As church demographics shift, Catholics urged to address 'sin of racism'

[Ridgerunner]

I read somewhere that most churches in America are divided along racial lines. That was certainly my experience when I visited Washington recently where two catholic churches were overwhelmingly white, and the other predominantly black. In other words the inside of both churches didn’t reflect the diversity one saw outside. And all the people I spoke to said this was a common occurrence.

One might ask why.

It is my impression that the liturgical practices in black Catholic churches are very different from those in “white” Catholic churches. Same with Hispanic. It has been a very long time since I attended Mass in a predominately black Catholic church, not so long ago that I attended a Spanish language Mass. A lot of the practices in the latter are very unattractive to me, and I imagine they would be to most people of western or northern European extraction and culture. I have imagined as well how staid and boring “Anglo” hymns must be to, say, people from Mexico who have not been here very long.

There are cultural differences, and I do not condemn one in favor of another. But how is one to practice “diversity” when people have very definite preferences in music and decor? The same thing exists among white people too. I grew up in the Ozarks listening to Protestant hymns on the radio and in the strawberry patches. So, I like singing, for example, “How Great Thou Art”, and hearing the convert daughter of a Baptist preacher play old hymns during Mass on her hammered dulcimer. That would probably be off-putting to a New Yorker.

To me, that polka-like music Mexicans have at Mass, with drums, at very high decibel levels, is not something I really want to hear at Mass. To me, it’s distracting and irritating. On the other hand, I rather like hearing that rollicking black choir music. I’m not sure I would want it all the time, though.

So, sometimes the 'segregation" we see within the Church isn’t really a matter of “racism” or “bias”. It’s just the natural consequence of differing cultures and preferences in language, music, presentation and decor.

 

[Allegra]

How do you know this?

I know this by observing the words and behaviors of many other Catholics that I know.

For example, the large group of drunken parents at a local parish who were attending a children’s soccer game against another Catholic school that had a predominantly Hispanic population and proceeded to chant “Mow our grass!” at the opposing team and their families.

Another example would be my mother’s first cousin, who during the first years of her career as a special education teacher declared at our dinner table that she couldn’t wait to find a job in a Catholic school so she would have to keep wasting her time on “stupid little n******s”. She is currently the principal of such a Catholic school.

Then there’s the dozens of times I’ve told a parishioner that I teach in a public school and the shake their heads and tell me they don’t know how anyone can teach these days with all “the blacks” causing trouble.

Then there’s the volunteers that show up to support our Haiti mission and tell us that they prefer to help Haitians because the are grateful, unlike “the blacks” around here.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I do not know what you mean by “concretely”. Within the confines of this thread, which is the need to address racism as sin, and Fr. Massingale’s concern that priest shy away from the topic, the direct solution of that this sin be taught in context of the Church’s teaching on basic human dignity. Also, when tragedy hits a community with its roots in racism, or racist tensions erupt in some public way, something as simple as adding the people involved to the list of prayer intentions can soften any that have a hard time looking past learned prejudice.

So, the priest is to encourage us to pray for racists that they stop being racists. Is that the sum and total of it?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I know this by observing the words and behaviors of many other Catholics that I know.

For example, the large group of drunken parents at a local parish who were attending a children’s soccer game against another Catholic school that had a predominantly Hispanic population and proceeded to chant “Mow our grass!” at the opposing team and their families.

Another example would be my mother’s first cousin, who during the first years of her career as a special education teacher declared at our dinner table that she couldn’t wait to find a job in a Catholic school so she would have to keep wasting her time on “stupid little n******s”. She is currently the principal of such a Catholic school.

Then there’s the dozens of times I’ve told a parishioner that I teach in a public school and the shake their heads and tell me they don’t know how anyone can teach these days with all “the blacks” causing trouble.

Then there’s the volunteers that show up to support our Haiti mission and tell us that they prefer to help Haitians because the are grateful, unlike “the blacks” around here.

All very surprising. It amazes me, for instance, that people in urban, Yankee St. Louis would be so ready to use the “N” word when southerners and hillbillies where I live in the south end of the state almost never do. And most assuredly, Catholics don’t. Truly remarkable.

 

[Allegra]

One is often put to wonder what, exactly, people mean when they say “racism” or “racist”. If priests are to speak out against it, what, precisely, are they supposed to say about it?

If we take the term in its most useful sense; to deliberately intend or do harm to someone merely because of his race, then I think most people would think a sermon on racism to be irrelevant to him or her, because very few have intentions of that sort or would dream of harboring them.

If we take the term in its more broad and vague sense as it is tossed around for political division; that majorities are guilty of some evil simply because some minorities lack certain socioeconomic advantages having nothing to do with their race, then the unfairness of such a critique would be apparent to all but ideological leftists.

If we take the term to mean a lack of a warm, fuzzy “good intention” or merely “good manners” that never translate into anything other than self-congratulation, then the sermon would be worse than useless.

If we take the term to be equivalent to “discriminatory” in its broadest sense; that is, having certain expectations of others whom we don’t know, but which could be cured upon knowing the person, it would apply to nearly everyone on earth and not necessarily as an evil. Do we expect Asians to be good students? Do we expect trouble from black teenagers coming toward us dressed in “gangsta” attire? Do we expect none from lily-white Mormon youth on bicycles? All of those things are “discriminatory”. Is there any value in sermons castigating us for having different reactions to the “gangsta” youth as we do to the Mormon youth?

Personally, I’m more than a little fatigued at all the talk about “racism” when almost nobody ever says exactly what he means by it, and when it is used as a cudgel to condemn without having a good reason to use it.

It’s true that there are different definitions of racism, though I think if we limited the definition to simply fostering feelings of contempt for individuals or groups based on their race, we’d be in a good place to start.

 

[BChartowski]

I read somewhere that most churches in America are divided along racial lines. That was certainly my experience when I visited Washington recently where two catholic churches were overwhelmingly white, and the other predominantly black. In other words the inside of both churches didn’t reflect the diversity one saw outside. And all the people I spoke to said this was a common occurrence.

Birds of a feather flock together. Why is this a problem? Having a community culture is now seen as racist? If someone is so concerned with a given mixture of skin color in a situation, they’re most likely the real racist. I’d be willing to bet that most people don’t think twice and simply attend whatever service, event, gathering, etc. that fits their culture. When you start forcing cultures to bend to your will that does nothing but breed ire and is likely to start war. For crying out loud, God even separated His people so that we wouldn’t even share a common language! This doesn’t mean we’re not part of the same whole; it just means that people have their own groups that they like and they will tend to spend most of their time with that group. It’s called everyday life. People just like making a stink so they can get their own way, because they’re the most important.

 

[liturgyluver]

One might ask why.

It is my impression that the liturgical practices in black Catholic churches are very different from those in “white” Catholic churches. Same with Hispanic. It has been a very long time since I attended Mass in a predominately black Catholic church, not so long ago that I attended a Spanish language Mass. A lot of the practices in the latter are very unattractive to me, and I imagine they would be to most people of western or northern European extraction and culture. I have imagined as well how staid and boring “Anglo” hymns must be to, say, people from Mexico who have not been here very long.

There are cultural differences, and I do not condemn one in favor of another. But how is one to practice “diversity” when people have very definite preferences in music and decor? The same thing exists among white people too. I grew up in the Ozarks listening to Protestant hymns on the radio and in the strawberry patches. So, I like singing, for example, “How Great Thou Art”, and hearing the convert daughter of a Baptist preacher play old hymns during Mass on her hammered dulcimer. That would probably be off-putting to a New Yorker.

To me, that polka-like music Mexicans have at Mass, with drums, at very high decibel levels, is not something I really want to hear at Mass. To me, it’s distracting and irritating. On the other hand, I rather like hearing that rollicking black choir music. I’m not sure I would want it all the time, though.

So, sometimes the 'segregation" we see within the Church isn’t really a matter of “racism” or “bias”. It’s just the natural consequence of differing cultures and preferences in language, music, presentation and decor.

We often sing How Great Thou Art as a recessional hymn at my parish. It is certainly a good one to raise the roof with!

I am sure that Gospel choirs and Polka Dot masses are occasional forays into something more adventurous rather than something offered as a baseline at Sunday mass every week in those parishes. The liturgy and music at the churches I attended in D.C was indistinguishable on that basis - in fact, the only common feature was very poor congregational participation.

 

[Allegra]

All very surprising. It amazes me, for instance, that people in urban, Yankee St. Louis would be so ready to use the “N” word when southerners and hillbillies where I live in the south end of the state almost never do. And most assuredly, Catholics don’t. Truly remarkable.

I hear similar comments from my husband’s family in rural Wisconsin, which is predominately Catholic and they have hardly any black people there at all. I don’t think it’s a regional thing or has to do with urban or rural environments.

 

[liturgyluver]

Birds of a feather flock together. Why is this a problem? Having a community culture is now seen as racist? If someone is so concerned with a given mixture of skin color in a situation, they’re most likely the real racist. I’d be willing to bet that most people don’t think twice and simply attend whatever service, event, gathering, etc. that fits their culture. When you start forcing cultures to bend to your will that does nothing but breed ire and is likely to start war. For crying out loud, God even separated His people so that we wouldn’t even share a common language! This doesn’t mean we’re not part of the same whole; it just means that people have their own groups that they like and they will tend to spend most of their time with that group. It’s called everyday life. People just like making a stink so they can get their own way, because they’re the most important.

I didn’t say it was racist, but that is struck me as odd coming from a place where different birds feel able to flock together, and where community at church is multi-racial. I had imagined that there might be separation within Protestant churches but not within the Catholic Church where we have the mass that binds us together!

 

[Seamus_L]

Maybe it binds us togather, but it doesnt mean the white folks in a rural area 50 miles outside a big city are going to come to town to worship at a parish in an area that’s 99 pct black or vice versa.

 

[SWolf]

One might ask why.

It is my impression that the liturgical practices in black Catholic churches are very different from those in “white” Catholic churches. Same with Hispanic. It has been a very long time since I attended Mass in a predominately black Catholic church, not so long ago that I attended a Spanish language Mass. A lot of the practices in the latter are very unattractive to me, and I imagine they would be to most people of western or northern European extraction and culture. I have imagined as well how staid and boring “Anglo” hymns must be to, say, people from Mexico who have not been here very long.

There are cultural differences, and I do not condemn one in favor of another. But how is one to practice “diversity” when people have very definite preferences in music and decor? The same thing exists among white people too. I grew up in the Ozarks listening to Protestant hymns on the radio and in the strawberry patches. So, I like singing, for example, “How Great Thou Art”, and hearing the convert daughter of a Baptist preacher play old hymns during Mass on her hammered dulcimer. That would probably be off-putting to a New Yorker.

To me, that polka-like music Mexicans have at Mass, with drums, at very high decibel levels, is not something I really want to hear at Mass. To me, it’s distracting and irritating. On the other hand, I rather like hearing that rollicking black choir music. I’m not sure I would want it all the time, though.

So, sometimes the 'segregation" we see within the Church isn’t really a matter of “racism” or “bias”. It’s just the natural consequence of differing cultures and preferences in language, music, presentation and decor.

In the parish I grew up in when I was younger, sometimes the music director(white, upper class) decided we needed a little more diversity in our music selection. He put in African spiritual songs like ‘We are goin’ to see the Lord’ and others. He also would add songs in spanish for some reason. To the midwestern rural farmer types that encompassed most of the congregation, this lead to a lot of irritation.

I remember walking out of Mass one time after another African recessional, and on the walk home my dad just shook his head and said ‘someone should tell the music director we’re not black.’ My old man worked extensively in his job with African Americans, and I don’t consider him in the least bit racist. He simply did not see the point of throwing unfamiliar , unrelatable songs for the sake of diversity.

There’s no need for forced diversity, and, as you put, different communities have different tastes. This is not necessarily because of latent racism, in which I think LL and I agree.

 

[twf]

My archdiocese of Vancouver is extremely multicultural. In many parishes whites are the clear minority of parishioners. Vancouver as a city is about 30% Chinese-Canadian and probably around 50% Asian-Canadian In general - among those groups the Filipinos are, of course, Catholic and dominate many parishes numerically. I don’t see any major issues. We all get along. In fact, the Filipinos and other Asian groups only enrich our parishes and keep the archdiocese strong. I doubt without them we would have 7 Sunday masses and 4 week day masses at the cathedral downtown- not to mention confession 3 times daily and always with a line…

 

[liturgyluver]

Maybe it binds us togather, but it doesnt mean the white folks in a rural area 50 miles outside a big city are going to come to town to worship at a parish in an area that’s 99 pct black or vice versa.

Of course not, but what about areas that are mixed - or are there none of those in the USA?

 

[Landon_Caeli]

I’m notorious in my family for attending random Churches and attending Masses in Spanish. I dont think anyone gives bleep what “races” attend whatever mass. In any direction.

…Please stop fabricating problems that do not exist. Or prove it with facts.

 

[BChartowski]

I didn’t say it was racist, but that is struck me as odd coming from a place where different birds feel able to flock together, and where community at church is multi-racial. I had imagined that there might be separation within Protestant churches but not within the Catholic Church where we have the mass that binds us together!

I apologize for my comment appearing as though I was speaking to you directly. I should have worded it better so that it would have been more clear that I was speaking generally. It just so happened that your comment hit a chord that seems to be a theme that I see often. I meant no offense to you and didn’t have you specifically in mind when I hit the reply button.

 

[Allegra]

I’m notorious in my family for attending random Churches and attending Masses in Spanish. I dont think anyone gives bleep what “races” attend whatever mass. In any direction.

…Please stop fabricating problems that do not exist. Or prove it with facts.

I don’t think too many people are concerned about the color of who attends Mass either. I DO think they are concerned about the color of the people who live in their neighborhood and the color of the children who attend their children’s school.

 

[Phil502]

I’m notorious in my family for attending random Churches and attending Masses in Spanish. I dont think anyone gives bleep what “races” attend whatever mass. In any direction.

…Please stop fabricating problems that do not exist. Or prove it with facts.

I do the same thing, I love going to different Churches. I don’t attend Spanish Mass though because I don’t speak it, I don’t go to the Lithuanian Mass either for the same reason.
I have gone to Mass in an all Black and Hispanic area and felt just as comfortable as anywhere else. Nobody blinked an eye. The crowd was smaller than I am used to but i was as welcome as anywhere else. The only White guys in there was the Priest and I. I don’t see any problems with this.

I’m not sure if that was the intention of the article or it was meant in more broader terms.

 

[Landon_Caeli]

I don’t think too many people are concerned about the color of who attends Mass either. I DO think they are concerned about the color of the people who live in their neighborhood and the color of the children who attend their children’s school.

You got me there. Im guilty as sin.

 

[Ridgerunner]

In the parish I grew up in when I was younger, sometimes the music director(white, upper class) decided we needed a little more diversity in our music selection. He put in African spiritual songs like ‘We are goin’ to see the Lord’ and others. He also would add songs in spanish for some reason. To the midwestern rural farmer types that encompassed most of the congregation, this lead to a lot of irritation.

I remember walking out of Mass one time after another African recessional, and on the walk home my dad just shook his head and said ‘someone should tell the music director we’re not black.’ My old man worked extensively in his job with African Americans, and I don’t consider him in the least bit racist. He simply did not see the point of throwing unfamiliar , unrelatable songs for the sake of diversity.

There’s no need for forced diversity, and, as you put, different communities have different tastes. This is not necessarily because of latent racism, in which I think LL and I agree.

Nearing the edge of being off topic here, I recall reading that Chinese in China think western symphonic music is just a bunch of “pointless, crashing harmony and wandering melody”, hardly worthy of the term “music”.

Different strokes…

 

[liturgyluver]

I apologize for my comment appearing as though I was speaking to you directly. I should have worded it better so that it would have been more clear that I was speaking generally. It just so happened that your comment hit a chord that seems to be a theme that I see often. I meant no offense to you and didn’t have you specifically in mind when I hit the reply button.

Thanks for this my friend.