RBC 2009 - St. Louis, MO - Session One – Saturday, July 25th

Today Beverly Carroll addressed the topic of African American issues and the traumatic impact that the African slave history still has today. What often creeps through is their desire to be affirmed. The forced separation from family as part of their cultural background has led to the notion of extended family, wherein many form an attachment to a group as if that were their heritage. The notion of extended family is still in operation today and can be seen in the idea of a person being “family to you,” such as calling a dear friend “aunt.”

Historically in the U.S., the early Catholic Church often struggled with whether slaves even had souls. Protestant groups, however, spoke out about this from the beginning and this led to the black-led store front communities that sprung up in response to the need for worship.

Some Catholic groups recognized the need for blacks to be ministered to and some Congregations such as the Josephites took up the challenge. The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore did the ministering until Vatican II. Vatican II also recognized the need and welcomed blacks with the vernacular to express their Liturgy in their own culture. Fr. Rivers was involved with making the Liturgy come alive with music, but there was limited involvement of the people being served.

However, it was often a struggle to get small changes through. As in the case of music, it was not necessarily seen as black, but as Protestant. The internal operations of the Church were always the job of the priests and the hierarchy and in the sixties, when a black perspective was desired there was a reluctance to have catechesis with a black perspective.

It has been 25 years since the Black Bishops wrote a pastoral letter requiring more involvement by blacks in evangelization. For black parishes to grow there needs to be a more communal nature of the Liturgy. The methodology being developed should always include four things. Foremost is dealing with liberation, which translates into being free to do your own expressions of faith. Secondly, a pastoral objective should be affirmation, thus changing years of self-hate. Third is conversion by putting the actions into practice in areas such as social justice and a changing world-view. Lastly, there is the idea of evangelization. This involves including things in the parishes that look like them, such as the black Jesus. Addressing secularization by finding God in everything we do was also mentioned. And the anachronism for this methodology is LACES.

Part of the black history in the Catholic Church saw the response of several prominent Congregations in the 1800’s. The Josephites, the Divine Word Missionaries, and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament often responded to the blacks by way of ministry, however, many still had to go overseas to become priests early on. But, the Religious Communities had a better vision than the Diocesan structures, primarily because Religious Communities have a more family oriented structure.

Beverly entertained questions and suggestions from the Brothers present and this sparked a discussion about Special Needs families. Those with special needs also have not been ministered to and allowed to become a part of the Church’s mission of evangelization. Much of the sensitivity to these issues is still not being taught in the seminaries.