On the Feast of All Saints, a Pastoral Letter on Racism Reminds Us of the Communion of the Saints

On the Feast of All Saints we celebrate men and women of every place and time who lived with great sanctity. Many of them are known to us and are among our great heroes of the Faith; even more are unknown to us.

The most common hymn for this feast day is “For All the Saints.” It is interesting that the name of the tune to which the lyrics are set is “Sine Nomine” (without name). In other words, this feast celebrates those who, although they attained great sanctity, are largely unknown to us. They lived in ordinary circumstances and were fairly hidden from the world at large, but God knows them and has awarded them the crown of righteousness. They, too, are part of the rich tapestry of this feast and the glory of the Communion of Saints.

It is fitting, then, that on the Feast of All Saints, Donald Cardinal Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington released a pastoral letter on racism entitled, “The Challenge of Racism Today.” We are all well aware of recent racial tensions in our country and the Cardinal would have us reflect on this problem as Catholics. This reflection should come from the perspective of our faith more so than from politics and worldly culture.

I’d like to review a number of the Cardinal’s teachings under three headings.

I. God’s Vision – Cardinal Wuerl begins by noting our daily experience here in the Archdiocese of Washington:

The sight from the sanctuary of many a church in our archdiocese offers a glimpse of the face of the world.

Indeed, our parishes are ethnically and racially diverse. The rich beauty of diversity in the unity of our faith is manifest everywhere.

“Catholic” means universal and it could not be more obvious in Washington, D.C. as it is in many other regions. Catholics come from everywhere!

This diversity is from God Himself, who has not only created the rich tapestry of humankind but also delights in uniting us all in His Church.

Babylon and Egypt I will count among those who know me; Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia, these will be her children and Zion shall be called “Mother” for all shall be her children.” It is he, the Lord Most High, who gives each his place. In his register of peoples he writes: “These are her children,” and while they dance they will sing: “In you all find their home.” (Psalm 87:1-7)

It was always God’s plan that people from every nation would find their home in His family. St. Paul spoke eloquently of this plan:

The mystery was made known to me by revelation;…. the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the people of other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. And the mystery is this: that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (Ephesians 3:3-6)

By God’s grace, by His plan and vision, we are called to be members of the One Body, the Church, through the grace of shared faith.

Jesus sets forth the realization of God’s desire in his great commission: Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).

This is order number one from Jesus: Go everywhere; call everyone; make them disciples by teaching them what I have taught and baptizing them into the one Body of Christ, the Church.

II. Sinful Revisions – We human beings are often slow to hear and even slower to do what God commands. When it comes to reaching across racial and ethnic boundaries to make disciples, we often give in to fear and the hostilities that result. We also give in to pride and notions of racial superiority. This has been an ugly tendency throughout human history.

As people of faith, we cannot ignore God’s command to include all in His Kingdom. The Cardinal tells us that we must confront and overcome racism. This challenge is not optional.

Jesus warns us against wrathful disparagement of others: Anyone who says to his brother, “Raca,” will be subject to the Sanhedrin. And anyone who says, “You fool!” will be subject to the fire of hell (Matt 5:22). He counsels us, So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matt 5:23-24).

This teaching is applied to our day with clarity in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone …” (CCC # 357). … There is no basis to sustain that some are made more in the image of God than others.

Cardinal Wuerl cites the pastoral letter, “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” published by the United States bishops in 1979:

Racism is a sin. … [I]t divides the human family, blots out the image of God among specific members of that family and violates the fundamental human dignity of those called to be children of the same Father.

We have no right or capacity to overrule God or reject the dignity He Himself has established. The Cardinal describes racism as a denial of the goodness of creation.

While some dispute the particulars of racism in this or that specific situation, we cannot simply brush aside the consistent experience of so many of our brothers and sisters. The Cardinal reminds us:

To address racism, we need to recognize two things: that it exists in a variety of forms, some more subtle and others more obvious; and that there is something we can do about it… even if we realize that what we say and the steps we take will not result in an immediate solution to a problem that spans generations.

As we are reminded by St. Paul, There should be no division in the body, but that its members should have mutual concern for one another. If one member suffers, every member suffers with him (1 Cor 12:25-26).

As a Church we have not always lived up to the call that God has given us. The Cardinal writes:

Saint John Paul II in the Great Jubilee Year asked for the recognition of sins committed by members of the Church during its history. He called for a reconciliation through recalling the faults of the past in a spirit of prayerful repentance that leads to healing of the wounds of sin. So acknowledging our sins and seeking to remedy what we can, we turn with sorrow to those we have offended, individually and collectively and also express gratitude for the tenacity of their faith…. We also recognize the enduring faith of immigrants who have not always felt welcome in the communities they now call home.

It is a remarkable testimony that so many who have felt spurned by fellow Christians and Catholics did not reject the faith, but tenaciously held on to it. Even in the midst of great pain, so many stayed in the faith; through forgiveness and great patience they have helped to purify fellow Christians and work for ongoing reform within the Church.

Because God has reconciled us to himself through Christ, we have received the ministry of reconciliation. Saint Paul tells us, “God has reconciled the world to himself in Christ … entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).

Thus the Cardinal invokes a key dimension of the apostolic office: reconciling us to one another and to God. As a bishop, Cardinal Wuerl urges us to seek reconciliation where it is needed.

Reconciliation requires first that we acknowledge our sins. As Jesus says, we must go and be reconciled to our brother or sister. If we have in any way fostered division, if we have scorned, mocked, excluded, or derided others, we should admit the sin and seek to be reconciled.

While there are often grievances on all sides when it comes to race, this need not stop us from hearing and pondering the consistent and widespread experience of those who feel excluded or scorned. Sometimes it just starts with listening, before rushing to judge whether the experience of others is valid.

There are wounds that go back decades and even centuries. Reconciliation takes time. Recognizing another’s pain and experience is an act of respect. Listening is a very great gift.

Please consider making a careful, spiritual reading of the Cardinal’s pastoral letter. See it as an honest assessment of our need to recognize racism and repent for any cooperation we have had in it, past or present. Consider, too, his call for us to entrust our hearts to the Lord, so that we can, as the Cardinal says, envision the new city of God, not built by human hands, but by the love of God poured out in Jesus Christ.

In the weeks ahead, other initiatives and gatherings will be announced in the diocese. Among them is a recognition of the many African-Americans who were enslaved and who were buried in our Catholic cemeteries without any headstones or markers. You might say that they were buried sine nomine, without any recognition of their names.

It is fitting, then, that on this Feast of All Saints, when we acknowledge the many saints whose names we do not know, that we also remember those buried in our cemeteries whose names are known only to God. They were called slaves but were in fact God’s children, possessed of the freedom of Children of God. May they rest now with God in the peace and unity of the Communion of Saints.

" "we now know" that Pius' views as expressed in HG were naive and pre-scientific. "

"We"?

The doctrine has not changed. Here you are (admittedly?) expressing your own bias, not Catholic dogma.

ZC, always good to have you in the discussion.

Please desist from spreading falsehoods about Catholic doctrine.

Yes, you can dig out something from the Teilhardian dingbats. I'm sure you've got that at your fingertips.

Catholic dingbat opinion does not equal Catholic doctrine.

The doctrine has not changed. Here you are (admittedly?) expressing your own bias, not Catholic dogma.

Mrs. Don-o, I have always disagreed with you but have always respected your integrity. Now you are engaging in dishonesty, which is very unlike you.

You well know that I don't subscribe to an evolutionary worldview. I put quotes around "we" precisely because it is Catholics who claim that "new knowledge" has disqualified the historicity of Genesis 1-11 from consideration. I myself have read this very thing in Catholic apologetics aimed at a popular audience. What good does an obscure old encyclical issued in Latin when what it says has been discarded by the vast majority of practicing Catholics?

I ask you again: Was there a Flood? Was there a Dispersion? Were there really ten generations from Adam to Noah, ten generations from Noah to Abraham, and six generations from Abraham to Moses?

Did the Flood literally occur in the 1656th year of Creation? The Flood in the 1996th? The Exodus in the 2448th?

Unless you wish to address these questions kindly don't respond to me again.

“I believe that the Catholic Church embraced Protestant-created higher criticism (and evolution) because they undermined the truth of the Bible and thus undercut the Protestant claim of Biblical sufficiency (which claim is false, btw, as the Written Torah cannot be understood apart from the Oral Torah.) Now in order to be Catholic one simply must be a higher critic and evolutionist, or else face charges of being crypto-Protestant. On top of this is the lie that the Catholic (and Orthodox, and other ancient) churches in fact never accepted the truth of Genesis at all, and that the historical accuracy of Genesis 1-11 is a creation of nineteenth century evangelicals.

The hardest to take of Catholic (and other) hypocrisy is the fact that while they subject Genesis to uniformitarian scientific critique, they exempt the “new testament” with its equally impossible, unscientific claims such as “real presence,” resurrection from the dead, multiplication of loaves and fishes, and magical virgins who give birth to babies without the participation of a human father and whose child magically passes through the mother’s side to be born so her hymen would remain intact. All this is approved by their “scientists” and “intellectuals” but only inborn trailer trash could possibly believe in the Six Days of Creation, the Flood, or the Tower of Babel.

They disgust me.”

Thanks for your great reply. Of course I agree with you.

“Yeah, Croatian! You’d learn that the Hebrew Bible was written by primitive savages who didn’t understand how the world operates and that the Holy Torah is a splice of a collection of Babylonian and Canaanite myths!

Then they’d tell you that every alleged science-contradicting miracle in the “new testament” actually happened, because they aren’t “stupid” like the miracles of the “old testament!”

I love you. I really do.

Thanks for your great reply. Of course I agree with you.

Thank you so much. I have fought this lonely battle on FR for almost nineteen years with no allies (I had one once, but he's long since gone), since all the creationists here are Protestant and the non-Protestants are all evolutionists. Some of the Catholic FReepers actually claim that I am slandering Catholicism and that they are themselves literalist creationists, but they adamantly refuse to get involved on any thread in which Catholicism is shown to be at war with Biblical integrity.

While literalist creationism is not universal among Orthodox Jews it is still normative, and I have books and tables from Jewish publishers that assume the simple historical truth of the Biblical narrative, but for some reason they refuse to take part in the "culture wars" on Genesis--perhaps because, in their mind, "creationism" is identified with chrstianity (specifically Fundamentalist Protestantism) and don't want to be associated with it. More's the pity, since there are innumerable things to be associated with than that. But unlike the Orthodox Jews, who still adhere to the Biblical chronology quietly among themselves, the ancient chrstian churches actively attack it as a d@mnable Protestant error.

> But unlike the Orthodox Jews, who still adhere to the Biblical chronology quietly among themselves, the ancient chrstian churches actively attack it as a d@mnable Protestant error.

The first five books of the Hebrew Bible are the essence of the Written Torah. They alone contain all of the Divine precepts. Nothing may be added to them. Nothing may be subtracted from them. Even genuine prophets cannot alter anything in the Five Books of Moses. They are the ultimate criterion. (The Divine Code by Rabbi Moshe Weiner, Ask Noah International, 2011, p 38). Since the Five Books of Moses are the source of all Torah commandments, of course heretics will attack them.

Try telling that to a chrstian. "It doesn't matter that the Torah seems to imply that it is eternal. Isaiah said thus and so, and the 'new testament' interprets that prophecy thusly, therefore we know that Torah was to be (G-d forbid!) replaced by chrstianity."

And these people call Genesis literalists "simple minded."

> Try telling that to a chrstian. “It doesn’t matter that the Torah seems to imply that it is eternal. Isaiah said thus and so, and the ‘new testament’ interprets that prophecy thusly, therefore we know that Torah was to be (G-d forbid!) replaced by chrstianity.”

The Oral Torah is the true interpretation of the Five Books of Moses.

You are still a Catholic if you were baptized a Catholic. The baptismal mark on your soul does not go away. So you are just an inactive Catholic.

You can come back any time by talking with a priest and getting your questions answered.

**The hardest to take of Catholic (and other) hypocrisy **

Catholicism in not hypocrisy. It was founded on the apostles by Jesus Christ.

Where did you get this erring information?

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