Decolonize the Church
I am about to commit a terrible act of appropriation, which is what I do every week, if I’m honest. It feels more sensitive this week because I’m going to report on an interview on decolonization by Shannen Dee Williams and Tia Noelle Pratt, Black Catholic scholars. As part of the giant European presence in Catholicism, I should not be writing, only listening. You can listen too. Soon the podcast of the event I heard will be posted, and there are two more programs in the series on the next two Wednesdays, the first featuring Williams.
Williams is Assistant Professor at Villanova and will publish her first book, Subversive Habits, about Black Catholic sisters in the spring. Pratt is a public scholar who is the compiler of the #Black Catholic Syllabus, a remarkable online bibliography of resources both academic and popular; she is working on her first book, Faithful and Devoted, on racism and Black identity. I will highlight several themes in their discussion.
Colonization. The idea is that the church is a white endeavor that has reached out to African-Americans, especially those who came North in the Great Migrations of the 20th century. “Black Catholics are not the product of white missionary zeal.” They have existed on this continent for 500 years. Black Catholics are not a myth.
Erasure. Black Catholic experience has been left out of the American Catholic narrative. Black Catholic scholars resist by centering that experience. They focus on the stories and contributions of laity, religious men and women, and clergy, and bring their own experience to the telling.
Numbers. Counting only the three million Catholics in Black parishes misses those in other parishes and many Latinx Catholics who so identify. Also not counted are those who have left. (There’s a Black Baptist church that is known as the largest Black Catholic Church in Philadelphia.)
Closures. When black parishes are consolidated, about a third of those displaced never find a new home. When they are closed, sacred spaces free of discrimination, humiliation and racism are gone.
Parishes. “To destroy this parish is to destroy Black Catholic experience in Philadelphia.” Pratt’s research with the descendants of the founders of St. Peter Claver reveals that Black lay women and men raised the funds even before there was a parish recognized by the Archdiocese, but white individuals and institutions are the only ones credited in the surviving texts. The Black story is in the oral histories told by the second, third, and fourth generations, and the documents authenticate it. The descendants are resisting the sale of the building, now closed as a church.
Identity. “Black Catholics construct identity through liturgy.” In Commonweal, Pratt expands this idea as she analyzes how three Black liturgical styles express authentic Black Catholic identity.
Visibility. Popular Black authors like Toni Morrison and Edward P. Jones are not often recognized as Catholics, and Louise Erdrich is not seen as a Native American Catholic. Pratt explores this further in “I Bring Myself, My Black Self,” quoting Sister Thea Bowman. Pratt profiles Bowman’s contributions to African-American identity in the context of the discussion of the renaming of a building at Loyola Maryland for her. It’s a feisty article.
Saints. Slavers and segregationists have been made saints. “We need to lean into saints who did terrible things.” We should not expect them to be perfect. “We can shift our own imagination.”
Cardinals. Wilton Gregory is the first, and in a large and prominent diocese, Washington, DC. In the next Concave, Black Catholic experience goes in with him. African and Caribbean men have been elevated since the 1960s.
Global presence. “Black people were practicing Roman Catholicism when St. Patrick was casting snakes out of Ireland.” Think St. Augustine. Think Africa and people of African descent now in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Western Europe.
Archives. Access to Black Catholic sources would be greatly expanded if documents were digitized, but that’s expensive. Now that history is under researched, which means that it’s under taught, at every level.
And after my sins of misappropriation, probably, and of omission, certainly, in writing about this conversation, I hope I do not offend by saying I am especially touched by the loyalty of these bright young scholars to each other. I have been part of academia for forty years and I know this is a difficult time to get positions and to do work in a new field. These women are doing it. They are filling a gap that not only affirms Black Catholic identity but also redresses some of the institutional racism in American Catholic history.
6 Responses
Conclave.
I am a Vatican 2 kid that grew up Catholic in a predominantly white suburb. I never met religious sisters nor was I aware of black Catholics. Recently, I met religious sisters and attending a diverse church in south Atlanta, I learned about black Catholics and the annual Black Catholic Convention. Archbishop Gregory was our dioceses leader. Enlightening.
Racism is rooted in patriarchy.
Thanks for this article. Informing ourselves about the history of Black Catholics in the U.S. is important. St. Augustin in FL was the first Catholic parish in what today is U.S. and it had members of all races. Catholic Bishops supported slavery and were preoccupied about not unsettling the conscience of Catholic slave owners. Some suggested that Black women who wanted to be nuns should instead work as domestics. Let’s not forget that there are African-American canonized saints and others in process to get there. We can learn about them and about many other things. There is, indeed, a lot to learn.
I am glad you are sensitive to the appropriation issue, but I think you bring the work of these Black Catholic scholars to the attention of people who should know it, but might not actively look for it. We need to be reminded that there are large gaps in our understanding and information about people of color, yet another symptom of systemic racism. Now, we have titles and authors to look for, and learn from. Thank you.
I have never forgotten an expression of a parishioner in St. Malachy parish in Philadelphia who commented that all agencies in the African American/Latino neighborhood operated from the position of colonizers. Employees of the agencies, including priests in the parishes, were there only temporarily on agency payrolls and saw their place as a job until they moved on to the next job. They felt relatively safe there thanks to the occupying police. The people in the neighborhood however were more or less permanent residents, given little agency by those going elsewhere in a few years or so. I would say one exception may have been the St. Malachy pastor who stayed for 30 some years. Again as elsewhere, though, the question may be whose church was it, the priests or the parishioners?