Bishop Fabre: Connecting with others ‘in the flesh’ will nurture racial harmony

At the annual prayer service for racial harmony in the Archdiocese of New Orleans – held Oct. 12 at St. Andrew the Apostle Church – Auxiliary Bishop Shelton Fabre talked about the double-edged sword of new technology. While it has made communication so much easier, it also places less emphasis on face-to-face dialogue with another person. Smiling because he had just purchased an iPhone5, Bishop Fabre said when things go wrong with our technology, “there is an innate desire in each of us to encounter another person to whom we can entrust our need for clarification or gain a correction. Clearly, there is a role to be played by an encounter between people.” In the realm of racial harmony, one-to-one encounters are even more important, he said. “When people of different races and cultures do not live in harmony, something has gone wrong,” Bishop Fabre said. “Racial strife is not God’s will. … It is only through our direct encounters with one another that our oneness enables us to love one another, to recognize that the many races are beautiful in our diversity and are truly God’s gift to us.” The incarnation – “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” – hints at “why it’s so important for us to encounter people of different races and cultures in the flesh.”