Having a faith conversation with old and new friends is as easy as setting the table.
FAITH FEEDS GUIDE RACE AND CATHOLICISM: HOPE
CONTENTS
• Introduction to FAITH FEEDS 3
• FAQ 4
• Ready to Get Started 5
• Conversation Starters 6
• Words Matter by Cardinal Wilton Gregory 7
Conversation Starters 8
• Accept My Truths by Heather Malveaux 9
Conversation Starters 10
• Let It Begin in the Church by Shannen Dee Williams 11
Conversation Starters 13
• Gathering Prayer: Lectio Divina 14
The FAITH FEEDS program is designed for individuals who are hungry for opportunities to talk about their faith with others who share it. Participants gather over coffee or a potluck lunch or dinner, and a host facilitates conversation about faith.
The FAITH FEEDS GUIDE offers easy, step-by-step instructions for planning, as well as materials to guide the conversation. It’s as simple as deciding to host the gathering wherever your community is found and spreading the word.
The cover of today’s Faith Feeds is a photo of a Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast courtesy of Boston College’s University Communications. The photo directly left is by of Jesus and Mother Mary from St. Mary’s Chapel at Boston College. The marginal photo throughout the guide is of Martin Luther King Jr. at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Washington D.C., courtesy of Johnathon Kelso.
The C21 Center Presents
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Who should host a FAITH FEEDS?
Anyone who has a heart for facilitating conversations about faith is perfect to host a FAITH FEEDS.
Where do I host a FAITH FEEDS?
You can host a FAITH FEEDS in-person or virtually through video conference software. FAITH FEEDS conversations are meant for small groups of 10-12 people.
What is the host’s commitment?
The host is responsible for coordinating meeting times, sending out materials and video conference links, and facilitating conversation during the FAITH FEEDS.
What is the guest’s commitment?
Guests are asked to read the articles that will be discussed and be open to faith-filled conversation.
Still have more questions?
No problem! Email karen.kiefer@bc.edu and we’ll help you get set up.
READY TO GET STARTED?
STEP ONE
Decide to host a FAITH FEEDS. Coordinate a date, time, location, and guest list. An hour is enough time to allocate for the virtual or in-person gathering.
STEP TWO
Interested participants are asked to RSVP directly to you, the host. Once you have your list of attendees, confirm with everyone via email. That would be the appropriate time to ask in-person guests to commit to bringing a potluck dish or drink to the gathering. For virtual FAITH FEEDS, send out your video conference link.
STEP THREE
Review the selected readings from your FAITH FEEDS Guide and the questions that will serve as a starter for your FAITH FEEDS discussion. Hosts should send their guests a link to the guide, which can be found on bc.edu/ FAITHFEEDS.
STEP FOUR
Send out a confirmation email a week before the FAITH FEEDS gathering. Hosts should arrive early for in-person or virtual set up. Begin with the Gathering Prayer found on the last page of this guide. Hosts can open the discussion by using the suggested questions. The conversation should grow organically from there. Enjoy this gathering of new friends, knowing the Lord is with YOU!
STEP FIVE
Make plans for another FAITH FEEDS. We would love to hear about your FAITH FEEDS experience. You can find contact information on the last page of this guide.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Here are three articles to guide your FAITH FEEDS conversation. In addition to the scriptural passages, you will find a relevant quotation, reflection, and suggested questions for discussion. We offer these as tools for your use, but feel free to go wherever the Holy Ghost leads. Conversations should ensure confidentiality.
This guide’s theme is Race and Catholicism: Hope.
WORDS MATTER
by Cardinal Wilton Gregory
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 issues 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 DC 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. Published in C21 Resources Spring/Summer 2021.
WORDS MATTER
“Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” — Ephesians 4:25
Summary
Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the first African-American Cardinal, delivered this commencement speech to Boston College’s Class of 2018. In it, he underscores the weight of our words. The criterion of well-chosen words cannot simply be their effect. After all, a wordsmith like Martin Luther King Jr. simulaneously inspired hope and dread, charity and animus. While his campaigns for racial and economic justice galvanized many to commit to forming a better society, they galvanized others to plot his death. Thus, the real criteria for our words are the virtues God desires to cultivate in his saints — fidelity, hopefulness, charity, truthfulness, humility, courage. The Cardinal challenges us to weigh our words soberly, recognizing that our age is in need to of charitable and truthful dialogue in order to address the disagreements that threaten our unity. Even when the stakes of conversations are high, our words must humanize our interlocutors. We can never resort to dehumnization, villification, and demagoguery.
Questions for Conversation
• Jesus Christ says that it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth, because what comes out of our mouths originates in our hearts. How does Cardinal Gregory’s comments on the harmony of words and conduct reflect Jesus’ teaching?
• How are you tempted to be untruthful with your words or actions? How can your faith in our God help you embrace greater truthfulness?
• When your words and conduct were disharmonious, how did this wound you and your relationship to others? When they were in harmony, how did this bring grace?
ACCEPT MY TRUTHS
by Heather Malveaux
At 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. Published in C21 Resources Spring/Summer 2021.
ACCEPT MY TRUTHS
“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” — Romans 3:22-24
Summary
Heather Malveaux writes advice to anyone who wants to be her ally in dismantling white supremacy. She asks for other not to forget our country’s racial history or ignore its present-day implications. She urges people not to distance themselves from what their ancestors suffered or perpetrated, especially insofar as these past actions have shaped ongoing inequalities. She writes that white people today did not create white supremacy but are responsible to help dismantle it. She encourages people to have difficult, soul-searching conversations with other members of their ethnicity and race, as well as receptive conversations with people of other races and ethnicities. Heather asks for others to accept her truths regarding racial injustice as an African American woman, which involves listening, advocacy, and sympathy. Finally, she calls others to join in on the fight for racial justice.
Questions for Conversation
• How have you seen in your own life how history has shaped present-day inequalities?
• Are you responsible for today’s racial injustices, whether in their creation, perpetuation, or undoing?
• What does it mean to “accept my truths”? What is the relationship between personal experience and truth?
• How can you prepare to listen to others with humility, truthfulness, and patience, especially when you might feel defensive or insecure?
• How can you accompany friends and family in exploring these topics with greater grace and openness?
LET IT BEGIN IN THE CHURCH
by 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.”
The 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 antiracist 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 schoolto-prison pipeline and police violence.
#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 Africandescended 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. Published in C21 Resources Spring/Summer 2021.
LET IT BEGIN IN THE CHURCH
“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” — Revelation 7:9
Summary
Shannen Dee Williams describes her vision for anti-racist action in the Church. She prescribes education, action, support, reconciliation, and prayer as paths to holistic racial justice. Learn about the history of racial discrimination within the Church, amongst the laity and religious. Next, take action: supports changes to curricula and policies in Catholic spaces that insufficiently address racial injustice. Support ministries that are 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.” Seek reconciliation with your Black brothers and sisters, then pray and encourage our leaders to do the same as individuals and as representatives of the Church. Finally, pray for racial justice and the end to white supremacy.
Questions for Conversation
• Is there anything you would add to Williams’ recommendations for anti-racism within the Church?
• Are you intimidated by these recommendations? What underlies your reluctance to begin this work, if anything?
• Do you know of people and ministries in your city that are actively fighting for greater racial justice? How can you support them?
• What is the significance for collective acts of reconciliation? Should ecclesial leaders make acts of reparation and/or reconciliation on the Church’s behalf? What could that look like?
GATHERING PRAYER
Lectio Divina on 1 Corinthians 12
In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
For more information about Faith Feeds, visit bc.edu/c21faithfeeds This program is sponsored by Boston College’s Church in the 21st Century Center, a catalyst and a resource for the renewal of the Catholic Church.
