Diocesan ethnic ministries office to sponsor listening session

By Devin R. Jones
Diocesan Catholic Ethnic Ministries

The diocesan Catholic Ethnic Ministries Office is sponsoring a listening session on Wednesday, June 19 at 6:30 p.m. in the Jessing Center of the Pontifical College Josephinum, 7625 N. High St., Columbus, with bishops who are members of the ad hoc committee against racism of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Bishop Shelton Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, chairman of the committee, will be in attendance, along with Bishop Robert Brennan of Columbus. There is no charge for the event. For more information or to register, visit columbuscatholic.org/cem, send an email to  ethnicministries@columbuscatholic.org, or call (614) 221-7990. 

At its November 2018 general meeting, the USCCB voted to approve and publish Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love, a pastoral letter against racism. This letter is the first formal document from the bishops addressing racism since their 1979 letter Brothers and Sisters to Us. Many people in communities most affected by racism have been eagerly awaiting a new, perhaps updated guidance from the USCCB for a generation. For all the faithful of the United States, this should be a welcome teaching.

At the time it was written, Brothers and Sisters to Us was groundbreaking and courageous in its direct approach to what racism was and is, and in its admittance of the failings of Church leadership and the faithful in America. The American bishops boldly opened the letter by stating, “Racism is an evil which endures in our society and in our Church.” They went on to teach that racism is a sin. 

For many of the faithful, these were not new thoughts or feelings, although it was the first time that they heard the collective college of bishops from throughout the nation actually state it. As time has passed and overt racism and discrimination has given way to more hidden and at times seemingly “pleasant” forms of racism, the bishops felt the need to modernize and reinforce their previous exhortation.

Open Wide Our Hearts is different in that this pastoral letter not only acknowledges the racism that has happened in the past and still occurs, but also acknowledges how compounded racist laws and societal norms in America continue to inform and haunt our society.  

In writing about the African American experience, the letter states, “Consistently, African Americans have been branded, by individuals, society, and even, at times, by members of the Church, with the message that they are inferior. Likewise, this message has been imprinted into the U.S. social subconscious. African Americans continue to struggle against perceptions that they do not fully bear the image of God, that they embody less intelligence, beauty, and goodness.” This is an acknowledgment that the blatant racism of the past continues to inform societal perceptions in the present. 

Open Wide Our Hearts recognizes the great contributions marginalized ethnic communities have offered the Church in the United States. In a section titled “Native American Experience,” the bishops state, “Many, but certainly not all, Native peoples accepted the Gospel willingly. For instance, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Nicholas William Black Elk Sr. (a Native American catechist of the early 20th century who led more than 400 people to the Catholic faith), and the martyrs of the La Florida missions (more than 50 people  martyred in defense of the faith in Florida from the mid-16th to mid-18th centuries) were moved by Christ’s message of love and by the example of Christians who honored their dignity.” 

At the heart of the letter is a call to personal conversion in Jesus Christ so that all of us might truly love our neighbor as ourselves. There is much to read and learn in this new pastoral letter, and all the faithful are invited and encouraged to read it. A link to the letter is posted on the Catholic Ethnic Ministries Office website at columbuscatholic.org/aaresources.