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Pat McCloskey, OFM

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Material is grouped thematically under headings such as forgiveness, Jesus, moral issues, prayer, saints, redemption, sacraments, Scripture—and many more!

Facing Up to Systemic Racism

What do I tell the students in my CCD class when they ask me what the Catholic Church says about systemic racism? As a white woman, I am considered by some people to be privileged. I raised two boys by myself and had to work for everything we had. What about the unborn babies who are being killed every day?

Systemic racism slips under the radar of people who also often pride themselves as being very realistic and practical. They also frequently tell themselves and others, “Well, that’s just the way life is.” These same people usually benefit from a racism they refuse to acknowledge.

I cannot defend every action taken by people opposing systemic racism, but neither can I deny that systemic racism exists. All of us need to keep telling ourselves the truth at deeper and deeper levels, far from the level that protects my feelings from any challenge.

In one way or another, every sin begins with a lie that a person tells himself/herself—or that a group tells itself. The best way to reject blatant or subtle racism is to keep telling ourselves the truth. For Christians, that means the truth as we know it as baptized disciples of Jesus Christ.

So, what should you tell your CCD class? Admit that the Catholic Church has not always named and opposed systemic racism as it should have. Jesus does not accept everything that we would like to call normal. The change will need to be on everyone’s part.

The killing of unborn babies is an international disgrace, but that does not cancel the need to name and oppose systemic racism.

Seeking the Purpose of My Life

In the “winter” of my life, I look back and see basically an upward struggle to survive, especially as compared to giants of our faith such as Thomas à Kempis, William Carey, and the Apostle Paul. What has been the purpose of my life? Why was I ever born? What is the purpose of life for an average person such as myself?

The Baltimore Catechism opened with the question “Who made you?” and followed it with “Why did God make you?” It answered the first question with “God” and the second one

with “To know, love, and serve him in this world and be happy with him in the next.”

Did the people you listed live in an ideal world? They would all be very surprised at any suggestion that they did. Genuine faith comes easily only to those who refuse to take it seriously.

I cannot improve on this unedited prayer from St. John Henry Newman:

May the Lord help you to believe that your life has had a very definite purpose even as you question it. “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.”

Are We Unconsciously Always Sinning?

The US bishops’ 2018 document “Open Our Hearts Wide: The Enduring Call to Love” says racism can be either conscious or unconscious. Carrying out racist actions is a sin. My older teenage son (and future lawyer) argues that we can never be forgiven because of our unconscious mind’s nature.

He claims that our unconscious mind would always betray us—even in our sleep—making our dreams potentially venial sins. How can I answer him?

“Unconscious racism” does not have to remain unconscious. Once a person becomes aware of reflecting it, then he or she has an obligation to stop the lying (to oneself and others) that racism always requires to stay alive.

No one person can eliminate racism, but everyone needs to do what is necessary in order to call it what it is—and then take the most effective action possible here and now. No one can change a past event, but everyone has the ability to decide whether to reinforce—and celebrate—whatever needs to be challenged.

If your son becomes a lawyer, as a 19-year veteran of high school teaching, I predict that it won’t take him long to see the holes in the argument he is now making, an argument that always turns out to his advantage. No one can sin while dreaming.

Some lines of reasoning are too simple to be true; this sounds like one of them. Would your son feel the same way if he were on the receiving end of unconscious racism? Certainly not.

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