racism

Drums punctuated a silent march by almost 800 Catholic women religious leaders Aug. 10 as they processed two blocks from a hotel ballroom to the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis, the site of the first two trials of the historic Dred Scott case.

A planned pastoral letter addressing racism is on schedule for a November vote by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

ishop Shelton J. Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, the newly appointed chair of the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he looks forward to serving the bishops in this role as Catholic church leaders continue to respond to the “sin” of racism.

Some Catholics said it was more important to look at the sentiment, not the vulgarity of the words the president of the United States allegedly used to refer to immigrants from certain countries: Disparaging, hateful, racist.

At the start of their annual fall assembly in Baltimore Nov. 13, U.S. Catholic bishops faced some big issues — immigration and racism — straight on and zeroed in on how to raise the national level of discussion on these topics starting in the church pews.

Bishop George V. Murry, speaking to bishops gathered Nov. 13 for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops fall gathering in Baltimore, said that while racism was not unique to the United States, it “lives in a particular and pernicious way in our country, in large part because of the experience of the historic evil of slavery.”

Bishop George V. Murry of Youngstown, Ohio, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism spoke at a news conference about Martin Luther King, jr. support of nonviolence to bring about social change.

Combating racial disparities will require overcoming policies championed by both the political right and left that entrench established ideological and economic power structures. In other words, it requires the wisdom of Catholic social teaching.