Posted on 03/18/2006 10:38:02 PM PST by Coleus
As the debate continues over what to rebuild in New Orleans, the fate of the city's black Catholic community may be one of the more poignant tales of loss and uncertainty in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It is also one that points to a challenge for the wider Catholic Church in America. New Orleans, along with Baltimore and New York, is one of the precious few strongholds of black Catholics in the United States, a venerable old community facing challenges beyond the storm's toll.
Katrina dispersed much of New Orleans's Catholic population, including many African-Americans. Even now, seven months later, only half of the 350 families from the Church of St. Augustine, a parish near the French Quarter founded in 1841 by slaves and freedmen, have returned. The local archbishop wants the congregants to merge with another church.
Indeed, people outside major cities are often surprised to discover that there are black Catholics at all; for them, the church's vaunted universality is limited to a light-toned blend of European and Latino nationalities. And indeed, African-Americans make up just 3% of the nation's more than 65 million Catholics. Why should this be so?
When it comes to racial integration, the Catholic Church in America carries much of the same historical baggage as many other institutions. True, there have been remarkable black American Catholics, notably Venerable Pierre Toussaint, the Haitian immigrant and slave who bought his own freedom in the early 19th century, and then used his wealth to fund all manner of charitable efforts and help to underwrite the building of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street in New York.
But such individuals had little support from on high. The Vatican condemned the slave trade only in 1839. During the Civil War, Pope Pius IX made no secret of
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Indeed, people outside major cities are often surprised to discover that there are black Catholics at all;
Others can feel free to comment, but I think a major reason white Catholics were so hostile to integration relative to other groups was due to the fact that blacks were outsiders not only in a cultural sense, but in a religious sense as well. The Catholic clergy in Chicago, Newark, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, etc. was ill equipped to deal with the changes that occurred as a result of the civil rights movement in the 1950s/1960s. Folks like Cardinal Stritch (Louisiana and then Chicago) were the exception.
Yes, I remember so many blacks when I went to First Baptist Church growing up in Texas. And the Methodist Church was positively overflowing with ethnic variety. Then of course the Episcopal Church down the street was totally black, the Church of Christ had "Chitlin and Blues Night"...
Somebody must have been bored to write this..
Are you thinking of Cardinal Cody?
Cody and Stritch were both pro-Civil Rights. I believe it was Stritch who excommunicated Leander Perez after he refused to integrate the schools in St. Bernard Parish. I could be wrong, as I wasn't alive back then and am too lazy to research it via google.
I was alive back then. It was Cardinal Cody (then coadjutor to Archbishop Rummel of New Orleans) who stood up to Perez and the opponents of desegregation of the Catholic schools in New Orleans.
My wife, before she became disabled, taught in a parochial school -- it was about 80-90% black students enrolled in that school. For "Black History Month" each year, she always tasked the students in her class to do reports on African saints (she gave them a long list). The comments from many of the parents each year were illuminating: they (the PARENTS) had NO idea how many African saints there were in the Church's history -- in fact, they had no idea about that part of Church History at all.
Exactly, since there is NOTHING wrong with Black Catholics...
LOL!!! Growing up, I was surrounded by black Catholics. One of my grade school classmates even became a priest. I thought the black Baptists were the minority.
God bless your wife for enlightening the minds of these children and parents. What better way to instill pride. They must have been equally amazed to learn of the 3 black popes - Victor (183-203 AD), Gelasius (492-496 AD), and Mechiades or Militiades (311-314 AD). (This past conclave almost gave us a 4th ;-)
It surprises no end of people when they really start to inculcate the real meaning of the term "Catholic" (i.e., universal). To think that some people think it's a European invention...
Catholics were hostile to integration because:
1) It was promoted by the "No dogs or Irish" crowd, who never repented of their sins aginst their brothers from Europe.
2) Integration was supposed to take place by merging the black neighborhoods and the Irish and Italian neighborhoods together. The WASP suburbs weren't about to be integrated at all. I.e. the Boston School Busing case was decided by a rich white judge from Wellesley, who certainly did not order the blacks to be bused in to integrate Wellesley.
3) There was a lingering disgust at the history of white slavery and kidnapping (politely called "indentured servitude" by WASP History books) and its residual effects: slave songs like "Rather be a Nigger than a poor white man", Frederic Law Olmstead observing the black slaves recklessly casting huge bales of cotton into a ships hold where the Irish were made to work catching them and arranging them and hearing "Oh the Negroes are far to valuable to use down there, but if a Paddy gets his neck broken, nobody's lost anything", memories of the Protestants sending in the Army or armed gangs of private thugs to break up strikes by mostly Catholic workers in the mines, mills, and railroads and kill the strikers who resisted, while the same police power was now being used against the Catholics again to force the blacks upon them.
4) Affirmative Action was aimed squarely at those area where "discrimination" was preventing the blacks from breaking into essentially all-Catholic preserves like the Polie and Fire Departments. It was not being used to force blacks into the WASP law firms, banks, and corporate suites.
From the view of the Catholic man in the street, it looked for all the world like an all-out attack on his house, job, and safety.
The Vatican first condemned the modern slave trade in 1537.
It is interesting you mention that. Every black person that I know in the two churches that I attend are faithful, committed and serious Catholics! Does this mean that black people are more religiously serious about their faith? Perhaps we should take a lesson from our brothers who are from African descent. Most of our good priests here are coming from Africa. The white American ones (except the younger ones now) are pretty liberal.
Regards
That school, as I mentioned earlier, was 80-90% black. That school was also about 50% non-Catholic.
While I will agree with your statement, Every black person that I know in the two churches that I attend are faithful, committed and serious Catholics!, there is a difference between a tremendous spirituality and an understanding of history. At least in that parish, the black native Catholics...as opposed to the black immigrant Catholics...were often woefully ignorant of ancient Church history.
My Polish and Italian ancestors were treated better by the WASPs (and the Germans!) than they were by the Irish.
Read Studs Lonigan to see the chip-on-the-shoulder racism/inferiority complex of the Irish American lower class towards blacks, Poles, Jews, and Italians.
This anti-WASP mentality was always big with the Irish and the Jews, but not with most other ethnic groups. After all, it was WASP Republicans that recruited the Italians into politics in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
As far as the Boston was concerned, Judge GARRITY was Irish Catholic. He basically didn't understand why the Shanty Irish of South Boston, who so enjoyed living in housing projects and (in many cases) collecting welfare, wouldn't mind having blacks of their own social class joining them.
The Trogolodytes of South Boston embraced the welfare state, only to have it bite them in the a-s. Yet they STILL vote for the friggin Kennedys!
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