The 10th National Black Catholic Congress that convened in Buffalo, N.Y., in mid-July could have used a Cyprian LaMar Rowe. A Marist brother at the time of the historic sixth congress in 1987, Rowe stepped to that congress' forefront, quelling an undercurrent of impatience with the process that did not allow some 1,500 delegates and observers to speak directly to those things which pained them.
Rowe acknowledged the problems and then swayed the majority to agree to disagree while remaining focused on completing the process.
While there was no discernable undercurrent of dissatisfaction among Congress X's 2,500 participants, there was the absence of one clear voice speaking without apology to the entire church about what troubles the hearts of some 2.5 million U.S. black Catholics: the need to move from the periphery of membership in the church to inclusion at all levels.
The voices that did dominate the plenary sessions, homilies and workshops were inspiring, interrupted several times by the applause of participants who were as impressed as I was with speakers' calls to go forth and tell others about Christ, empowered by sacramental grace.
But by focusing primarily on where black Catholics want to go and not enough on where we are, and by implying that to mention any painful issues is "negativity, ... criticism, cynicism or division," I believe facilitators unwittingly missed fully utilizing their moment in the media spotlight. And this congress was historic enough for media to turn out in respectable numbers.
Causes rise and fall based on public awareness of issues, and media tend to zoom in on who tells a story best. Televised images of fire hoses turned on segregation protesters shocked America and won great sympathy for civil rights activists. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Archbishop Oscar Romero, Mahatma Gandhi, Fannie Lou Hamer and Daniel Rudd did not shrink from media coverage but saw in it an opportunity to tell whole stories, to give ordinary people something each could do to address their problems.
Whether it was to stop riding busses, make their own salt or meet in congress to establish an agenda for evangelizing African Americans, it was something all people could do to hasten needed change.
And the Catholic Church needs to change the way it ministers with and among minorities. Arch/dioceses are still lumping ministries to minorities together and under the authority of mostly whites. They continue to set budgets without high-salaried personnel ever setting foot in black or Hispanic parishes or attending a workshop to understand who these constituents are, how they benefit the whole church --- and vice versa!
Congress X could have called for a shaking up of the status quo that misses enrichment opportunities because so many of its various racial communities worship in isolated pockets. This call would not have been to embarrass the church but to say black Catholics in particular long for greater interaction with all of the other beautiful people of God.
There's a reason the black Catholic movement rose in the late-1800s (Rudd himself was a journalist who used media to father the national black Catholic congress movement!), fell, rose again when Thomas Wyatt Turner founded the Federated Colored Catholics in 1925 to promote racial harmony, fell again when the organization lost its focus when required to become part of the Catholic Interracial Council in 1933, then rose again when black Catholics and their supporters were vocal in protesting racism from the late-1960s on, their efforts culminating in the U.S. black bishops in 1987 --- in one voice --- calling for the resumption of the black Catholic congresses that came to a halt nearly a century earlier.
I believe the reason the black Catholic movement rises and falls is directly related to how well black Catholics tell their full story. But who will do this for us today? Who can we send? Carole Norris Greene is a columnist with Catholic News Service. |