A certain memory of Peter Claver is often used by Catholics to distance themselves from actually engaging in ministry or relationships with Black Americans. Yet this false image of Claver, rather than absolving Catholics of their responsibilities towards Black people, is rather an even more scathing indictment of our indifference. Our image of Claver is a call to all of us Catholics to be who he was not.
What Senator Ted Cruz called an “assault” and a “despicable act of terrorism,” for us in the Black community, was the reinforcement of several realities that we have known for centuries: that our nation is characterized by white privilege and racist violence.
How does Raphael Warnock’s black liberation theology offer a path forward from the insurrection at the Capitol?
God never stops laboring for us and for our world, laboring for justice, reconciliation, and the end of racism. We clearly see this in the awakening that has spread throughout the world after the “lynching” of George Floyd. At the end of the Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius invites us to respond in gratitude to God’s unceasing love for us. In the last talk of our Jesuit Antiracism Retreat, Michael Bachmeier explains how this gratitude manifests in our willingness to surrender ourselves and join the labors of God through the marginalized.
Feeling grief for the suffering of others is one of the first steps toward a commitment to serve them. It helps us to have a greater sense of urgency for justice, as well as a deeper understanding of what is at stake. When we accompany those who suffer from racism in their mourning, we walk with our neighbors and bear witness to our Christian vocation. River Simpson, SJ, introduces us to the third week of our “Know Justice, Know Peace: A Jesuit Antiracism Retreat,” and invites us to remain faithfully present to the agonizing Jesus, through our accompaniment of the victims of racism.
As an activist and theology professor at Villanova University, Katie Grimes, Ph.D., is trying to make sense of the Catholic Church’s relationship to white supremacy and antiblackness. She answers questions about the shooting of Ahmaud Arbury, the complicated history of the Church and slavery, and what we can do to make a difference today.
Ángel Flores Fontánez reflexiona sobre su camino siguiendo los pasos de los héroes del Movimiento por los Derechos Civiles, y en cómo podemos imitarlos hoy.
In the midst of the one heck of a game and comeback, Colten Biro, SJ, identifies 9 messages which meant more than you might think.
Most existing histories of Jesuit slaveholding prioritize the actions and voices of Jesuit slaveholders, and not the people they held in bondage. Ayan Ali tells about her research with the Jesuits’ Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project which seeks to address this historical bias by conducting extensive historical research with an intentional focus on the lives of enslaved people.
Black history has systematically been forgotten and erased in so many ways. Rather than division, Black History Month has the power to unite us by bringing us to a greater knowledge of the truth, together. Unity can only flourish in the context of truth.