spiritualities they’d been taught.
Black Catholics in the ’60s sought more authentic expressions of their faith, there was a proliferation of Black Catholic organizations, including the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus and the National Black Sisters’ Conference.
“For me that was a testament to the power of Black spirituality as a source of healing,” White said. “To heal not only wounds but to help one cope through times of trouble and immense pain.” ■
Dawn Araujo-Hawkins was a staff writer at Global Sisters Report from 2014 to 2019, writing primarily about the intersections of religion, race, and gender.
This article was originally printed in the March 2018 Global Sisters Report under the title, “Black spiritual traditions have a long history in the Catholic Church.” It was reprinted with permission of the author and the Global Sisters Report .
You can find the original article by searching here: www.ncronline.org. To read the Boston College honorary doctorate citation in full visit: bc.edu/c21spring21
the thea bowman ahana and intercultural center: Sr. Thea Bowman (December 29, 1937 – March 30, 1990) was awarded an honorary Doctor of Religion from Boston College in 1989. Boston College honored her legacy with the naming of the Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center on campus. The Center supports the undergraduate community—with a particular focus on AHANA (people of African, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American descent), multicultural, multiracial, and OTE (Options Through Education) scholars—in navigating college life and fulfilling their potential.
A photo of Martin Luther King, Jr., hangs in Saint Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.
Racism’s Sin
M. Shawn Copeland
In a 2014 essay, that still resonates today, Boston College theologian M. Shawn Copeland considers racism within American society and the U.S. Catholic Church and the emergence of Black theology as part of the fight for human dignity for all people.
Ffor white people living in the united states, the entanglement of Christianity with chattel slavery and anti-Black racism forms a set of deep and confusing paradoxes. As a nation, we understand ourselves in terms of freedom, but we have been unable to grapple with our depriving Blacks of freedom in the name of white prosperity and with our tolerance of legalized racial segregation and discrimination. As a nation, we have been shaped by racism, habituated to its presence, indifferent to its lethal capacity to inflict lingering human damage. Too often, Christians not only failed to defy slavery and condemn tolerance of racism; they supported it and benefited from these evils and ignored the very gospel they had pledged to preach.
Not surprisingly, 11 a.m. on Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour in Christian America, yet most white Christian theologians have given little attention to slavery or racism. In the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black liberation theologian James H. Cone denounced the lukewarm responses of mainline Protestant and Catholic Christians to the plight of Black Americans as well as the willful blindness of Christian theologians. He declared racism to be America’s original sin and proposed the concept of Black theology.
Most Catholics have heard little, if anything, about Black theology, and given our national insistence that we now live in a “post-racial age,” many may wonder whether such a theology is at all relevant. Recurring public acknowledgments of landmark events in the modern Black struggle for civil rights provide opportunities for reflection on our nation’s recent past and for an examination of conscience.
TIME OF TURMOIL
The years extending roughly from 1954 to 1968 remain a controversial yet pivotal period in American history. These 14 years were marked indelibly by the courage and suffering, prayer, and resolve of American women and men of all races and religions who dedicated themselves to secure basic civil rights for the disenfranchised, the segregated, and oppressed Black women and men of the nation. These were the years of Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery bus boycott, Dr. King’s leadership of the civil rights movement, the involvement of Black and white college students in sit-ins, freedom rides, and voter registration drives. These were years of bombings and burnings; of police wielding batons, water cannons, and cattle-prods; of sanctioned torture and murder of Blacks and those whites who fought for justice alongside them; of protest and marching, mourning, and rebellion. Montgomery, Little Rock, Jackson, the Mississippi Delta, Selma, Birmingham, Cicero, Memphis, Watts, and Detroit were other stations of the cross.
Given Dr. King’s thoroughgoing appeal to the Hebrew prophets and the teachings of Jesus, the civil rights movement could not but present a challenge to the consciences of Christians and Jews. Catholic vowed religious women and men, along with priests, seminarians and lay people, Jewish rabbis, and Protestant pastors and ministers, joined protests and marches; several Catholic members of Congress supported civil rights legislation; bishops of many Christian churches denounced racism as a sin; and some Catholic bishops either integrated parochial schools under their direct control or condemned publicly the most egregious instances of discrimination. Many individual Catholics made a difference. But what John Deedy argued in his 1987 book American Catholicism: And Now Where? still rings true: the Catholic Church in the United States, as an institution, had a marginal effect on the civil rights movement.
Despite passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the masses of Black people in the United States remained disenfranchised, segregated, discriminated against, and mired in poverty. Sidelined by intentional presidential and bureaucratic refusals to deploy government resources and enforcement, these laws proved to be little more than legislative gestures. When in 1966 Stokely Carmichael, then chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, took up the phrase “Black Power,” he disrupted the ethos of the civil rights movement and captured the frustration many Blacks had begun to feel about nonviolence as a strategy for social empowerment.
The notion of Black Power was freighted with manifold meanings. In an economic sense, Black Power called for Black ownership and control of economic and institutional resources in Black communities—housing and schools, businesses and industries, banks and health care, land and real estate. Supporters of Black Power reasoned that even if Blacks were guaranteed the exer-
cise of political rights, without economic resources they remained locked in a distinctive type of colonial subjugation and economic exploitation. In cultural expression, Black Power advanced an aesthetic aimed to eradicate the internalized self-hatred that extended and deepened the psychic effects of slavery.
Cultural nationalism promoted research, adoption, and creative adaptation of African rituals and practices, but too often in uncritical ways. Since Blacks already were racially segregated in schools and housing, Black Power argued its embrace as separation and demanded that Blacks build up their communities and ebonize academic curricula.
Black theology emerged from the existential, discursive, and cultural energy generated in Black people’s struggle for human dignity, liberation, and flourishing. Through Black theology, James Cone aimed to demonstrate that, as he wrote in his book For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church, “the politics of Black Power was the Gospel of Jesus to twentieth-century America.” Just as Jesus put his ministry at the service of “the little ones”—the physically impaired and ill, the outcast and the poor—so, too, Black Power was committed to the liberation of the Black outcast and poor from oppression. In his 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power, Professor Cone questioned the meaningfulness of the gospel to:
powerless Black [people] whose existence is threatened daily by the insidious tentacles of white power. Is there a message from Christ to the countless number of Blacks whose lives are smothered under white society? Unless theology can become “ghetto theology,” a theology which speaks to Black people, the gospel has no promise of life for Black [people]—it is a lifeless message.
Despite the passionate language and polemical tone of the book, James Cone’s theology remained a Christian theology, taking into account the complex religiosity of the enslaved Africans and their descendants as well as the tradition of radical advocacy of the historic Black Church. Professor Cone sought to give voice to the seething pain Black people felt at the betrayal of the gospel through the indifference and racist behaviors of too many white Christian clergypersons and lay people. Thus, he distinguished sharply between sacred Scripture as the word of God and sacred Scripture as it had been manipulated to serve the social and cultural interests of white Protestant and Catholic churches and their memberships. Black theology demanded a new consideration of the cultural matrix that is the United States in light of God’s revelation in Jesus of Nazareth.
AGAINST ‘ELEGANT RACISM’
Under James Cone’s inspiration and practical commitment to training doctoral students, for more than 45 years, theologians of the Black theology movement have
sustained within Protestant Christianity one of the most provocative, intellectually stimulating, and methodologically innovative movements in Christian thought in North America.
Black theological reflection calls attention to the perspective of oppressed Black men and women as its point of departure; critically probes the meanings and consequences of the religious, historical, cultural, and social experiences of Black people in the United States; critiques the schism between Christian practice and Christian teaching in relation to race and gender; and contests the persistence of white supremacy and racism.
Public displays of vicious anti-Black racial animus have become rare, although racially reactionary opinions are not hard to find. Disdain for these reactionary comments can afford us moments of self-congratulation: “We are colorblind. We have put race behind us; we have elected an African American as president.” But our self-righteous reactions to displays of boorish racism distract us from what Ta-Nehisi Coates aptly described in The Atlantic as “elegant racism,” which is “invisible, supple, enduring.”
Elegant racism is embedded in our vicious national practices of housing discrimination, redlining, and real estate covenants. “Housing discrimination is hard to detect,” Mr. Coates writes, “hard to prove, and hard to prosecute.” Elegant racism constricts Black and Latino access to adequate public transportation, first-rate schools, good jobs, good quality supermarkets, and adequate public services. Elegant racism accounts for the disproportionate rates of incarceration of African Americans and Latinos in comparison with whites; elegant racism explains what Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow describes as the “sevenfold increase in the prison population in less than 30 years due to [putatively] rising crime in poor communities of color.” Racism, Mr. Coates writes, is “elegant, lovely, monstrous,” sinful, and evil. Racism, America’s original sin, makes Black theology crucial and the collaborative theological critique of racism among white theologians necessary.
In 1979, reportedly at the urging of their Black confreres, the Catholic bishops of the United States issued a pastoral letter on racism, “Brothers and Sisters to Us.” The bishops defined racism as an enduring evil in society and in Church. Racism, they stated, is a sin that divides the human family, blots out the image of God among specific members of that family, and violates the fundamental human dignity of those called to be children of the same Father. Yet we have a way to go before we can claim to live out these truths fully as a Church. John Deedy’s assessment of Catholics and race rings as true today as it did 30 years ago: the Church as a whole has never gone “out of its way to make Blacks feel welcome as Catholics” in the United States.
Few white Catholic theologians have engaged with the topic of racism or placed the condition of Black Americans at the heart of their scholarly work. The recent work of Black Catholic historians and theolo-
gians—Cyprian Davis, O.S.B.; Cecilia Moore; Diane Batts Morrow; Bishop Edward Braxton; Shawnee-Marie Daniels-Sykes, S.S.N.D.; Diana Hayes; Bryan Massingale; LaReine-Marie Mosely; Jamie T. Phelps, O.P.; and C. Vanessa White—has enlarged our knowledge of Black Catholic experience and enriched Catholic theological and ethical reflection.
But a new generation of white Catholic theologians has begun to alert us to the stranglehold white racist supremacy maintains on our Church and society—women and men like Jeremy Blackwood, Laurie Cassidy, Katie Grimes, Alexander Mikulich, Maureen O’Connell, Margaret Pfeil, Christopher Pramuk, and Karen Teel.
Scholars like these, both Black and white, work in the service of faith—exposing racism’s sin against the body of Christ, its defilement of the sacrament and celebration of the Eucharist, its disruption of the bonds of charity and love that draw us into union with God and one another, and its mockery of the self-gift of the One who nourishes us with his very flesh and blood. ■
M. Shawn Copeland is a retired American womanist and Black Catholic theologian who taught at Boston College. She is known for her work in theological anthropology and political theology. Copeland was the first African American theologian to receive the John Courtney Murray Award, the Catholic Theological Society of America’s highest honor.
This article appeared in full in the July 7–14, 2014, issue of America Magazine with the title, “Black Theology and a legacy of oppression,” and is reprinted with permission of America Press, Inc., 2021. All rights reserved. For subscription information, call 1-800-627-9533 or visit www.americamagazine.org
Listen to M. Shawn Copeland’s GodPod (podcast) titled, Enfleshing the Freedom of Black Lives: Resistance, Solidarity and Hope at bc.edu/c21spring21
Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love
A Pastoral Letter against Racism
In 2018, the U.S. Bishops penned their second pastoral letter on racism, nearly 40 years after their first. This letter reflects on the dignity of every human person and establishes the Church’s moral imperative to combat racism as a life issue.
The text, excerpted below, draws lessons from current and historical experiences of several groups —including African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Native Americans—while acknowledging that many ethnic groups and nationalities have been and are still affected by different forms of racial discrimination and hatred.
Aas bishops of the catholic church in the United States, we want to address one particularly destructive and persistent form of evil. Despite many promising strides made in our country, racism still infects our nation…
Racism arises when—either consciously or unconsciously—a person holds that his or her own race or ethnicity is superior, and therefore judges persons of other races or ethnicities as inferior and unworthy of equal regard. When this conviction or attitude leads individuals or groups to exclude, ridicule, mistreat, or unjustly discriminate against persons on the basis of their race or ethnicity, it is sinful. Racist acts are sinful because they violate justice. They reveal a failure to acknowledge the human dignity of the persons offended, to recognize them as the neighbors Christ calls us to love (Mt 22:39)…
Racism comes in many forms. It can be seen in deliberate, sinful acts. In recent times, we have seen bold expressions of racism by groups as well as individuals. The re-appearance of symbols of hatred, such as nooses and swastikas in public spaces, is a tragic indicator of rising racial and ethnic animus. All too often, Hispanics and African Americans, for example, face discrimination in hiring, housing, educational opportunities, and incarceration. Racial profiling frequently targets Hispanics for selective immigration enforcement practices, and African Americans, for suspected criminal activity. There is also the growing fear and harassment of persons from majority Muslim countries. Extreme nationalist ideologies are
feeding the American public discourse with xenophobic rhetoric that instigates fear against foreigners, immigrants, and refugees. Finally, too often racism comes in the form of the sin of omission, when individuals, communities, and even churches remain silent and fail to act against racial injustice when it is encountered.
Racism can often be found in our hearts—in many cases placed there unwillingly or unknowingly by our upbringing and culture. As such, it can lead to thoughts and actions that we do not even see as racist, but nonetheless flow from the same prejudicial root. Consciously or subconsciously, this attitude of superiority can be seen in how certain groups of people are vilified, called criminals, or are perceived as being unable to contribute to society, even unworthy of its benefits. Racism can also be institutional, when practices or traditions are upheld that treat certain groups of people unjustly. The cumulative effects of personal sins of racism have led to social structures of injustice and violence that make us all accomplices in racism…
What is needed, and what we are calling for, is a genuine conversion of heart, a conversion that will compel change, and the reform of our institutions and society. Conversion is a long road to travel for the individual. Moving our nation to a full realization of the promise of liberty, equality, and justice for all is even more challenging. However, in Christ we can find the strength and the grace necessary to make that journey. In this regard, each of us should adopt the words of Pope Francis as our own: let no one “think that this invitation is not meant for him or her.”
All of us are in need of personal, ongoing conversion. Our churches and our civic and social institutions are in need of ongoing reform. If racism is confronted by addressing its causes and the injustice it produces, then healing can occur. In that transformed reality, the headlines we see all too often today will become lessons from the past. ■
To read the pastoral letter in full, visit: bc.edu/c21spring21
Spreading the Seeds of the Gospel
An Interview with Gloria Purvis
Gloria Purvis, formerly the longtime host of the EWTN radio show Morning Glory, was interviewed for the Catholic Standard’s Black Catholic Voices series on Dec. 11, 2020, at the St. Ursula Chapel of the Archdiocese of Washington’s Pastoral Center in Hyattsville, Maryland. In the interview, Purvis discussed why she believes, as a Catholic, that seeking racial justice and opposing racism are pro-life issues.
Why do you consider the cause for racial justice, and the need to combat racism, as pro-life issues?
GLORIA PURVIS – Well, let me just start by saying that racism is a sin and people go to hell for it. They can go to hell for it. That’s primarily why the Catholic Church is involved with issues of racism. It is not a political issue. It is a matter of people’s souls. And the reason it is a pro-life issue is because at the heart of racism is a denial of the dignity of the human person, and pro-life matters deal with the dignity of the human person. I mean, that’s a crux of the issue. It’s the same gospel imperative to defend life in the womb as it is to defend the dignity of the human person who is Black.
And this country has a long history of basically embracing the demon of racism, and it has its effects. You can’t have centuries of evil embraced and naively think that it doesn’t have consequences, that it wouldn’t have a ripple effect. And the other thing that I think that people miss in the discussion on racism is the harm that has
come to white people as well. For some reason people always and everywhere only think of the person that is oppressed, but never think of the harm that comes to the people who have been seduced by that kind of ideology, twisted by that kind of social conditioning. It’s so much so that we forget the harm that happens to the entire human family.
God made us all of royal status, because we were made in His image and likeness. Racism says, “No, God is a liar, only some people are worthy of a royal status,” and that’s simply not true. That’s a lie from the pit of hell, and that is why we as Catholics should be involved in the racial justice movement and recognize it is very much at its heart a movement of a pro-life cause, because it deals with the dignity of the human person.
Cardinal Gregory has noted that while the nation confronts the coronavirus, it must also address the virus of racism. What do you think the Catholic Church should do as an institution to combat racism, and what can and should individual Catholics do?
GLORIA PURVIS – First of all, the Catholic Church needs to remind people that racism again is a sin, and it is a sin that imperils your eternity with God. It imperils your soul, and this is why we as Catholics are concerned about racism, because it is a matter of sin. Sometimes I think people think it’s merely a political issue, and we need to recognize this is about salvation. So, number one, we need to do that, address it as actually a sin.
Number two, I think the Church also should have a reckoning with any place in the Church where instead of
God made us all of royal status, because we were made in His image and likeness.
mirroring the gospel, we mirror the prevailing attitudes at the time. Instead of being a place where people could come in and see what we really believe about the human person and (see) it was a place free of racism, it wasn’t that in all cases. And so we should talk about that history and try to make amends for it.
I think one of the beautiful things about Catholicism is that in our spirituality, we often make reparations for sins. When people say, “I didn’t own slaves. I didn’t this, I didn’t do that,” I’m like, you’re a Catholic and you’re saying this? My goodness! Jesus Christ never committed a sin, but He took up the cross for us. Who are we as Catholics to not want to take up a cross or make reparations for these sins? And we also need to remember that sin is chiefly an offense against God. And what Catholic, because we love God, would not want to make reparations for that?
So these are the things we can do as a Church, admit that it is a sin, talk about our history. As Catholics we can make spiritual acts of reparation, and we can also read our bishops’ statements about racism. Pray on it. Ask the Lord to reveal those places in our lives where we may not be aware that we are affected by racism. I would say those are the main things for starters that the Church can do and that Catholics should try to do.
How have you kept the faith, both your Catholic faith and your faith for our country, over the years despite this “virus” of racism that has infected both, and what gives you hope for a better future for our Church and for our country?
GLORIA PURVIS – I kept the faith because like I said, when I came into the Church, as a child at age 12, I had a mystical experience during adoration where I came to know that He (Jesus) was alive and really present during adoration, and I’ve never forgotten that. I’ve never forgotten that fundamental truth about what we believe. And so it’s sort of been like a glue, sort of like a barnacle on the side of the ship of the Church. There’s no getting me loose, okay?
And I also don’t judge the Church by the actions of others. I mean, I am a sinner too, and while I can marvel at other people committing sin, I myself think about, well, I did too. I do too. And so I recognize that we’re human, and it is through God’s mercy that we can always begin again, we can always convert, we can always try again. And so that has been my hope as well as we deal with the demon of racism and try to exorcise it out of the Church and out of this country.
We realize every time we fall into that particular sin we can go to confession and get up again and try to do better. I mean this is our walk, right, it’s to get holy or die trying. And so I don’t let sinfulness of others make me forget the truthfulness of the Church, who she’s built upon, who is really present in the sacraments. No one else’s bad behavior is going to separate me from He who I say I love. I can never walk away from the eucharistic table. I could never walk away from the sacrament of reconciliation because of other people’s bad behavior, even if that bad behavior involves people who are of the clergy. I am not going to abandon Jesus because others do. I just couldn’t. And so I take that approach.
In terms of faith, that’s what keeps me here. I know who is really present, and I know that humanity has fallen and that we’re weak, and that’s why we have a sacrament of reconciliation, always to come back to Him.
And so that kind of hope is what also makes me have faith in our society, because as we as a Church purify ourselves and continue conversion and pray to God to ask for His graces upon our country, I believe that we change our country as well. It’s a spiritual work, and it’s going to take time, but we have to persevere in the faith.
And I also know that Jesus Christ has already won the victory. The job for us now is just to continue in the battle and to spread the seeds of the gospel. We may not be blessed to see the increase, but we know that the Holy Spirit will make those seeds grow as long as people cooperate. But my job is not to naysay it because I’m not seeing cooperation now. My job is to continue persevering in the faith and loving Jesus Christ. And that’s what I’m going to do because I owe allegiance to Him, who I love. ■
That We May Be One
Fr. Joshua Johnson
A PERSONAL INVITATION
M
my mother is catholic and white, and my father is Methodist and Black. They raised our family in the Catholic Church, but I never really felt connected to the Church and didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. I lived a lifestyle that was not conducive to becoming a saint.
My mom made us go to religious education classes, and one of my friends was a white girl who recognized that there were only a few Black kids in our class and
never any Black kids in youth group. She was intentional about making us feel seen and welcome. The summer before my senior year, she invited me to a Catholic youth conference. I didn’t want to go, but for some reason I said, “Yes, I would love to.”
On Saturday night during the conference, Bishop Sam Jacobs processed the Blessed Sacrament through the crowd of thousands of teenagers. For the first time in my life, I perceived that the Eucharist was in fact the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. The first words
Fr. Josh Johnson with community members at the Full of Grace Café in St. Amant, Louisiana.
I perceived from him were, “I love you,” and from that moment, I knew I wanted to be in a relationship with Jesus—specifically in the Eucharist—for the rest of my life.
I then perceived an invitation to discern the priesthood. I initially said no, but over time I began to desire to become a priest. After eight years of formation, I was ordained on May 31, 2014.
‘I WANT MY CHURCH ON EARTH TO LOOK LIKE THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN.’
WE ARE ONE BODY
My greatest desire is to console the heart of Jesus; and in John 17, Jesus reveals his heart’s desire for us. He prays to the Father that there may be unity—that we may be one as he and the Father are one.
I think this is a unique time in history, and God has created us to bring about unity and renew and restore the body of Christ.
For years I have been speaking as a biracial man about healing the racial divide in this country; it’s in my DNA. In recent days, I’ve been so inspired by the number of Catholics who have shared with me that for the first time in their lives they feel inspired by God to pray, fast, and work with others to really bring about racial reconciliation.
St. Paul says that we must make up for what is lacking in the suffering of the body of Christ (cf. Col 1:24). Every Catholic is responsible for every member of the body. If any member is suffering, whether they’re white, Black or brown, we are all responsible for that member. I must offer up penances and sacrifices in spiritual reparation to bring about reconciliation with the entire community.
It’s a biblical spiritual practice to repent not only of our sins but for the sins of others. I encourage people who have never said the N-word or have never participated in an institution that discriminated against people of color to repent on behalf of other Christians who have never said “I’m sorry” to God. I encourage people to pray the rosary for this specific intention as well as for the souls of our ancestors who have not repented.
A SEAT AT THE TABLE
We need to start with silence and prayer—listening and spending time with the Lord. We must also spend time with, listen to, and learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ who have been hurting. We need to fast from speaking so that we can hear their stories about how
they’ve been impacted by unjust policies and practices and by racial prejudice and discrimination.
One of the stories I love to share is about Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans [a West Roxbury, Massachusetts, native and former auxiliary bishop of Boston]. He noticed that a lot of faithful Black Catholics were leaving the Church, so he invited them to sit at his table. He heard something that shocked him: Catholic churches and organizations were hosting gatherings at a local country club that would not allow Black membership. This wasn’t the ’70s; this was the 2000s.
Archbishop Hughes responded by writing a pastoral letter against racism. Then a lot of Catholics began to stand up against it and began to pull their money out of that country club, which eventually changed its practice.
There are a lot of practical ways to make things right in the body of Christ today. Support Catholic schools in your diocese that primarily serve minority communities and are struggling financially. Look at handbook policies and see if there is anything there that might be discriminating against people of color. Add more artwork depicting saints who were Black and brown, Asian and indigenous—not just European saints, whom I love.
I believe that we have to take seriously the commandment of Jesus, “Go out and make disciples of all nations.” The word “nations” is actually translated from the Greek “ethnos,” which is where we get the word “ethnicity.” When St. John had a vision of heaven in the Book of Revelation, he said, “Behold, I see people of different races, nations, and tongues” (cf. Rev 7:9). Our goal as Catholics should be this: I want my Church on earth to look like the Church in heaven. This is how I want my parish community, my Knights of Columbus council, my Bible study group, my diocese, and my nation to look—with every member abiding in personal, intentional, consistent relationship with each other. And until my earth is like heaven, I have a lot of work to do. ■
Fr. Josh Johnson is the pastor of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Louisiana and is the Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Baton Rouge. He hosts the Ascension programs Altaration, YOU: Life, Love, and the Theology of the Body, and Ask Father Josh.
This article appeared in the July 2020 issue of Columbia magazine and is reprinted with permission of the Knights of Columbus, New Haven, CT: kofc.org.
How Long, O Lord?
Mario Powell, S.J.
“How long, O lord?” When injustice prevails, and the poor are ground into despair.
George Floyd.
Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Oscar Grant.
“How long, O Lord?” Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
Eric Garner. Trayvon Martin. Tamir Rice. Emmett Till.
Tthese are names we know, and these are the words of Psalm 13. After the death of yet another Black man they are my words as well. The psalmist is angry, questioning why God has not acted. The stench of sin filled the nostrils of God. God smelled it, tasted it. As of old, it is again today.
As a 38-year-old Black Jesuit priest, this is a familiar smell for me. It stinks. Its smell and the reactions it provokes in Black Americans is impossible to avoid.
The video of the murder of George Floyd stinks as well. I have undergone periods of paralysis, disbelief, anger, numbness, fear, and despair since watching those agonizing nine minutes.
I am in disbelief that George Floyd’s death is yet another Black male body that has been brutalized and murdered right in front of my eyes. I am angry at the banal and vanilla statements put out by many, including Catholic leaders. I have become numb by the sheer number of these events.
photo credit : Mario Powell
Fr.
Mario Powell, S.J., at home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY.
Psalm 13 is the cry of
Black
Americans. We have been crying out this question for centuries. But we cannot cry it alone anymore.
But there is something new to me in this experience. It is the fear I feel not just for myself or for Black Americans in general but for the 80 young Black children who are students at the middle school I have been asked to lead: Brooklyn Jesuit Prep. I fear what…[is] in store for them and other Black children of central Brooklyn. I fear that without summer jobs or camps, and faced with over-policing, more Black youths will have encounters with police—encounters that often do not end well for people who look like them.
There have been times that I have found it difficult to hold despair at bay. In the face of [the video], words telling these Black and brown children how much I love them seem to fall flat. But these children are already loved; they already know they are loved as children of God. [I]n the face of those nine minutes, it is not they who need a message but our world, our country, and our collaborators. Perhaps you do as well.
As a Black Jesuit priest, I mainly live in a white world, which means it is my burden, responsibility, and task to talk about events like this with my white brothers and sisters. These conversations happen after every sensationalized Black death. Sometimes my friends and collaborators just want to talk. Sometimes they call to listen. Usually, these conversations include a desire to better understand or to participate in some way. But I must admit that I often avoid these conversations— and not because these people are unimportant to me or because these issues do not need to be discussed. I avoid them because they are exhausting. [W]hile white people can engage these issues at their leisure, discuss them in person or on social media, and then withdraw again to their daily concerns, I cannot do that. The students for whom I am responsible cannot do that. Black America cannot do that. I am exhausted because we cannot withdraw from this painful cycle.
Psalm 13 is the cry of Black Americans. We have been crying out this question for centuries. But we cannot cry it alone anymore.
I am tired of it. Change requires change.
Of course, this means making changes to our unjust system: We have to change the structures that prevent Black people from voting. Substandard education must be improved. We need to change unjust laws that produce economic inequality. The criminal justice system must be reformed.
But how does such change happen? Simply put, these structures will not change until individual white Ameri-
cans get close to Black and brown people. Until you can smell the stench of sin that we smell; until you can see in those nine minutes a Black man as a brother and not withdraw from his suffering; until you can feel the pain of that knee on your own neck; until then nothing will change. These structures will not change until that body has a name and relationship to you.
Let me be clear: This is Christianity. This is what it is to be one body in Christ. Here are Pope Francis’s words: “Christian doctrine...is alive,” he insists. “[It] knows being unsettled, enlivened.” This means Christianity has flesh, breath, a face. In the pope’s words, Christianity “has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: It is called Jesus Christ.”
It is also called George Floyd and Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin.
It is the soft flesh of these Black bodies that America must grow close to. It is Jesus in the soft flesh of the Black and brown children all across this land that this country must come to know
How long, O Lord?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Psalm 13 is the cry of Black Americans. We have been crying out this question for centuries. But we cannot cry it alone anymore. Until you grow close to our suffering, until it fills your eyes and ears, your minds and hearts, until you jump up on the cross with Black Americans, there can be no Easter for America. ■
Mario Powell, S.J., is the President of Brooklyn Jesuit Prep. At Regis High School in Manhattan, he directed the REACH Program for four years, which helps disadvantaged students earn scholarships in order to attend elite schools. He is a 2003 alumnus of Boston College.
This article appeared under the headline “‘How long O Lord?’ Psalm 13 is the cry of black Americans” in the July 2020 issue of America Magazine: www.americamagazine.org. For subscription information, call 1-800-627-9533.
God’s Love Never Fails
Donald
J. Hying
Bishop of Madison, Wisconsin, Donald J. Hying offers his perspective on issues of racial justice and suggests a course ahead for Christians at this “moment of challenge.”
Tthe lives of black people do matter. They matter profoundly, because God has created every human being in His beautiful image and likeness. Every person is of infinite value, so precious indeed, that Christ spent His life and offered His death for the eternal salvation of each individual member of the human race. This astonishing truth shines in stark and disturbing contrast with the evil history of slavery. For centuries, slave owners, slave traders, and indeed, the whole political and economic system of our nation dehumanized, exploited, abused, and killed people of color for an erroneous perception of a collective benefit. Each person has an inherent human dignity and can never be merely a means to an end. Our bloody Civil War, the share-cropping system, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, public lynchings, segregation, the prejudice and violence against the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the instances of racist police brutality, and the recent death of George Floyd all point to a long history of struggle, vi-
olence, and suffering to overcome racism in our country and establish inherent human dignity.
In this moment of challenge and decision regarding race, a cacophony of voices and opinions have exploded. What are the lasting and transformative solutions? How do we get to the core of the matter? Laws may change for the better, police methods need to improve, institutional leaders need to examine how they lead and serve, but ultimately, hearts must be converted if we ever hope to eradicate racism from our midst in a lasting and peaceful way.
Because of our sinful and fallen human nature, a flawed, innate tendency in the human psyche often feels the need to define as “other” some person or group that is different from us, someone whose humanity or even very existence needs to be diminished, mocked, excluded, or even eliminated. Think of Nazism and the Jewish people, the generic “enemy” during any war time, the native peoples of the Americas, the native peoples of Africa, the unborn child, or even the child in school who gets bullied and picked on for being different in some way. In sad, evil, and terrible ways, African Americans have suffered from this dynamic for centuries; such racism and exclusion, no matter the identity of the victim, is radically anti-Christian and stands in diametric opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
A particular way to view the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ is His identification with the “other” and the “outcast.” In his trial and condemnation, Jesus becomes the criminal, the rejected one, the scapegoat, upon whom is cast the hatred, sin, and evil of humanity. By absorbing this violence, embracing this exclusion, offering pardon to His killers, taking upon Himself the entirety of prejudice, persecution, injustice, and sin, the Lord heals all of it in one mighty offering of self to the Father. By becoming the scapegoat Himself, Jesus provides the path to end all scapegoating. The arms of the cross symbolize the mighty embrace of God toward all of His children. By that embrace, no one is the “other”; no one is excluded or cast out. All are invited to embrace a new identity as children of God. The Church, formed from the Passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, is born as the reconciled communion of love, unity, and peace to which all people are invited. Indeed, “Catholic” means “universal.” Our very name implies a new humanity in which prejudice, violence, hatred, and racism have no place.
The sad history of racism in members of our society and our Church points to the challenging truth that the fullness of the gospel still has not permeated through our institutions via our individual hearts. To the extent that violence, disrespect, prejudice, and exclusion of any kind still afflict us, to that degree we still require conversion. This current moment of protest will only bear lasting fruit if it is radically grounded in a vision of human dignity and nurtured by a spirit of reconciliation. To forgive and to seek forgiveness, in a spirit of love and prayer, will begin to heal our society and communities of the fear, prejudice, and hatred that still divide us, conflict us, and violate us. Imprisoned in Auschwitz, Saint Maximilian
Kolbe urged his fellow prisoners to love and forgive the Nazis. “If we do not, we are no better than they.”
Forgiveness alone, however, is not enough. How do we build a culture of life, unity, love, justice, and peace? We need a public and flourishing morality to do so. Tolerance is not sufficient. I do not want simply to put up with people; I want to love them. I do not want to coexist with others; I want to be in communion with them. Such a vision demands a spiritual perspective. In his courageous leadership, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., quoted the Scriptures and appealed to a gospel of non-violence. The Freedom Riders sang religious spirituals as they marched. Read Dr. King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.” We need this witness today. The principles of Catholic social teaching, with their emphasis on human dignity, rights and responsibilities, solidarity, the primacy of family and social bonds, the importance of work, a preferential option for the poor, and an integral ecology, are solid and transformative pillars upon which we can build a civilization of life and love. As Saint John Paul reminds us, the human person can only fully flourish in a society with a healthy public morality, a functional democracy, and an economy ordered to the good of everyone.
Most of our national founders were deists; while not necessarily practicing Christians, they acknowledged the existence of God as a benevolent Providence from whom flowed the dignity of the human person and the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This shared conviction that God created the universe and invites humanity to order its affairs in a revealed morality is sorely lacking today. Tolerance and goodwill are thin fare to hold together a society which so absolutizes individual autonomy at the expense of the common good, and in many ways, has pushed religious values out of the public square. We sorely lack a common moral language even to discuss ethical issues.
the Good News of God’s love and the inherent dignity of every person. The mercy and reconciliation of Christ is the only power that can heal an unjust world and a wounded heart.
Violence and lawlessness will not bring about the communion we need and seek. We must condemn as well the violence against protestors and police in these past weeks which has even led to several deaths. The looting, burning, vandalism, and disregard of law is not representative of the vast majority of the protestors, but nevertheless, should be a troubling concern for all. The attacks against human life and property are a violation of God’s will for us as well.
What does this moment of protest and challenge ask of us as Christians? Certainly to pray for peace, justice, and reconciliation, for an end to violence and its causes. To fast and do penance for healing and forgiveness in the world. To study the Scriptures and the teachings of the Church where we will discover God’s desire for us as a nation and a people. To take actions of mercy, forgiveness, service, and healing as best we can. To volunteer for service to marginalized and suffering people. To pray for our government leaders, health care workers, the police, the victims of injustice and violence, and all those who are suffering in any way right now. To examine our own hearts and ask the Lord to eradicate any prejudice, hatred, fear, or lack of forgiveness. To proclaim fearlessly Jesus Christ as the source and model of mercy and justice.
To the extent that violence, disrespect, prejudice, and exclusion of any kind still afflict us, to that degree we still require conversion.
In my ministry as a priest and bishop, I have been privileged to stand in many sacred places with suffering brothers and sisters whose very existence was marginal and fragile. I have been in the slums of Cite Soleil, a vast sea of human misery in Haiti, lived in a tough neighborhood in Gary, Indiana, and have visited men on death row. I have prayed outside abortion clinics while lives were being destroyed inside, worked in the Dominican Republic as a missionary, and witnessed gang killings up close in Milwaukee. These folks experienced poverty, violence, prejudice, and even death. In one way or another, they all experienced the sense of being outcast, devalued, ignored, and disregarded. Yet, in the midst of such marginalization, I experienced faith, forgiveness, healing, and hope in very desperate situations. The truth of the gospel demands us to go out in search of the lost, the marginalized, and the dehumanized and to proclaim
This Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, an opportune moment to ponder our communion in Jesus Christ, to remember that the Eucharist forms and feeds us as the Church, so that we may carry forth the love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness we experience in Mass to the world. We are sent forth to sanctify society so that our families, cities, nation, and indeed all of creation increasingly are conformed to the fullness of the Kingdom of God. I once was blessed to distribute communion at a World Youth Day Mass. Hundreds of people surrounded me, approaching to receive the Eucharistic Christ. Varying nationalities. Different races. All ages. Saints and sinners. Multiple languages. A sea of distinct experiences. All united in Christ. All bound in the love of God, poured out on the cross in the blood of Jesus. This paschal banquet participates in and foreshadows the celestial marriage feast of the lamb in the kingdom of God, where all sin, hatred, division, and death will vanish forever. This love is the ultimate solution to our torment and division. This love never fails. ■
Donald Joseph Hying is the fifth Bishop of Madison. He issued this statement on June 11, 2020.
Discerning Justice
A. Taiga Guterres
when i was about eight years old, I moved to a neighborhood with a high concentration of Japanese people. My mother, being from Japan, finally had somewhat of a community where she could speak her native language and have a felt sense of home. But some time in middle school, I found out that nearby in the neighborhood had been a site for a Japanese internment camp at the height of World War II. That was why my mom had other people to talk to in her native language. Once I became aware of this, there was no unseeing it for me.
Anytime I saw the town or met another Japanese family, there was always that ghost of what had happened to those who looked like me almost 80 years ago. The consciousness of this history forever changed how I saw and related to my neighborhood and home.
About five months ago, I happened to be in Minneapolis when George Floyd was murdered, and the third precinct was burning. The anxieties of quarantine fatigue and the unsettled cries for justice continued as I came back to Boston. Out of the signs that many were holding, there was one in particular that haunted me for weeks. It simply said, “60 years later.” And while I am not African American, and have not experienced police brutality, it was clear to me that here, too, there was a haunting and scratching of open wounds that started long ago.
It stirred in me these questions—What does it mean to heal from these historical and embodied wounds? What am I looking for when I call for justice and how am I to think of this as a person of faith?
For some, the murder of George Floyd has ingrained the reality of racialized traumas into their visceral memory. Yet, for others, this was an event that has cut into a
wound that has always been there. In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, there is an emphasis on both memory and imagination. But in my discernment for justice, whose memory do I include and whose imagination?
A s a Catholic, I’m called to draw from the sacred Scriptures, but I’m also called to draw from the richness of the tradition. Catholic social teaching challenges me to discern justice in light of things such as the common good, the option for the poor, and solidarity. Saint Oscar Romero pushes this even more concretely in his notion of epistemological privilege. This notion is that those who are experiencing the injustices—the marginalized and crucified peoples—have a certain privileged knowledge of what is wrong and of what is needed. This is whose memory and imagination I must faithfully incorporate into my discernment of justice.
In my own community here in Boston and in my parish, I am continuing to be more conscious of the haunting of racialized violence toward Black and brown bodies and the lamentations of their open wounds. My faith calls me to formulate a moral imagination that is informed by their epistemological privilege in order to authentically discern justice toward the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. ■
Antonio Taiga Guterres is the Assistant Director for the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College. He is also a candidate for a Master of Arts in Theology and Ministry and Master of Social Work through the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College.
“What Would Jesus Do?”
Cardinal O‘Malley joins hands with Fr. Pratt and Martin Luther King, Jr., Prayer Breakfast participants while singing “We Shall Overcome.”
A Conversation with Fr. Oscar Pratt and Sister Marie-Therese Browne, S.C.N.
There has been some discussion of the phrase “Black lives matter” as well as controversy around certain views on abortion and the family expressed by the Black Lives Matter Global Network. A number of Church leaders have urged faithful Catholics to support the broader societal movement for racial justice, a firm element of Catholic social teaching, regardless of any views the BLM corporate entity may hold. The Boston Pilot spoke about these issues to Fr. Oscar Pratt, administrator of St. Katharine Drexel Parish, a Black Catholic community in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Sister Marie-Therese “Tess” Browne, S.C.N., a co-chair of the parish‘s social justice committee, in a June 30, 2020, interview. Here are some excerpts from the article:
father pratt stressed that fighting racism is a life issue. He said it is necessary to ask and be guided by the question, “What would Jesus do?”
“I think Jesus would be out there. Jesus would be trying to help folks to realize ‘What you’re doing to them you’re doing to me,’ and that should matter to people,” Father Pratt said.
Sister Tess said that while some people may perceive the phrase “Black lives matter” as being exclusive, in her view it is not.
“When somebody says, ‘Black lives matter’ it doesn’t mean they’re saying other lives do not matter. I think they’re saying that all lives matter but somehow in our society Black lives have not been seen to have mattered,” she said.
When someone responds to the phrase “Black lives matter” by saying “all lives matter,” Father Pratt said, “that’s true, but not all lives are threatened.”
Some Catholics have expressed concern that the Black Lives Matter organization does not align with Catholic teaching, as it has expressed support for abortion rights and LGBT lifestyles.
Sister Tess said she thinks people “may use that kind of approach as a way of continuing the status quo or to divide folks even further.” She said to her it seems like “an attempt to obfuscate what is really happening.
“I think, many times, we work with people, and they may not have all the same opinions, but we can work to-
gether on some things we have agreement about,” Sister Tess said.
When asked about the Black Lives Matter organization, Father Pratt said he does not care what people think of it.
“What we care about is that when you see us, you see us,” he said.
Father Pratt said many people who participate in Black Lives Matter rallies may not know what the official group says, but they know what the expression means.
“The significance is not in the ideology of that particular organization, but it’s in the truth of what it is the expression is saying,” he said.
Sister Tess pointed to the example of two saints who, though white, are renowned for serving people of color. St. Katharine Drexel used her large inheritance to serve African Americans and Native Americans. St. Peter Claver, a Spanish Jesuit, ministered to slaves during the height of the slave trade.
Both of those saints were white people with privilege, Sister Tess said, “but their actions and their lives showed they believed that Black lives matter.” ■
Excerpted from the July 7, 2020, article “Racial justice a long-time concern for Boston parish,” written by Jacqueline Tetrault and reprinted with permission by The Boston Pilot : www.thebostonpilot.com.
photo credit : Mark Labbe
The Face of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Ssaving face. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the expression means “retain respect; avoid humiliation.” The words are used metaphorically, yet I recently found myself arguing why we must, literally, save—read: affirm, defend, honor—the indigenous, dark-skinned face (el rostro indígena) of a most treasured icon among Hispanic Catholics: Our Lady of Guadalupe.
I stood in front of a group of more than two thousand people, mostly Hispanic and Spanish-speaking, to give a conference on how Hispanics are profoundly transforming the U.S. Catholic experience in the twenty-first century. The energy in the room was incredible. People sang hymns that one regularly hears in parishes with Hispanic ministry. Everyone joined in. The musicians leading the moment were delighted to hear this two-thousand-member choir!
The moment became even more electrifying when the group started singing “La Guadalupana,” a traditional song in Spanish to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Those in the auditorium sang louder and more passionately. It was a serenade. The moment captured well the love Hispanic Catholics have for the Virgin Mary. She is our mother. She is la Virgencita. When the song ended, someone said in a loud voice, “ella es como nosotros; es la Morenita” (she looks like us; she is the dark-skinned one). In hearing that, everyone else cheered.
Anyone familiar with the sixteenth-century icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe knows that her face is that of an indigenous maiden. In her, one can see perhaps one of the most beautiful expressions of inculturation of Christianity in the Americas. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Galilean woman, the one Christian symbol that has sustained the spiritual life and inspired countless believers for two millennia, represented artistically in various ways through art in many cultures, appeared in the New World as an indigenous, dark-skinned woman. Millions of Mexicans, Latin Americans, and U.S. Hispanics see ourselves in her face. Her complexion is mestiza (i.e.,
Hosffman Ospino
In her, one can see perhaps one of the most beautiful expressions of inculturation of Christianity in the Americas.
mixed races), just like most of us. Her face is ours; in her face we see ourselves; she is our icon.
As I turned to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the stage, only a few feet from where I was standing, I noticed that her face was different. It was not the indigenous, dark-skinned woman that the people in the room called la Morenita. The icon, prominently placed in an event to celebrate Hispanic identity and religious tradition, portrayed a white Madonna. Her garments and traditional symbols were those of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but her face and her hands were racially white. A beautiful woman, without a doubt, yet not the autochthonous image that instilled hope in many at the time of la conquista; the indigenous lady who has sustained for centuries countless people oppressed because of the color of their skin and their cultural background; the dark-skinned woman that reminded humanity that every person, without exception, is mediation of God’s divine presence. What happened to la Morenita?
This was not the first time I encountered an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe whose indigenous, dark-skinned face had been erased, replaced, whitewashed. In fact, images of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a white Madonna are quite common. I have seen them displayed in many Catholic churches, catechetical books, devotional materials, book covers, and everywhere online. Many Catholics, including well-formed pastoral leaders, do not seem to notice the difference.
We could ask ourselves, “What is the big deal?” Artists often avail themselves of certain freedoms in their work to expand the imagination and invite us to consider fresher perspectives about a given reality. From that standpoint, I have seen fascinating depictions of Our Lady of Guadalupe in murals and street art. I find the work of artist Yolanda Lopez provocative insofar as she portrays Our Lady of Guadalupe performing everyday activities such as sowing and running. In practically all such depictions, however, she retains her mestiza face.
Erasing the indigenous, dark-skinned face of this prominent Catholic icon in favor of a white-skinned Madonna is actually a big deal, I think. More so at a time in which our nation and our Church have renewed their awareness about the dehumanizing effects of racial prejudice. As I spoke to my audience about the many ways in which Hispanics are renewing and transforming Catholicism in the United States, I also invited them to think more critically about how religious iconography can be used to affirm or deny who we are as people in a society that has a long history struggling with racism.
We find ourselves before an icon that has been part of our religious tradition for nearly five centuries. We
know the story of the apparitions. We also know how the icon came to be and what it looks like. We have a long record of how Latin American and U.S. Hispanic communities have interpreted the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, especially in light of its particularities—including racial and cultural undertones. While there is always room for artistic freedom and creativity, depicting our Lady of Guadalupe demands that we honor such history, symbolism, and interpretive traditions. In doing so, we affirm not only the theological meaning of the icon as a representation of the Virgin Mary and as a sign of divine presence in history but also the embodied realities of the people who see ourselves represented in it.
Racial prejudice in our society—and in the Church— takes many forms. It’s an ill that finds its way into our everyday interactions, knowingly and unknowingly. Racism is a sin that denies and destroys. Changing the skin color of a well-known religious icon from darkskinned to a white complexion may seem trivial, perhaps innocent; some may even say ingenious. Yet, in a climate of open racial prejudice and anti-immigrant sentiment when millions of people, including many Catholics, seem to ascribe to ideas such as “white is better” or “this is a white nation for white people,” among other follies, the exploit ceases to be innocent or trivial. It matters. It is a big deal.
Erasing the indigenous, dark-skinned face of Our Lady of Guadalupe in our current sociopolitical context is almost the equivalent to an exercise of social and cultural iconoclasm that should not have room in our faith communities. If we allow the icon to be defaced, what prevents anyone from erasing or ignoring the people and communities most closely associated with the icon?
We should not forget that nearly half of all Catholics in the United States self-identify as Hispanics, yet many sectors in our Church still have some difficulty accepting this reality. In many faith communities throughout the country, Hispanic Catholics are still treated as visitors or second-class members. That needs to change in order to embrace our contemporary U.S. Catholic experience. Affirming the indigenous, dark-skinned face of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good step in that direction. We find ourselves before a unique opportunity to save face, metaphorically and literally. May God grant us the wisdom and the courage to do this through the intercession of Our Virgin of Guadalupe, la Morenita. ■
Hosffman Ospino, PhD, is Associate Professor of Hispanic Ministry and Religious Education at Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry. Email: ospinoho@bc.edu.
Cardinal Wilton Gregory
The following are excerpts from Cardinal Wilton Gregory’s 2018 address at the Boston College Commencement.
W Words Matter
words are powerful vehicles, as writers and poets know all too well. Words can bring tears and they can incite rage. Words can heal and they can inflame. Occasionally the very same words can inspire some people while they may enrage others. In today’s world, social media has provided indispensable platform[s] for words that can stir the human spirit to positive and negative passions…
The greatest challenge that we all continue to face is to make sure that our words do not contradict our actions, our heart, or our faith…
There are too many examples both in today’s world and throughout human history where a person’s actions were disconnected from an individual’s words…A few people historically have been able to use words that stir the human heart to great hope. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a master wordsmith. His death 50 years ago was largely in recompense for the inspiration and hope that many people found [in] his words that challenged our nation. Unfortunately, there were and remain people who find those same words to be intimidating and threatening…
I now invite our graduates and I remind all others here today in their honor to take careful watch over the words that we use. We have entered a moment in human history where offensive[,] abusive words have been absolved and issued a carte blanche and perhaps even welcomed in public discourse. Through the great advantage and equal detriment of social media, debate and disagreement often have been reduced to defamation and denigration. This is absolutely counter to what your Jesuit education has striven to teach you. Disputes are best addressed to principles, ideas, and policies rather than to
be used to demolish the reputation, dignity, and humanity of those with whom we may disagree. I urge you to use words that may clearly voice your strong opinions but also shun the annihilation of another individual ’s human dignity…
We must work together to address the causes that prompt and allow people to…acts of hatred and brutality…Too often, people have attempted to attribute those horrible events to people of a specific religion or culture—much like some people of a generation ago spoke about those engaged in the struggle for civil rights as agitators and disruptors...Our first responsibility ought to be to lower the tone of [the] rhetoric of hatred. Every one of us must be engaged in the struggle to speak more civilly and respectfully about and certainly to all other people…
Let us now pledge to…always convey a heart that may be deeply passionate in its beliefs but always compassionate in its expression when speaking about and to all others. Saint Paul said it best to the Ephesians and to all of our graduates and to all of us: “No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear. ■
Wilton Daniel Gregory is the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and is the first African American cardinal. He also served as the first Black president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Reprinted with permission from the Boston College Office of University Communications.
To watch the video of this address, visit: bc.edu/c21spring21
photo credit
with permission from the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska
Accept My Truths
Heather Malveaux
Aat a black lives matter symposium, I was challenged to voice what I wanted, needed, and recommended from white people who aspire to become co-conspirators in the dismantling of white supremacy.
Here is what I want, need, and recommend:
• Don’t ask me to forget what my ancestors went through as slaves in this country or ask me to ignore how that impacts me daily.
• Don’t detach yourself from what your ancestors and/or people that look like you have created, maintained, and have benefited from—and that you continue to benefit from.
• Remember that you were born into a system of white supremacy that you did not create, but must actively help to dismantle.
• Don’t be afraid to have the ugly conversations with people who look like you, and don’t be afraid to listen to and learn from the people who don’t look like you.
• Accept my truths and experiences of racial injustice as an African American woman as valid.
• Listen to me, advocate for me, sympathize with me, fight with me, and raise your voice to match my outcries.
• Be my racial ally, stand up against racial injustice, celebrate and benefit from racial diversity, take on this fight as your own.
All the things I’m asking for require courage, strength, agape love, and sacrifice—all of which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ demonstrated for us when he died for our sins. As Christians, we are called to bear witness to the suffering of Christ, and as we unite ourselves in the fight for racial justice and equity, let us not forget that we are also called to bear witness to the suffering of our brothers and sisters. ■
Heather Malveaux is the University Minister for Social Justice and Immersion Programs at Loyola University New Orleans.
This article was excerpted and reprinted with permission from the Ignatian Solidarity Network: www.ignatiansolidarity.net.
Cardinal Gregory addressed current issues of racial justice and divisions in U.S. society at a March 20 conference on “confronting the sin of racism through understanding, conversion and action” hosted by the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. For the full text of Cardinal Gregory’s remarks, please visit: bc.edu/c21spring21
Let it Begin in the Church
Shannen Dee Williams
In excerpts from an article that also documents American Catholic ties to racism and slavery, Villanova University Assistant Professor of History
Shannen Dee Williams offers a way ahead for Catholics “seeking to do the hard work of racial justice.”
Tthe global protests over the long-standing plague of white supremacy, most recently manifested in the police and vigilante murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, have put our nation and Church on the precipice of monumental change or devastating setback. What comes next will depend on how policymakers, elected officials, and institutional leaders, including religious men and women, respond to the ever-growing cries of the people in the streets declaring that “Black lives matter” and “Enough is enough.”
For Catholics seeking to do the hard work of racial justice, here are five ways to get started:
#1: EDUCATION:
Learn about the history of anti-Black racism within Church boundaries. While this history is not widely known or taught, it is well documented. The testimonies and lived experiences of Black Catholics, religious and lay, are especially powerful resources.
#2:
ACTION:
Challenge racism in Catholic spaces. Make Black and brown Catholic history mandatory in Catholic school curriculums, religious formation, and seminary training. End discriminatory and anti-Black hair policies in Catholic schools. Hire Black and brown Catholics in leadership positions in Church institutions. Adopt an anti-racist praxis in your Catholic organization.
#3:
SUPPORT:
Donate to organizations fighting for racial justice, especially those working to end mass incarceration, cash bail, racial disparities in health care, the school-to-prison pipeline, and police violence.
Shannen Dee Williams addresses the Leadership Conference of Women Religious assembly in Atlanta.
#4: RECONCILIATION:
Call upon the Catholic Church to formally acknowledge and apologize for its histories of slavery and segregation. Reconciliation is not possible without justice, and justice does not come without acknowledging the truth.
#5: PRAY:
Pray for all victims of racism and state violence. Pray also for those in positions of power. Pray that they hear the cries of those calling for an end to white supremacy in every institution where it exists.
While the road ahead might seem difficult, Black Catholic history is filled with examples of faithful who fought for racial justice in the face of resistance and unholy discrimination. Take, for example, the witnesses of Mothers Mary Lange and Henriette Delille. Barred from joining white sisterhoods due to racism, these women established the modern world’s first Roman Catholic sisterhoods open to African-descended women and girls in the United States.
Through their congregations, which founded many of the nation’s earliest Catholic schools, orphanages, and nursing homes open to Black people, these holy women powerfully declared to the Church’s slaveholding leaders, male and female, that Black lives mattered. Black Catholics have long known what all Catholics must come to know: if racial justice and peace will ever be attained, it must begin in the Church. ■
Shannen Dee Williams is a Historian of the African American experience with specializations in women’s, religious, and Black freedom movement history. She is currently working on her first book, Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African-American Freedom Struggle.
Reprinted with permission from The Dialog: thedialog.org “If racial justice and peace will ever be attained, it must begin in the Church,” Catholic News Service: www.catholicnews.com
photo credit: Michael Alexander/Georgia Bulletin via CNS
Preaching from Sr. Thea’s Kitchen
Kathleen Sullivan
Boston College Campus Ministry recently began a video series called “Preaching from Sr. Thea’s Kitchen,” a platform that focuses on and amplifies Black voices at Boston College through the intersection of Scripture and Ignatian spirituality with racial justice. The series is named after Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman H’89, namesake of BC’s Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center, who was known for integrating Catholic tradition with Black spirituality.
Tthe idea for the series arose from conversations among Campus Ministry staffers who have been working to identify ways Campus Ministry can contribute to a community that upholds the dignity of the person and affirms that Black Lives Matter.
The initiative kicked off with Campus Minister Myer Chambers, who met Sister Thea while he was in graduate school at Xavier University. His presentation included readings of 1 Corinthians 13 and Psalm 112. He also talked about his favorite saint, Peter Claver, S.J., who ministered to and cared for countless enslaved people, and the Knights of Peter Claver, the largest lay Black
Meyer Chambers Campus Minister, Boston College
Meyer reflects on Saint Peter Claver’s life and Saint Paul’s teaching on love, both of which encourage us to be clear-eyed and hopeful as we respond to ongoing racial injustices.
Catholic organization in the United States. Chambers said, “Many people are asking, ‘What can I do?’ You can pray. You can protest. You can donate. You can be a friend. You can listen. You can empathize.”
“Our hope is to honor the legacy of Sister Thea by centering Black voices of faith from the BC community,” said Campus Ministry Associate Director Ryan Heffernan. ■
Kathleen Sullivan is Senior Media Officer at Boston College.
Valerie Lewis-Mosley Boston College, ’79
Valerie talks about Sr. Thea Bowman’s witness as a faithful Black Catholic woman and how it shaped Valerie’s Catholic faith. She discusses the providential connection between Sr. Thea and Boston College’s AHANA Center.
Kwasi Sarkodie-Mensah, Ph.D. Manager, Instructional Services, Boston College Libraries
Kwasi shares his experiences of seeing God draw together white and Black Catholics into one family, in which souls have no color and in which every soul is perfectly loved by the Father.
To view more videos, visit: www.youtube.com/c/BostonCollegeCampusMinistry
This Is the Casual Racism That I Face at My Elite High School
Unexpectedly: The school did something about it
Rainier Harris
When administrators at (Jesuit) Regis High School in New York City were faced with racist incidents at the school, they decided to address them with a “new and innovative approach” that made a “tremendous difference” to those involved: restorative justice. This September 2020, New York Times article recounts the events and may offer a prescription for the future.
Sstarting senior year in the middle of a pandemic has brought on more challenges than ever: navigating college applications and maintaining my G.P.A. while dealing with Zoom burnout and no physical connection to my friends.
I attend Regis, the academically rigorous Catholic high school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. To those who get in, it is tuition-free, and it is regularly recognized as one of the top high schools in the country.
So it is more than a little troubling that I know I will have to deal with casual racism at such an institution. Even as classes have started remotely, the racism that many Black students like me have experienced and continue to experience in school feels more emotionally draining than ever.
I felt immense pride entering Regis, but also great pressure. My older brother had been a stellar student there. He went to Yale University for political science, then immediately completed a simultaneous J.D./M.B.A. in three years at Yale Law and Yale School of Management.
My sister is a senior at Yale, studying computer science and music. Getting the “best education possible” is the mantra of my Jamaican-immigrant parents. As their youngest child, I feel the pressure to replicate. I feel a certain level of success is expected.
very differently. Was affirmative action and legacy an excuse if they did not get into Yale? Did they mean to erase my academic achievement and my individual worth?
Even after a summer of protests against the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and numerous other victims of police brutality, schools still need to do work to address institutionalized racism within their communities.
I am no stranger to racist behavior. In middle school, I was targeted with it, as well as enduring classmates casually using the N-word. Any hope that this would be avoided at Regis was quickly proved wrong. Within the first two weeks there, a photo of me was shared around school by a white classmate; the caption referred to me as a monkey.
Authentic mercy is something that, like love, is reflected to others once we ourselves have been shown it.
And yet even in this high-achieving environment, among peers who are “supposed to know better,” I have felt constantly diminished.
Classmates have made numerous comments over the years about how affirmative action puts them at a disadvantage for getting into top schools. While I know my friends may have innocently tried to put me at ease about an extremely difficult college admissions process, I see it
Even in the most benign circumstances, Black students constantly feel othered. Whether it’s heads turning toward you during a lesson about slavery in fourth grade or everybody staring at you when the civil rights movement is discussed, you get used to it. The shock wears off.
One afternoon last year, some friends and I were venting about the racist culture in school. A teacher heard our conversation and joined us. I am one of a handful of students of color at Regis; the students I was with were white and Hispanic. We felt comfortable with her and began recalling several racist incidents. I was completely surprised by her reaction. She was horrified and stunned that this was happening at Regis. When she asked me and my friends to identify the individuals behind the actions, I felt uncertain, given the response the administration had shown to a student the year before.
At the end of my sophomore year, the school expelled a white student who made what he thought was
a benign birthday message: he posted a picture of one Black friend instead of the other, “falling” into the “all Black people look alike” myth. He truly thought that it would be a funny, lighthearted post.
Complicating this is the fact that the student also used the N-word with other white friends. He was asked to leave the school.
This punitive approach to racist behavior seems to be commonplace in the Catholic schools that many of my friends attend. The protocol is simply to remove the one “bad apple,” and thus the racism is rooted out.
I ended up naming the students, but I grew anxious afterward. I did not want them to be expelled. I felt that expulsions would do little to affect their behavior and would also place their lives and families in turmoil.
My fears were allayed, however. Regis took a new and innovative approach that I know made a tremendous difference: restorative justice.
Restorative justice “repairs the harm caused by a crime,” according to the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation. It involves a collaboration between victim and offender. The process is uncomfortable and tedious for everyone involved, but it leads to a transformative result. While restorative justice is often looked at through the lens of prison reform, I believe that it can play an especially effective role in schools around the country.
Instead of expelling the offenders, Regis immediately scheduled a series of assemblies and classroom discussions. The school set up meetings with my parents and checked in with me every day to make sure I remained in a positive mental space. Administrators facilitated real dialogue
between me and my main offender, a former friend who had used the N-word in front of me on several occasions. While the switch to remote learning happened before we could have a sit-down conversation, we were still able to speak to each other about what had happened and any misunderstanding we had of the situation.
We talked at length over his thought process, and he even sent me a message apologizing and telling me exactly what it was he did wrong and that my frustrations were valid. I would have likely not had the chance to positively interact with him again had he been kicked out of school, and he would no doubt have been embittered and less willing to talk to me as well.
Restorative justice doesn’t allow an institution to simply remove the bad apples. It inspires solutions that achieve value and respect for everyone. It forces an institution to look at community-oriented solutions that make everybody uncomfortable, not just those who are involved. But it’s the only way real change can be made.
“I’m sorry, Rainier,” my former friend said. “I didn’t realize why what I said was wrong. I didn’t know it was racist.” It felt like progress, as if I actually made a difference in his life. ■
Rainier Harris is a senior at Regis High School and a Queens native.
From The New York Times (September 24, 2020). @2020 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.
photo
Rainier Harris, a senior at Regis High School, near his home in Queens.
Students walk past Black History Month posters on the BC campus.
Forum on Racial Justice Highlights BC Initiatives on Racism
Bboston college has announced several initiatives, including a Forum on Racial Justice in America, to address issues of race and racism in the United States.
These initiatives, described in a July 2020 letter to the BC community from University President William P. Leahy, S.J., and senior administrators, come in the wake of an ongoing national expression of anger, concern, and frustration about race-related matters in the U.S. Building on the legacy of academia as a venue for exploring compelling contemporary questions and concerns, and developing effective responses, BC—guided by its Catholic social teaching—will seek to contribute to the discussion on race and racist behavior in America, according to the announcement.
The letter described the Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America as providing a meeting place “for listening, dialogue, and greater understanding about race and racism in our country, especially ideas for dealing with current challenges and planning for a better future.” It also will serve as a catalyst for “bridging differences regarding race in America, promoting reconciliation, and encouraging fresh perspectives.”
BC Law School Dean Vincent D. Rougeau is the forum inaugural director. Among other activities, the fo-
rum will sponsor speakers, panels, and seminars about key issues regarding race and needed changes in attitudes and structures, encourage scholarly exploration of conditions that result in racism and racist behavior, and suggest responses and solutions. Other BC initiatives will be built around faith and formation. In addition, intercollegiate athletes at BC will also “reach out in new ways to youth in metropolitan Boston to build bonds and provide mentorship through sports and academics.”
Boston College’s recently announced integration with Pine Manor College—and related establishment of the Pine Manor Institute for Student Success—as a means to recruit and graduate underrepresented, first-generation students was cited as another facet of the University’s response to race-related issues. The institute will work closely with existing academic outreach programs at BC in furthering Pine Manor College’s success in helping students facing major challenges in their pursuit of higher education obtain college degrees, the letter said, noting that BC has designated $50 million of its endowment to support the institute’s activities, and intends to seek additional funds from various sources.
The University sees itself as contributing to the evolving national agenda on race and racism through its
Working together we can accomplish great things, and help Boston College, our nation, and the world be more just and more at peace.
long-standing commitment to helping students engage central issues and ideas, develop skills in analysis and critical thinking, and according to the statement, “become more whole, more human, and more free from ignorance and prejudice. These commitments urge Boston College to work for racial justice and to create opportunities across the curriculum for students and faculty to engage in the scholarly exploration of race through a range of disciplinary perspectives.”
The letter also referenced existing University policies and resources that have aided underrepresented and underserved students, such as BC’s policy on need-blind admission and meeting the full-demonstrated need of all accepted undergraduates, as well as the Thea Bowman AHANA Intercultural Center, Options through Education, Learning to Learn, and the Montserrat Coalition, which have helped numerous students thrive academically and personally, as evidenced by the 96 percent graduation rate for the most recent cohort of Pell-eligi-
ble students [assisted by federal financial aid funds]. In addition, BC has joined QuestBridge, a highly respected program involving 42 of the nation’s best colleges and universities that helps talented and high-financial-need students apply and gain admission to its partner schools. Asking the University community for “advice and support” in regard to the Forum on Racial Justice in America and related initiatives, the letter concluded: “Working together we can accomplish great things, and help Boston College, our nation, and the world be more just and more at peace.” ■
Boston College Office of University Communications | July 2020
For updates and events on Boston College’s Forum on Racial Justice in America visit: bc.edu/forum-on-racial-justice
editor ’ s note: Under the leadership of its inaugural director, BC Law School Dean Vincent Rougeau, the forum collaborated with other campus groups and organizations to organize a number of online events during the 2020–21 academic year, beginning with an interfaith Service of Hope and Reconciliation led by Dean Rougeau and Fr. Leahy. Further programming included a panel discussion featuring prominent Black faculty at BC discussing formation and racial justice in higher education, a series of presentations on environmental racism produced in collaboration with BC’s new Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, and election-related conversations on Racial Justice and Democratic Citizenship. Organizers were pleased with the high level of interest and participation from the BC community; events featured input and engagement from audience members, including Boston College students, faculty, and staff. The forum website offers further information on its activities as well as a video archive of past events. With Dean Rougeau leaving Boston College this summer to become the new president of the College of the Holy Cross, a search is underway to choose new leadership for the forum to continue its mission.
Boston College Office of University Communications
FEATURED RESOURCES
FAITH FEEDS SERIES ON RACE AND CATHOLICISM
FAITH FEEDS Series on Race and Catholicism
This issue of C21 Resources magazine "We Are One Body: Race and Catholicism" can serve as a catalyst for some important conversations in your home, classroom or parish. Download the new Faith Feeds Guides, gather over ZOOM or in person, and use these selected articles and guided questions to get started.
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Interested in past issues of C21 Resources?
Email: church21@bc.edu for copies.
November 3, 2021
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