What Can Catholics Do in Response to the Harm of Racial Injustice
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June 3, 2020The last several days have been challenging indeed for all in the Twin Cities, Minnesota and beyond as we face a national reckoning with the pernicious effects of persistent racial injustice and attendant social unrest. Amid the challenges, sadness and tumult, there have also been signs of faith, hope and generosity which speak to our common humanity and God’s call to meet hate with love and division with unity. I have been personally inspired by young Catholics and other millennials who have reached out with questions, requests to set up online rosaries, video messages offering well wishes, and exhortations to stand up and speak out for justice.
One young Catholic wrote me this past Saturday and asked for advice about whether she was obliged to participate in the protests in Minneapolis. She wanted to do the right thing. In response, I laid out several Catholic principles, beginning first with prayer for discernment. Second, I noted that in my opinion she was neither morally obligated to protest as there were good reasons for her to refrain, given the rapidly changing and at times chaotic situation - nor morally restrained from protesting as Catholic social teaching marshals an important prophetic voice against injustice and unjust social structures. Lastly, I noted that Catholics always choose nonviolent protest over violence as the former is consistent with the dignity of life, respect for property and in furtherance of the common good.
Below, I briefly set forth five ways Catholics can respond to the present crisis and the harm of racial injustice. Of course, my list is not exhaustive.
Pray: God desires for us to call out to him in our need and to ask for his grace and guidance. Good things always happen when the ruse of our self-sufficiency is laid bare and when we realize that life apart from God is folly. Pray for justice. Pray for wisdom. Pray for healing. Pray for courage. Pray that we would seek to understand each other and our experiences of life. Prayer to God is always efficacious and often in ways we don’t always know.
Be Informed: Too many people in society speak and reach conclusions without facts; often from a place of ignorance. The evidence regarding systematic racial injustice in the United States is compelling. Two sources I would point you to are: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and a recent pastoral letter on racism by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In your effort to be informed, I exhort you to take reality as it is, enlightened by data rather than choosing the route of some who remain in ideological bunkers, devoid of the light of reality.
Stand Up and Speak Out for Justice: Once we have prayed for wisdom and discernment and have done the work of informing ourselves on the matter, Catholics must be prepared to speak up and speak out for justice. This follows the classic Catholic model of seeing, judging and acting. I was struck by a recent article in Crux, my favorite Catholic news source, that bridged the views of two Catholic African Americans – one traditional and the other progressive – who each decried the blind spot and moral apathy that some Catholics have regarding racial injustice. Moral apathy is the best and most effective way for structures of sin to persist in society.
Commit to Personal Justice: Pope Benedict XVI famously said that justice comes from just people. When we have a rightly ordered soul, which is one definition of justice, we will then be inclined to give our neighbor their due, which is another definition of justice. Most importantly and foundationally, our souls must first be rightly ordered to God. If we seek to live God’s will and to live in right relationship with God and our neighbor, yet a third definition of justice, we will help build a more just and peaceful society.
Practice Accompaniment: Like Jesus, one of the best ways to respond to this present and ongoing crisis, it to accompany those who are in pain and those who have been harmed by injustice. Like Christ, we are called to listen, serve, heal and accompany our brothers and sisters on their journey. This is pure Gospel, as Pope Francis has noted. When we accompany another in their time of need and learn from their experience, our minds are enlightened, our hearts are expanded and our wills our strengthened to do the work of fostering justice and peace.
Father Daniel Griffith is the Pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes in Northeast Minneapolis, Liaison for Restorative Justice and Healing in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and the Wenger Family Fellow of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
