Fighting for Interracial Justice

John LaFarge, S.J.

credit : Catholic University of America

A 1958 gathering of the Catholic Interracial Council of New York, with Father LaFarge second from left.

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 conservator 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.