In a liturgy dominated by African-American themes and voices, the U.S. bishops marked the 25th anniversary of their pastoral letter on racism with a prayer that God would end "any blindness that comes from sinful, misguided and hardened hearts."
Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., who was completing a three-year term as the first African-American to be president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was principal celebrant and homilist at the Nov. 15 evening Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
In his homily, Bishop Gregory called the 1979 pastoral letter, "Brothers and Sisters to Us," a "landmark statement that still challenges us today."
The Mass, which closed the first day of the fall general meeting of the USCCB, was marred by small protests by supporters of homosexual rights and an opponent of the war in Iraq.
Bishop Gregory focused his homily on the Gospel reading from Luke about Jesus' healing of the blind man near Jericho. "What is racism if not fundamentally a blindness?" he asked. "It is a blinding shadow so dark and damaging that it keeps us from seeing Jesus in others."
Bishop Gregory noted that the 1979 letter "was not the first time the church had called racism a sin." He said progress had been made in the past 25 years, but "today's struggles call us to press ahead."
The pastoral letter "remains simply beautiful words unless we all have the humility to ask the Lord to let us see," he added.
Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago, who was elected chairman of the bishops' Committee on African-American Catholics the next day, read a message from Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, marking the anniversary of the letter.
"We can all be proud of the fact that the law no longer permits racial discrimination and that racism is nearly universally recognized as a simply ignorant prejudice, especially by the young," the cardinal wrote.
"Yet in terms of social and economic opportunity and advancement, we cannot be satisfied. Problems of family breakdown, poverty, violence, drug abuse and other scourges disproportionately affect racial minorities and need to be more seriously addressed if your society is to fulfill its noble promise of liberty and justice for all," he added.
Some 650 people --- as well as an estimated 250 concelebrating bishops and priests --- attended the Mass, which opened with a procession led by nine African-American bishops and an almost exclusively African-American contingent of altar servers and readers.
The Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Church Choir of Washington provided the music, which included an African-American spiritual and a South African folk song.
Before the Mass began, a member of the basilica staff announced that in response to indications that some planned to use the Eucharist "not as a sign of unity but as a sign of protest," Communion would be refused to "anyone wearing a visible sign of protest." That decision had the approval of the USCCB, he said.
The staff member was referring to planned actions by members of Soulforce, an interfaith advocacy organization working against church policies that members say harm homosexuals, and Rainbow Sash, which describes itself as an organization of gay and lesbian Catholics and their family and friends.
About a dozen members of Soulforce protested outside the basilica before the Mass but did not attempt to receive Communion. Five or six people wearing rainbow sashes were turned away from Communion without incident, according to Susan Gibbs, director of communications for the Washington Archdiocese.
But in another part of the basilica, a woman who had called out before the Mass urging prayers and saying "we are slaughtering millions in Iraq" got into a scuffle with an usher when she walked away holding a Communion host, which she said she had planned to consume while praying in her seat.
Kathy Boylan, a 61-year-old resident of a Catholic Worker house in Washington, told Catholic News Service after the Mass that the usher had "crushed the host" during the scuffle.
"I love the Eucharist. I would never disrespect the Eucharist," she said, adding that she frequently takes the host to her seat after receiving Communion in her usual church, St. Aloysius in Washington.
Liturgical guidelines for the reception of Communion, however, require that the host be consumed in the presence of the minister of Communion.
Boylan said she spoke to several bishops after the Mass about the situation in Iraq. "I know God wants to see (the bishops) demand an end to the war," she said. ---CNS |