Our Black Catholic parishes not only serve as places of worship, but also shine as beacons of support in the community, offering essential services such as food pantries, social services and educational support to the youth. At St. Columbanus in the Park Manor neighborhood, the food onjunction with the Chicago Food Depository to provide food to residents in the 60619 zip code, but also had the ability to widen their outreach to anyone who came to their doorstep. On the westside at St. Martin de Porres, they continued to provide clothing and food through their food pantry and clothing drive. St. Sabina has been giving out 500+ food boxes weekly which are provided by a program with the USDA. These boxes are available Monday through Friday regardless of zip-code.
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In spite of the obstacles of 2020, our faith communities provided light and hope in the midst of darkness. During the winter months ahead of us, our Black Catholic parishes will be there to bring Christ's hope, love and peace to our communities.
Ministry at St. Columbanus – photo provided by Fr. Matt O’Donnell
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Summertime Civil Unrest in Chicago and the Black Catholic Community’s Call to Action
On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor was murdered in Louisville, Kentucky.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The City of Chicago is on track to surpass 900 murders in 2020.
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This past summer was marked by protests across the nation and the world after the deaths of these two individuals. Unfortunately, gun violence is far too common in our Black communities, and as the nation begins to awaken to the realization that systemic racism exists in every component of American society, including the Church, a national conversation about systemic racism has finally begun to reach every facet of American life.
(Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
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Our Black parishes are all too familiar with the pain of gun violence in our communities and this summer, our parishes took to the streets to show that the Church is part of the conversation about reforming systematic racism in the United States and ending gun violence in our communities.
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St. Agatha Parish, located in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood, co-sponsored the “In the Spirit of King” Westside peace march on June 12, 2020. The multicultural, interfaith march gathered Christian, Catholic, Muslim and Jewish community members, clergy, law enforcement, health service providers, business leaders, educators and students. Marchers called for better schools, housing, health services, employment and business.
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The Black Catholic Deacons of Chicago, in partnership with priests, deacons and clergy of the Archdiocese of Chicago, hosted the 10th Annual Sunrise Prayer Service for Nonviolence and Peace on Sept. 12, 2020, in the parking lot of St. Katharine Drexel Parish, 9015 S. Harper Ave. Due to Covid-19, the service was moved from the lakefront to a drive-in ceremony in the church parking lot, where worshipers gathered to pray for peace and the healing of families, schools and communities.
(Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic) (All photos from Karen Calloway/Chicago Catholic)
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Cardinal Cupich co-wrote an op-ed published in the Chicago tribune for a message for the people of Chicago.
You can view the full piece here: Commentary: Systemic racism is real, and all Americans play a role in addressing it - Chicago Tribune.
It has been a summer of anguish for Black Americans. Six months after Breonna Taylor was shot to death by Louisville police officers in a botched drug raid, the nation is once again seized by grief, anger and despair over the spectacle of another young Black person killed by police - and no one has been indicted for her killing. After three days of deliberation, a Kentucky grand jury has charged one now-former police officer with recklessly endangering Taylor's neighbors, even though she was the one who ended up dead.
We write on behalf of a group of pastors that also includes the Rev. Ira J. Acree, senior pastor of Greater St. John Bible Church; the Rev. Chris Harris, pastor of Bright Star Church Chicago; the Rev. Marshall Hatch, senior pastor of New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church; and the Rev. Otis Moss III, senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.
As pastors who minister to Black families, brown families, Asian families and white families, we find ourselves once again faced with the horrifying question: Why does this keep happening, and what can we do about it? After we do our part to bind up the deep psychic wounds of our parishioners, neighbors, friends and family members, we are left asking, what now? Pray for peace, march for peace, work for peace - yes, peace. This is what Christians are supposed to be for, believing as we do in the Prince of Peace. And who could argue against it? In the face of wanton violence, we are called to take responsibility for building a culture of nonviolence.
For the remainder of the op-ed piece, please visit the following link: Commentary: Systemic racism is real, and all Americans play a role in addressing it - Chicago Tribune.
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BLACK CATHOLICS IN THE NEWS
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Cardinal Gregory, Chicago Native, Named to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis
Wilton Gregory has a national, and now international, prominence with roots on the southside of Chicago. Pope Francis named Archbishop Gregory, the Archbishop of Washington DC, to the College of Cardinals. While the entire Black Catholic population in the United States rejoices over this news, Chicago particularly rejoices with Cardinal Gregory as his hometown. Journalist Maudelyn Ihejrika of the Chicago Sun-Times documents his Chicago roots, his rise in Church, and the significance of his latest appointment as a Cardinal of the Church.
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From Englewood to the Vatican: Reminiscing with family of new Cardinal Wilton Gregory
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On Saturday, the pandemic prevented the family of newly minted Cardinal Wilton Gregory from traveling to Rome to witness his elevation to become the first African American to serve on the highest governing body of the global Catholic church. But his sisters were there in spirit, watching online, reflecting on their brother's journey into history.
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December 1, 2020
By Maudelyne Ihejrika | Chicago Sun Times
Tears started flowing Saturday even before their brother’s name was called to come up and receive the cap of a new cardinal — the tear ducts opening right about when Archbishop Antoine Kambanda of Kigali, Rwanda, was called up — just before Archbishop Wilton Gregory.
Gregory’s sisters, Elaine Gregory Swenson and Claudia Ferguson, felt the same pride for the very first cardinal appointed to that tiny African nation — whose family was slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide — as they felt toward their own brother’s historic elevation.
“My sister and I were both crying,” said Swenson, 70, who has called California home since graduating Loyola University with her nursing degree, leaving Chicago shortly after Gregory was ordained as an Archdiocese of Chicago priest in 1973, under Cardinal John Cody….
Full article available at: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/12/1/21768295/wilton-gregory-cardinal-chicago-background-profile (excerpt reprinted with permission.)
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Andrew Lyke featured in America Magazine
Andrew Lyke, a native Chicagoan and former director of the Office for Black Catholics for the Archdicoese of Chicago, was published in a recent online issue of America Magazine. Below is his article reprinted for the Drum with permission from America.
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Dear White Catholics: It’s time to be anti-racist and leave white fragility behind.
Nov. 30, 2020
To my white Catholic brothers and sisters:
As a Black “cradle Catholic” who is highly engaged in the church, I have been driven into deep reflection and prayer by the events of the past several months in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic: the taking of the innocent Black lives of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha police.
As I reflect on the Catholic anti-racism efforts in which I have been involved since the 1980s, two conflicting currents of thought come to me. First, I am elated that so many white young people, many of whom are Catholics, have awakened from their slumber to recognize and take action against white supremacy. Second, I feel exhausted by the paucity and tepidity of white Catholic leadership in the ongoing cause for freedom for people of color in this country.
The pastoral letter “Open Wide Our Hearts,” issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2018, was intended to be a message from the church hierarchy that would give substance to Catholic anti-racist activism. Yet the document has no direct references to white privilege and white supremacist ideology. It defines racism in general terms as what arises when “a person holds that his or her own race or ethnicity is superior, and therefore judges persons of other races or ethnicities as inferior and unworthy of equal regard.” There is little consideration given to racism’s purpose, its beneficiaries and its targeted casualties.
The recent rise of young white Catholic voices does not quell the din of the general indifference, denial, silence and willful ignorance of white Catholics regarding the systemic and institutional inequities of our society and our church. It is these inequities that relegate Black and brown people to second-class citizenship.
I am exhausted by white fragility. The phrase was introduced to the lexicon of anti-racist activism by Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. White fragility is the discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice past and present. It is what makes white people insecure about race.
Since the late 1980s, I have been involved in Catholic anti-racist activism, first in my parish in suburban Chicago, then as a campus minister in the 1990s at DePaul University and from 2001 to 2014 as a member of the Chicago Archdiocese’s Anti-Racism Task Force. More recently, my activism has been in the Joliet Diocese and the Anti-Racism Committee of the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate.
In my experiences in organized Catholic anti-racist activism, I have found white fragility to be an inevitable speed bump, if not an obstruction to addressing the sin of racism in the church. White fragility tended to control the agenda and frame the narrative to meet white sensibilities.
As Catholics of color, we were strategic about how we framed the conversation, making sure that we addressed the issues of white privilege very carefully so as not to make white people uncomfortable or angry or cause them to feel guilt and shame. Doing so would jeopardize the continuation of our work. Our racially and culturally diverse teams had to be cautious about offending white people with “too much truth.” It was as though we did not want to challenge the white control of the narrative, a narrative that suggests racism is a thing of the past, something people of color need to get over.
I believe that the cruel, brutal, immoral and monstrous havoc caused by white supremacist ideology needs to be presented with full intensity, without pulling punches. One aspect of white fragility is the delusion of superiority, if not on an individual basis, then categorically.
What white people and particularly white Catholics need in order to address the “original sin” of our nation is not “safe space” like that which we tried to provide them, but “brave space.” I experienced this firsthand in my suburban parish in the late 1980s. Our family moved to a community in the western suburbs of Chicago, a community that was experiencing an influx of African-American families, which itself sparked an outflux of white families.
Our parish sponsored a “diversity” program, in which small groups that were deliberately diverse would have frank conversations about racism and what was happening in our community. We were encouraged to be honest in our conversations. A young man in my small group, in which I was the only Black person, stated at the outset that if he were to be completely honest, given his upbringing and the racist attitudes of his father, he feared that I would be offended.
The wisdom of the Holy Spirit stirred me to respond: “I can’t guarantee that I won’t take offense to what you might say. But I promise not to leave.”
Since then, I have found that such a commitment gives the process room for error and grace for forgiveness. It demands patience and self-examination. It calls forth the power of human empathy that bonds people of good will.
Just as the Gospel should be disturbing to all Christians, so should Catholic anti-racist activism. It unsettles white Catholics out of their “colorblindness” and restores the historical memory that has been lost. Feelings of guilt, shame and bewilderment may be appropriate and need not be avoided. These feelings are important steps away from denial, a distancing from untruth that is necessary to awaken white people from generations of moral slumber and cultural delusion.
Being anti-racist does not require a bullhorn, microphone or podium. It means being an ally in the struggle for equal justice and an agent of racial healing. The first step is being an interrupter. Whether it is in the workplace, the grocery store or the family dinner table, when white supremacist thoughts are expressed, interrupt them, challenge them.
Of course, it is better to be an informed interrupter. So, read. There is a wealth of resources from scholarly authors, such as the Rev. Bryan Massingale, Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X. Kendi, Daniel Hill and Peggy McIntosh, to name a few. Listen without defensiveness to what people of color say about their experiences of racism. And talk with other white people about what it means to be white.
James Baldwin, in a televised interview in 1963, characterized white Americans as “moral monsters.” To remain passive in the face of stark inequities based on race is a symptom of “colorblindness” that blindly, at best, participates in systemic racism. A failure to respond to this injustice is burying one’s head in the sand, turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the plight of others based on their racial group.
Today, in the year 2020, 57 years after the Baldwin interview, the monstrosity endures and continues to undermine the morality of our nation. The cost of racism is evident in the life expectancy of people of color, in how we are policed, the way we are treated by the criminal justice system, in our economic wealth, health care, education, employment, mental stress and many other facets of life in the U.S.
It is up to each and every single person to root out the prevailing white supremacist ideas in the American conscience. We transform hate into love by way of honest examination of ourselves, correcting the ideations of our minds that harden our hearts and make us moral monsters.
When white Catholics dehumanize people of color, it deludes those Catholics into still seeing themselves in a flattering light. They can continue to view themselves as people who show kindness, mercy and compassion to those viewed as subhuman beings, while remaining comfortable with white privilege and the subjugation of those in “lesser” categories of personhood. However, such dehumanization incapacitates their human empathy across racial lines and ironically makes them less human. This is the core of white Catholic fragility: living with the illusion of being a kind and merciful Christian while keeping up the racial status quo.
As Ibram X. Kendi puts it, “The language of colorblindness—like the language of ‘not racist’—is a mask to hide racism.”
However, Kendi goes on to say, being racist is not a fixed identity. It is a quality that can change in a person. Diane Nash, a noted Freedom Rider and one of the architects of the civil rights movement, said in a lecture at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Ill., that in their training for nonviolent resistance they were instructed to remember, especially when faced with violence, that no human being is an enemy. Only their ideas are the enemy.
The purpose of Ms. Nash’s activism, and that of the movement as a whole, was not to defeat, defame or subdue those intending harm but to change their minds and thereby make them allies. Catholic anti-racist activism is about changing minds and hearts and forming alliances for creating the “Beloved Community” and bringing forth the reign of God.
As Christians, we know the power of the cross. We should not run away from it but face it, endure it and suffer through it. White fragility is a cross that Catholics must bear and suffer through. In transcending and defeating it, as the cross of Jesus did, there is salvation on the other side. Getting beyond white fragility is necessary for us to boldly stand on the social mission of our Catholic faith to recognize, honor and protect the life and dignity of every human person, from conception to natural death.
Despite my fatigue with white fragility in Catholic chanceries, pulpits and pews, this moment, at the precipice of a social and moral revolution, has me hopeful and energized. I am still committed to the mission of lifting my church to live out the tenets of Catholic social teaching and become an anti-racist church.
My role in this effort is not to sit on the sidelines while white people address the original sin of our nation. No! Precisely because of the suffering wrought on the lives of both Black and indigenous peoples in this 400-year holocaust, people of color have a prophetic role to embrace in this work. As necessary as the awakening of white Catholics is, so is the work of reconciliation for healing in the body of Christ. This work depends on forgiveness. As your brother in Christ, I bear the cross with you.
Perhaps when that healing is done, we will be able to say with sincerity that “all lives matter.” Until then we must be emphatic in saying that Black lives matter, Black families are holy and that we are all endowed with God-given dignity and value. I am committed to doing my part in building the Beloved Community—the reign of God for the liberation of us all.
(reprinted with permission from America Magazine)
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GOOD NEWS HAPPENING IN OUR COMMUNITY
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St. Thomas the Apostle and St. Sabina Recipients of One Million Dollar Lily Endowment Grants
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St. Thomas the Apostle Parish
St. Thomas the Apostle in Hyde Park was the recipient of a substantial grant from the Lily Endowment to create an institute to promote the spirituality of Fr. Augustus Tolton, the first Black priest in the United States. The Lily Endowment, founded in 1937, “is a private philanthropic foundation supporting the causes of religion, education and community development.” (Lily Endowment website). Throughout the years, many priests, religious and parishes have benefitted from Lily grants, which have funded priest sabbaticals, parish initiatives and continued revitalization of parish life.
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What is unique about his particular grant to St. Thomas is the dual benefit of the $1 million grant that was awarded. The first benefit is the parish enrichment that it will provide to both parishes. St. Thomas will become a local hub of Tolton Spirituality and, in conjunction with Renew My Church, will help to foster the revitalization of parish as part of the goals of RMC.
The second benefit is to the Archdiocese as a whole, as the Tolton Spirituality Center will be a blessing to the entire Church to promote the spirituality and legacy of Fr. Augustus Tolton as we continue to pray for his intercession and canonization.
St. Sabina
The Faith Community of St. Sabina has received a grant of $1,000,000 from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Third Day Church project.
The program is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative. The aim of the national initiative is to strengthen Christian congregations so they can help people deepen their relationships with God, build strong relationships with each other and contribute to the flourishing of local communities and the world.
The goal of the Third Day Church Project is to help congregations develop a culture that facilitates ongoing learning while improving their ability to meet the needs of their congregants by living out its mission and values. St. Sabina designed this program based on its understanding of the Church. St. Sabina believes the church is the people, not the building and that its role is to nurture and develop spiritually mature Christians who are trained leaders and not confined by the walls of the sanctuary, but can penetrate the world in order to present God’s way of living as a divine option. St. Sabina is committed to being a community of believers that imitates Christ and builds a Third Day Church, that takes dominion (Genesis 1:28), takes possession (Joshua 1:10-11), and makes disciples through training up followers of Christ (Matthew 28:18-20).
St. Sabina is one of 92 organizations taking part in the initiative. They represent and serve churches in a broad spectrum of Christian traditions, including Anabaptist, Baptist, Episcopal, evangelical, Lutheran, Methodist, Mennonite, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Reformed, Restoration, Roman Catholic and Orthodox, as well as congregations that describe themselves as nondenominational. Several organizations serve congregations in Black, Hispanic and Asian-American traditions.
“In the midst of a rapidly changing world, Christian congregations are grappling with how they can best carry forward their ministries,” said Christopher Coble, Lilly Endowment’s Vice President for Religion. “These grants will help congregations assess their ministries and draw on practices in their theological traditions to address new challenges and better nurture the spiritual vitality of the people they serve.” (Press release from St. Sabina)
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Ten Years of Augustus Tolton’s Canonization Cause
March 1, 2020, marked ten years since the official opening of the cause of canonization of Fr. Augustus Tolton by the late Francis Cardinal George. Here is the timeline of what has transpired over these ten years:
MARCH 1, 2010
The Augustus Tolton Cause for canonization as a saint is announced by Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago
FEBRUARY 24, 2011
The Cause for the Beatification and Canonization of Augustus Tolton Proclamation and First Public Session is held at St. James Chapel at the Archbishop Quigley Center, Chicago
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
The Congregation for Causes of Saints at the Vatican grants the title “Servant of God” to Augustus Tolton and orders the Archdiocese of Chicago to proceed with the Diocesan Inquiry into his life and virtues.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2014
The Tolton dossier is completed and the Diocesan Phase of the investigation into the life and virtues of Father Tolton is ceremoniously brought to a close, is bound, ribboned at St. James Chapel and dispatched to the Vatican by diplomatic pouch.
MARCH 19, 2015
The official opening of the Acts of the Archdiocesan Inquiry into the life and virtues of Father Tolton at the Congregation for Causes of Saints, the Vatican
APRIL 17, 2015
The Congregation for Causes of Saints at the Vatican declared in the affirmative the juridical validity of the Archdiocesan Inquiry into the life and virtues of Father Tolton
DECEMBER 9–10, 2016
Staffs of Catholic Cemeteries of the Diocese of Springfield and the Archdiocese of Chicago, in the presence of Bishop Thomas Paprocki and Bishop Joseph Perry, exhume the remains of Father Augustus Tolton at St. Peter Cemetery in Quincy, Illinois. Tolton’s remains are examined by a team composed of a medical examiner and forensic and anthropology specialists. The findings are documented, the body is enfolded within a new set of priestly vestments and is reinterred awaiting news of his approval for beatification. The report of the exhumation is sent to Rome.
MARCH 18, 2018
Historical Consultants to the Congregation for Causes of Saints review the official positio on the Servant of God Augustus Tolton and voted unanimously that his Cause can move forward to eventually make its way to the desk of the Holy Father
FEBRUARY 5, 2019
Theological Consultants to the Congregation for Causes of Saints review the official positio on the Servant of God Augustus Tolton and voted unanimously that his Cause can move forward to eventually make its way to the desk of the Holy Father.
MAY 21, 2019
The cardinals and archbishops assigned to the Congregation for Causes of Saints meet to garner their votes and recommendation to the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Causes of Saints to take to the pope.
JUNE 11, 2019
Pope Francis issues the declaration stating that Father Augustus Tolton lived a life of heroic virtue and advances him to the title, “Venerable Father Augustus Tolton.”
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We continually seek Fr. Tolton’s intercession through the canonization prayer:
O God,
we give you thanks for your servant and priest, Father Augustus Tolton,
who labored among us in times of contradiction,
times that were both beautiful and paradoxical.
His ministry helped lay the foundation for a truly Catholic gathering in faith in our time.
We stand in the shadow of his ministry.
May his life continue to inspire us
and imbue us with that confidence and hope
that will forge a new evangelization for the Church we love.
Father in Heaven,
Father Tolton’s suffering service sheds light upon our sorrows;
we see them through the prism of your Son’s passion and death.
If it be your Will, O God,
glorify your servant, Father Tolton,
by granting the favor I now request through his intercession
(mention your request)
so that all may know the goodness of this priest
whose memory looms large in the Church he loved.
Complete what you have begun in us that we might work for the fulfillment of your kingdom.
Not to us the glory,
but glory to you O God, through Jesus Christ, your Son
and our Lord;
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are our God, living and reigning forever and ever.
Amen
2010 Bishop Joseph N. Perry
Imprimatur
Francis Cardinal George, OMI Archdiocese of Chicago
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