HOME
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
1st Impressions CD's
Stories Seldom Heard
Faith Book
General Intercessions
Volume II
Come and See!
Homilías Dominicales
Palabras para Domingo
Catholic Women Preach
Homilias Breves
Daily Reflections
Daily Homilette
Daily Preaching
Face to Face
Announcements
Book Reviews
Justice Preaching
Dominican Preaching
Preaching Essay
Quotable
Archives
The Author
Resources
Donations

 

Racial Justice and the Catholic Church;  Bryan N. Massingale; Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Books, 2010; 224 pp.  paper $26.00

 

             Racism is alive and well in the United States.  Racism lingers on in the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church has precious little to say about racial justice.  The responsibility of the African-American Catholic theologian is “passionate participation in reasoned inquiry on behalf of God’s oppressed and despised people.” (p. 160. quoted from M. Shawn Copeland)  While these statements are not a summary of Bryan Massingale’s important study, they are salient points he develops.  Obviously, the information and insights in this book will help when we preach on the sin of racism; however, they are equally valuable as part of our general store of information and insight that nourishes all our preaching, as well as our other work and relationships.

             Bryan Massingale, the 2009-2010 President of the Catholic Theological Society of America, writes from his experience as an African-American Catholic, as well as from his extensive experience as Catholic theologian, author of more than sixty books, book chapters, articles and book reviews.  He writes tightly reasoned argument in wonderfully readable prose.  He is not afraid to include song and poetry in his argument; in fact, he insists on the need to understand emotion and passion in order to understand the African-American experience.

             Massnigale delves deep when he defines terms.  Racism, for example, has little to do with one person’s actions against another; “racism is a cultural phenomenon. . . .”  (p15. emphasis in original)  And culture is more than the symbols that identify a group.  Culture is “a people’s soul, a set of meanings and values that is an individual’s and a social group’s identity.”  (p.18)  The soul of African-American experience is struggle; the soul of white experience is a “worldview that. . .sees itself as the measure of what is real, standard, normative and/or normal.” (p 22)  The results of this worldview are economic advantage and political power. These are hard words for us white, privileged persons to accept.  Yet, as I read this meticulously reasoned, documented argument, I had to agree. 

             After tracing the history of the U.S. bishops’ statements on racism, and acknowledging the particular significance of Brothers and Sisters to Us, Massingale brilliantly critiques this document.  He points out, for example, its dearth of social analysis, its lack of theological or ethical reflection on racism, and the bishops’ failure to provide directions for implementation of the teachings and exhortations of the document.  Massingale’s most scathing criticism of Catholic teaching on race in the U.S.,

I think, is that it “has neglected or slighted an essential step in social reflection, namely, listening to the voices of the victims and examining the situation from their perspective.” (p.75)

             In the chapter “Toward a More Adequate Catholic Engagement,” Massengale addresses the issue of reconciliation.  “Our racial divides,” he posits, “stem from a history of abuse, neglect, and abandonment; from the legacies of exploitation and the realities of humiliation; in short, from an absence or miscarriage of justice.  Overcoming them requires social transformation.” (p.96)  Social transformation, in turn, requires truth-telling and affirmative redress.  Massingale describes various forms of affirmative redress, and assesses their relative effectiveness or non-effectiveness.  As contexts for initiating a process of truth-telling in the U.S. cites the South African Truth and Reconciliation process, as well as Pope John Paul II’s call for “a purification of memory.”

             Massingale’s moving description of, and challenge to, African-American Catholic theologians is a voice of prophecy.  In addition to telling some of his own story, he lays out a series of “non-exhaustive” questions that call for theological investigation.  Finally, he insists that the African-American Catholic theologian is “not a hybrid,” part-time African-American and part-time theologian.  Rather, “Our vocation is shaped by the reality of simultaneous truths and multiple identities, being indivisibly members of the theological academy, the black ‘community-in-struggle,’ and the Catholic faith communion.” (p.160)

 

Patricia Chaffee, OP

Racine, Wisconsin

 


Book Review Archive

Just click on a book title below to read the review.
(The latest submissions are listed first.)

 

• Mark's Passion Narrative •
• THE CRISIS OF BAD PREACHING •
• A HISTORY OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL ETHICS •
• Jesus: A Gospel Portrait •
• How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row •
• Christ and the Spirit: Catholic Perspectives Through the Ages •
• MAKING SENSE OF MYSTERY - A PRIMER ON THEOLOGICAL THINKING •
• PREACHING IN THE BLACK CHURCH •
• The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church •
• LONGING TO SEE YOUR FACE – PREACHING IN A SECULAR AGE •
• A Joint Review •
• St. Dominic: A Story of a Preaching Friar •
• JESUS and the PRODICAL SON •
• PREACHING MATTERS: A PRAXIS FOR PREACHERS •
• Moses in Pharaoh's House •
• ...and the Mountains Echoed •
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers •
• Preaching the Mystery of Faith: The Sunday Homily •
• The Rhythm of Being... •
• Remi De Roo - Chronicles of a Vatican II Bishop •
• Redeeming the Past •
• Abraham Joshua Heschel: Essential Writings •
• This Is Our Exile •
• Compassion: Loving Our Neighbor in and Age of Globalization •
• True and False Reform In the Church •
• Adult Faith •
• The Mystical Way In Everyday Life •
• Racial Justice and the Catholic Church •
• Let the Great World Spin •
• The Priesthood Of the Faithful •
• Living With Wisdom •
• Where the Pure Water Flows •
• LITURGY WITH STYLE AND GRACE •
• Best Advice For Preaching •
• We Speak the Word Of the Lord •
• KINGDOM, GRACE, JUDGEMENT... •
• Great World Religions: Islam •
• FULFILLED IN OUR HEARING: HISTORY AND METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PREACHING. •
• PARABLES FOR PREACHERS - YEAR C •
• Of Books and Preparation •
• After Sunday: A Theology of Work •
• A Captive Voice: The Liberation of Preaching •
• GOSPEL LIGHT: JESUS STORIES FOR SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS •
• Written Text Becomes Living Word... •
• Voicing the Vision: Imagination & Prophetic Preaching •
• The Death of Innocents •