The Rev. Michael Pfleger: Why is Catholic Church 'white church'?

  • Thread starter Thread starter canadianguy1143
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
That’s odd, because I’ve seen more diversity in Catholic churches than in any other denomination. Hispanics, Caucasians, Africans, Asians, and their American descendants have all been seen. It depends upon the geographic area for the actual ratio.
 
Is he some kind of racist? What does he have against whites?
 
Father Pfleger’s comments do not take into account cultural norms of the United States, particularly its origins. He certainly does not seem to know of the growth of Catholicism in other African populations.

Based on a third-party 2004 poll noted in this Wikipedia article on the Church in the U.S., the general population of Catholics by race in the U.S. is thus:
  • 60% non-Hispanic white (Irish, German, and so on)
  • 31% Hispanic (any race)
  • 4% Black
  • 5% All others (Filipinos, Native Americans, etc.)
While the priest is correct in his assertion that there are few Black Catholics in America, he incorrectly asserts that this is due to some form of discrimination against blacks. That’s only partially true.

America was founded by many who were Protestants, specifically those fleeing the Church of England, such as Puritans and Congregationists, virtually all of them Caucasian. Groups such as these and others had no love for the CofE, and especially not the Catholic Church.

As America grew, Protestantism followed. Catholics who arrived in America suffered immense persecution and discrimination. Since African slaves were only exposed to the faiths of what their owners held, it follows that many Blacks learned and passed on Protestant Christianity. This summary from Wikipedia appears to chronicle this development fairly.

The nascent Catholic Church in early America did not do itself any favors because of bias within its own members. This EWTN article summarizes how the Church reconciled this issue and learned to shake what racism its membership had with Blacks.

The priest’s further assertion that the Church is racist does not follow if one looks at the statistics in Africa, [ in membership since 1978tripled (http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=10812) (per the quasi-official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano).

So, in short, while there are far fewer Blacks in the Church by percentage of the American population (of which I count myself as part of the Black statistic), the reasons have more to do with the hold of Protestant Christianity’s roots in American history and very little to do with any action or inaction done by the Church or its members.
 
Perhaps one reason there’s proportionally less African-American Catholics is because there are proportionally more American Protestants as far as the general population goes. So presumably most of the missionary activity and religious instruction of the black minority over the centuries was also Protestant-based.
 
Neil_Anthony said:
Is he some kind of racist? What does he have against whites?
Click to expand...
He is white

nobody refers to the CAtholic Church as “the white church” except people with an axe to grind, and who are completely ignorant of the concept of a universal Church, that the Church exists all over the world, not only in northern urban conclaves.
 
puzzleannie said:
He is white

nobody refers to the CAtholic Church as “the white church” except people with an axe to grind, and who are completely ignorant of the concept of a universal Church, that the Church exists all over the world, not only in northern urban conclaves.
Click to expand...
Puzzleannie has stated the true issue behind the priest’s motives with clarity that no statistic can relate, in my opinion.
 
An African American deacon told me that there were more blacks in the catholic church in the US than any single denomination in the US.

I’ve never seen any hard data on it, but its interesting if true.
 
I guess that could be true, it sounds like American Protestant churches have a lot of denominations, with varying concentrations and popularities in different parts of the country.
 
Another aspect of this “white” church idea is that in the Catholic Church, we have a diversity of cultures, therefore we have the freedom to worship in unique cultural styles. In our city we have a black church–not because they are segregated and not welcome in other parishes, but because they have the freedom to worship in their own cultural style that they prefer. Same is true for Hispanics and others. It is not discrimination, it is a gift. While we are all Catholics and can worship together, it is nice to have the freedom to worship in our own unique cultural style.
 
Religion_Ninja said:
An African American deacon told me that there were more blacks in the catholic church in the US than any single denomination in the US.

I’ve never seen any hard data on it, but its interesting if true.
Click to expand...
The deacon is incorrect, I think.

According to the 2010 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, Catholicism is the largest of the Christian faiths with 68 million members in America (and likely Canada, too, so this data might be skewed to the smaller Canada population).

I found a more precise source from the Pew Forums at this extensive site to extrapolate the number of Black Americans in the Church. According to this survey, 2% of Blacks are Catholic.

That means that 1.36 million Blacks in America are Catholic, based on the percentage of 68 million.

What the survey calls “Mainline Protestant” churches shows that Blacks are also 2% of their population. While Catholics are the largest single “denomination” (for lack of a better term), American Protestants in total outnumber Catholics easily. Even at only 2%, non-Catholic Black Americans would easily outnumber Black Catholics.

Over twenty-one times more people watch a single episode of “American Idol” at one time than the number of Black Catholics in America.
 
Someone might ask him where in the world the Church is growing the fastest.
Africa is on fire with Catholocism. They’ve been sending us missionary priests for years…and Cardinal Arinze still wields power in Rome, and I think that’s a good thing.
 
Strider said:
Someone might ask him where in the world the Church is growing the fastest.
Africa is on fire with Catholocism. They’ve been sending us missionary priests for years…and Cardinal Arinze still wields power in Rome, and I think that’s a good thing.
Click to expand...
Attaboy! Exactly:thumbsup:

The good Father is getting on my nerves a tad.🙂
 
My own guess would be that Africans in America was contact with Protestants and they took on the religion of those. Influxes of Catholics of Polish and Italian and others was from a later historical era, and by that time African Americans had already been evangelized into Protestantism.

The African experience of Haiti and other countries of Latin America is correspondingly just the opposite.

Hand-wringers like Pfleger, who see the world in terms of black and white, cannot grasp any explanation that does not have guilt of racism at the core.
 
Fr Pfleger is like the Archdiocese of Chicago’s very own Jane Elliott. He look’s at a white person and automatically see’s a racist, even when it’s an ultra-liberal like Hillary Clinton. Truly sad that such an individual is allowed to be a Catholic priest.
 
PFLEGER is not a “real” Catholic.
He likes to incite people with false issues and - - -
He also has a You Tube at MASS - promoting women priests, married priests etc.
He keeps saying that he is “sorry” and his Bishop keeps forgiving him no matter what the guy does.
 
puzzleannie said:
nobody refers to the CAtholic Church as “the white church” except people with an axe to grind, and who are completely ignorant of the concept of a universal Church
Click to expand...
I think you would find, if you spend much time in the black neighborhoods of Chicago’s South Side, that quite a few people think of the Catholic Church as a “white church.” But you would find quite a few who thought the same of the United Church of Christ, even though Rev. Wright’s church belonged to that denomination.

There is still quite a black/white racial divide in the US, when it comes to church.

I dunno… my take on Fr. Pfleger’s article is not that he, himself, is calling the Catholic Church a “white church.” He is referring to the perception of those in his parish and neighborhood. His article is encouraging (however vaguely) that the African-American experience be reflected more in the Catholic Church. I’m not quite sure of what he means, but he did specifically mention the history of black Catholics in the US which seems to have been forgotten.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top