Catholic Complicity

As we stood in the midst of a memorial listing every name of every enslaved child who died at Whitney Plantation, I was awestruck. “How do we know their names?” someone asked our guide. “Baptismal records,” she answered. In Catholic Louisiana, every enslaved child had to be baptized, and so every child had a documented name. Beyond that, not much more information was known, just life and death. My mind was racing. How could the church have recognized humanity enough to save a soul, but not enough to save the body? How could they let this happen? The complicity of Catholicism in the institution and perpetuation of slavery had never occurred to me. I was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion, anger, and bitter disappointment. 

Owning Whiteness and Ousting Racism

Philadelphia has been rioting for four consecutive days in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a black man pinned down by a white police officer in Minnesota. The streets are full of protesters, looters, shattered glass, boiling anger, and fragile hope. The sound of sirens and helicopters has become our lullaby. People are tired, frightened, nervous, righteous, fed up, grieving, and demanding justice. Black Lives Matter. 

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church just celebrated the feast of Pentecost on Sunday: the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, the birthday of the church. Pope Francis articulated in his homily that the apostles “were all different. Jesus did not change them; he did not make them into a set of pre-packaged models. He left their differences and now he unites them by anointing them with the Holy Spirit.” What if we applied this to our country? We are all different; what unites us? How do we use our differences for good? How do we treat those differences as good, not as a basis for injustice?