NEW YORK (AP) — Black Roman Catholics are hearing their church’s leaders calling for racial justice once again after the killing of George Floyd, but this time they’re demanding not just words but action.
As protests against racism and police brutality continue nationwide, there are rising calls for huge new investment in Catholic schools serving Black communities; a commitment to teach the complex history of Black Catholics; and a mobilization to combat racism with the same zeal the church shows in opposing abortion.
The church has made clear it stands against racism,” said the Rev. Mario Powell, a Black priest who heads a Jesuit middle school in Brooklyn.
The same day her article appeared, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., the highest-ranking Black leader in the U.S. church, joined eight fellow bishops from his region in acknowledging the church’s “sins and failings” on racial justice.
Black Catholics’ somewhat marginal place in the U.S. church is illustrated by statistics compiled by the national bishops’ conference.
