Where do people get the idea that Black Catholics don’t exist and the church has been silent on issues of race?

[blackforest]

I always felt right at home and like I belong especially, not really feeling that way anywhere else I’ve been.

I’m really happy to hear that you felt at home in our Church! I’m also sorry to hear that your mother had a bad experience. Hopefully she’ll one day be open to giving it a second chance, perhaps with you.

 

[Nepperhan]

All this stuff about how historically the Church may or may not have been welcoming doesn’t have a real addition to the perceived problem. Protestants including Baptists were the traditional “masters” of the slaves and they seem to have no problem with garnering black members.

First of all, Protestant churches don’t really have one head, like a pope, so black could form Protestant churches and be heads of them. Baptist congregations commonly stand on their own.

However, Catholicism has a pope and dioceses. Did you know that Jesuits did not even allow black applicants until the mid-sixties? Black people on their own could not form Catholic congregations, as they could do inside Protestantism.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Venerable Augustine Tolton, the first black US priest

Augustus Tolton - Wikipedia

Servant of God Julia Greeley, a former slave who helped the poor and is buried in the Denver cathedral

Julia Greeley - Wikipedia

 

[Nepperhan]

One can list black saints, but you should know that the ost prominent Catholic in America in the sixties, NY’s Cardinal Spellman, tried and failed to keep MLK from having an audience with Paul IX. That’s a fact. J. Edgar Hoover put the cardinal up to it.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

you should know that the ost prominent Catholic in America in the sixties, NY’s Cardinal Spellman, tried and failed to keep MLK from having an audience with Paul IX. That’s a fact. J. Edgar Hoover put the cardinal up to it.

Cardinal Spellman also had Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen pulled off the air and sent out to pasture after having a dispute about donated funds that the Vatican settled in Sheen’s favor.

Cardinal Spellman is also suspected of doing other very unsavory things that I don’t want to post about here because the man is dead and I’m not LifesiteNews.

Pray for the soul of Cardinal Spellman. He had problems. As do some other Cardiinals who behave disgracefully. But many others in the Church do not behave or think like them. As shown by the fact that the Pope had the audience with MLK.

 

[twf]

I thought the Klan was FIERCELY anti-Catholic? Or was it a regional thing?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I thought the Klan was FIERCELY anti-Catholic? Or was it a regional thing?

The Klan was fiercely anti-Catholic.
I know this because my grandfather was in it.

(The Protestant grandfather obviously, not the Irish Catholic one on the other side)

 

[twf]

That says that the Irish played a key role in building the Catholic Church in the US. Of course, long before they were on the scene, the Spanish / Mexicans were evangelizing what is now the SW USA. Of course the Irish were fiercely persecuted themselves in their own days (though certainly not to the degree that blacks were), partly for being Catholic… and they weren’t necessarily defined as “white” prior to the 20th century.

Regardless, my comments pertained to global Catholicism, not Catholicism specific to the US.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

and they weren’t necessarily defined as “white” prior to the 20th century.

The old saying was that the Irish were the (racial expletives) of Europe.

 

[Nepperhan]

Cardinal Spellman is also suspected of doing other very unsavory things that I don’t want to post about here because the man is dead and I’m not LifesiteNews.

He had issues, including being involved in some strange acts, like making seminarians dig diocese graves when the poorly-paid diocesan gravediggers went on strike. I won’t comment on the personal rumors. However, he was never exactly a racist – he just hated change and gave lip servie to civil rights.

Check it out:

The American Pope: The Life and Times of Francis Cardinal Spellman by John Cooney | Goodreads

 

[Mrchatsworth]

And many southern baptist churches were segregated. So what. To be fair Jesuits would reject me as well, because I’m probably too Catholic for them! LOL

 

[Nepperhan]

And many southern baptist churches were segregated. So what.

Blacks could start their own Baptist congregations for themselves. Bu they could not, on their own, start Catholic parishes. Catholic church congregations were controlled by European men.

 

[Mrchatsworth]

Really. Hmmm. Catholic Africa might disagree.

 

[Nepperhan]

Really. Hmmm. Catholic Africa might disagree.

Really. There are a lot more black priests in Africa today then there were in the southern US in the sixties!

 

[on_the_hill]

twf:

I just can’t think of the Catholic Church as a “white” church.

It is commonly held that the headquarters of Catholicism in America is St. Patrick Cathedral in NYC. That says a lot.

Commonly held by whom? Until I got Sirius XM Radio, I never knew St Patrick’s existed.

 

[Nepperhan]

Protestants including Baptists were the traditional “masters” of the slaves and they seem to have no problem with garnering black members.

Protestant churches arn’t exactly having no problems garnering black folks. That’s how we got the Southern Baptist convention and the A.M.E. church.

 

[glencor63]

The White ethnic groups that settled in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region have a very turbulent history with African-Americans. Irish, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, etc., immigrants often clashed with African-Americans in major urban areas like Chicago, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, etc. They assumed the identity of “Whiteness” and everything that went along with that, including racism and discrimination against African-Americans.

This is history is well documented in films, books, plays, etc. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said the violence and hatred he encountered in Chicago was worse than the South. South Boston is notorious for racial violence and hatred towards African-Americans, especially in the 70s. South Boston is predominantly Irish-Catholic. Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, a predominantly Italian-Catholic area experienced racial unrest, after the murder of a young, African-American teen in the 80s. African-American filmmaker, Spike Lee’s early films deal with tension between Italian-Americans and African-Americans in New York City. When I was fifteen, there was a housing discrimination case involving a Ukrainian-Catholic family and an African-American family in Cleveland. Cicero in Chicago was infamous for racial violence.

This is not to say that all White Catholic ethnic groups actively oppress African-Americans, are racist, or support White Supremacy, but many do and this is why some African-Americans don’t like Catholicism. There are other reasons of course, but racism at the hands of Catholics is a huge factor in disdain for Catholicism. There’s also the perception that Catholics worship idols, especially Mary, pray to the dead, etc. I was asked point blank when I came into the Church if I was now going to “worship statues”.

https://www.amazon.com/Whiteness-Different-Color-European-Immigrants/dp/0674951913

 

[otjm]

In the past 40 years or so, many black Catholics have left the faith, for various reasons.

In the past 40 years, just about everybody (with perhaps the exception of Vietnamese Catholics) of just about every race and nationality has left the Catholic Church; and at any given “snapshot” of Catholics, they younger the group, the greater of the numbers who have left. CARA has actual numbers although they do not make the survey part of the FAQs any longer.

The greatest loss at the time of the survey was the 18 to 29 year old group; and that loss was about 88% - as in, about 18% went to Mass weekly.

Although I do not recall all of the survey, I do not believe it was broken down by race/ethnicity.

 

[JSRG]

There’s also the perception that Catholics worship idols, especially Mary, pray to the dead, etc. I was asked point blank when I came into the Church if I was now going to “worship statues”.

But would that affect blacks to any greater degree than whites?

 

[Lea101]

Given that your go to theory of ‘probably racism’ isn’t available, what’s your backup explanation?

There are many possible reasons, dude.

Mom may have felt their behaviour was because of race as that was her usual experience outside of the church.

Mom/You may be suffering from paranoia.

Mom/You may have a huge grasshopper on her head and everyone’s afraid to say anything.

Which one makes you feel the most comfortable?

Even then that would be a broad brush because there are Black Cardinals

Yup, there are black cardinals, but I was referring to that body of cardinals as a whole. Majority opinion, basically. Although idk how that would be relevant here, since they’re the leaders of the universal church