Martin, Malcolm, and Merton: The Work for Racial Justice and the Responsibility of Catholic Spirituality (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
Based on the talk he delivered during the 2010 Annual Meeting, Massingale here tackles head-on the unvoiced questions with which most of us have struggled at some point in our careers and ministries. He begins by unveiling the conflicted ramifications of ‘authentically black and truly Catholic’. Echoing Copeland’s reference in Volume IV to the price that black scholars and theologians must pay to “speak and act and live in truth” (p. 75), Massingale explores Malcolm X’s call for Black Nationalism and its synthesis and coexistence with Integrationism in current Black Catholicism. Finally, he asks a series of haunting questions about what it means to be a Black Catholic in terms of our identity, our consciousness, and the needs of the Black community. Might “Black” and “Catholic” be oxymorons
Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium, 2011
Based on the talk he delivered during the 2010 Annual Meeting, Massingale here tackles head-on the unvoiced questions with which most of us have struggled at some point in our careers and ministries. He begins by unveiling the conflicted ramifications of 'authentically black and truly Catholic'. Echoing Copeland's reference in Volume IV to the price that black scholars and theologians must pay to "speak and act and live in truth" (p. 75), Massingale explores Malcolm X's call for Black Nationalism and its synthesis and coexistence with Integrationism in current Black Catholicism. Finally, he asks a series of haunting questions about what it means to be a Black Catholic in terms of our identity, our consciousness, and the needs of the Black community. Might "Black" and "Catholic" be oxymorons?
Has the Silence Been Broken? Catholic Theological Ethics and Racial Justice
Theological Studies, 2014
This survey discusses the emerging contours of a distinctive Catholic ethical approach to race, racism, and racial justice. Among its features are the adoption of a more structural and cultural understanding of human sinfulness, engaged intellectual reflection, concern about malformed white identity, an intentional dialogue with African American scholarship and culture, and the cultivation of spiritual practices and disciplines. The "Note" concludes with a discussion of the global challenges of racialization and the future challenges for Catholic ethical reflection on racism.
The Catholic Worker Movement and Racial Justice: A Precarious Relationship
Horizons, 2019
The Catholic Worker Movement, widely known for its critique of violence and capitalism in American culture, has largely neglected racism. This seems surprising because its urban houses of hospitality, staffed mostly by middle-class whites, provide material resources disproportionately to impoverished African Americans. The movement's embodiment as a white movement and the failure of its founders (Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin) to prioritize racial justice has impeded its ability to adequately confront racism. This article contrasts the ways in which racism was addressed by the founders with the way it was addressed by two prominent African American Catholic Workers. The article includes a new Catholic Worker narrative to explain the movement's relationship with racial justice and offer suggestions for ways the movement can mine its own rich resources to become an authentically anti-racist movement.
James Cone and Recent Catholic Episcopal Teaching on Racism
Theological Studies, 2000
The author analyses 21 published statements by U.S. Catholic bishops from 1990 to 2000 on different aspects of racism. He explores the texts' understanding of racism, and highlights the deficits in many of these statements. Apart from several documents of Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Bishop Thomas Daily of Brooklyn, the texts typically fail to stress social sinful structures. The author examines Cone's understanding of racism and White supremacy, as well as Cone's conviction that simple moral suasion is ineffective. The author concludes with an enumeration of six shifts needed in Catholic reflection on racism.] A T A CATHOLIC SPONSORED justice conference held in 1983, Professor James Cone gave what he called "a theological challenge to the American Catholic Church." His contention, in short, is that there are critical faults and deficits in Catholic reflection on racism. He adduces this, in part, from a disparity between Catholic concern regarding issues, on the one hand, such as poverty and the sanctity of life, and, on the other hand, the peripheral attention given to the endemic racism of U.S. society. Here are his stirring words: "What is it about the Catholic definition of justice that makes many persons of that faith progressive in their attitude toward the poor in Central America but reactionary in their views toward the poor in black America?. .. It is the failure of the Catholic Church to deal effectively with the problem of racism that causes me to question the quality of its commitment to justice in other areas. I do not wish to minimize the importance of Catholic contributions to poor people's struggles for justice, but I must point out the ambiguity of the Catholic stand on justice when racism is not addressed forthrightly." 1 Given that virtually