A very good man has asked me why my participation on Facebook has recently been focused on race in politics. Our conversation was fruitful. Here are various points I made during our exchanges.
= = = =
My father came to the U.S. in the early 1950’s, a few years before I was born. Both my parents and I have experienced racism here. I’ve come across it from both liberals and conservatives. This latest presidential election campaign brought to the surface in our country some very openly expressed racist attitudes among our fellow citizens. The bishops have noted it, and are commenting. Even the FBI has come forward with statistics showing hate crimes against minorities in various categories have clearly risen. Since the openness of racism seems to be on the rise, it needs to be addressed.
After Christ ascended, the Church did not begin its own public ministry until Pentecost. Then, the first major crisis and scandal within the Church was one of ethnic discrimination; and it led the apostles to institute changes in the hierarchical and sacramental structures of the Church. Acts 6. The Hebrew Christians discriminated against the Greek Christians in the daily distribution of food. The apostles responded by stating the priority of prayer and the ministry of the word in their hierarchical role as apostles in the Church, and then they instituted the hierarchical-sacramental order of deacons.
That was not the last instance in the New Testament of apostles needing to address tensions between Jewish Christians and Christians from other ethnic and racial backgrounds. The Council of Jerusalem faced this, and the letters of St. Paul address this.
There is ethnic discrimination in the Church today at the highest levels. At the last Synod of Bishops, the African bishops defended the Church’s classical morality, and then a German bishop was caught openly stating that one cannot talk to Africans about these things.
And then the official German Catholic website katholisch.de dismissively wrote:
“Of course the Church is growing in Africa” “It is growing because the people are socially dependent and often have nothing but their faith. It is growing because the educational situation there is, on average, rather low and people accept simple answers to difficult problems of faith.”
One way in which we must work for the conversion of hearts is to preach publicly about what is right and what is wrong in all arenas. For one example, we must fight politically against abortion, while also working to convert hearts in this matter. It is not either-or, but the whole.
(image via Pixabay)
By Father Stephanos Pedrano
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In