The Racial Justice Committee invites you to read these articles during Black History Month.
Black History Month: Confronting the Mixed History of the Jesuits
The Jesuit Post, Feb 24, 2020
In 1967, Superior General Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, wrote a letter to the American Jesuits calling them to task for their collective inaction on racism. Arrupe stated, “The racial crisis involves, before all else, a direct challenge to our sincerity in professing a Christian concept of man.” Arrupe’s subsequent critique of the American Jesuits was sharp. Arrupe observed that Jesuits failed to work in, support, or worship with Black communities. He identified some causes of this inadequacy of Jesuits to truly live their faith: acceptance of stereotypes, insulation from poverty and the poor, and conforming to the wider white community’s discrimination against People of Color.
African American Catholics and the quest for racial justice
U.S. Catholic, February 20, 2015
Black Catholics must challenge their fellow believers to live up to the church’s moral teachings on issues of race.
Every February we celebrate the heritage of African Americans in the United States. For Catholics, this month has a twofold significance. First, in the words of black Catholic historian and Benedictine monk Cyprian Davis, it provides an opportunity to highlight the fact that “the Catholic Church in the United States has never been a white European church.” Indeed, Father Davis documents how persons of African descent have shaped our church at every stage of its history.