A platform that encourages healthy conversation, spiritual support, growth and fellowship
NOLACatholic Parenting Podcast
A natural progression of our weekly column in the Clarion Herald and blog
The best in Catholic news and inspiration - wherever you are!
How one envisions family is much influenced by one’s own experience of family, and every family is different. Therefore, as we begin this Year of Family and Faith in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, perhaps it would be helpful to define “family” more objectively. So, what does the dictionary say?
In addition to defining family as more or less synonymous with “household,” Merriam-Webster’s “New Collegiate Dictionary” also says that family is “a people or group of peoples regarded as deriving from a common stock: RACE” or “a group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation: FELLOWSHIP.”
The fellowship of Catholics is united in the “certain conviction” that the teachings of the church’s hierarchical magisterium – past and present – are crucial in arriving at an adequate understanding of our faith. Pastoral letters from bishops to their flocks always have been an important source of those teachings. One such letter – former Archbishop Alfred Hughes’ “Made in the Image and Likeness of God: A Pastoral Letter on Racial Harmony” – has something of vital importance to say to us about family, something that resonates with Archbishop Gregory Aymond’s Family Prayer for the new Battle of New Orleans.
In his letter, Archbishop Hughes quotes Archbishop Joseph Rummel’s 1956 pastoral, “The Morality of Racial Segregation”: “Racial segregation as such is morally wrong and sinful because it is a denial of the unity and solidarity of the human race as conceived by God in the creation of Adam and Eve.” Adam and Eve are thus the “common stock” from whom the human race, the human family, is derived.
Alluding to the biblical account of the Tower of Babel, Hughes notes that the sin of our first parents “led to a state of alienation of peoples, languages and cultures from God and from one another” (Gn 11:1-9). In simple terms, Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God occasioned the splintering of the human family, the one “race” created by God in the beginning.
Cain’s murder of Abel was but the first manifestation of this fragmentation, which continues down to the present day – with similarly violent consequences. The racial segregation against which Archbishop Rummel aimed his letter was another manifestation of how our human family has become fragmented, this time along racial lines.
How does this connect with Archbishop Aymond’s Family Prayer? The prayer is a spiritual call-to-arms in the new Battle of New Orleans against violence, murder and racism, and there is a sense in which these three evils are so closely linked as to constitute a sort of “unholy Trinity.” How so? How is racism linked to these other two evils that threaten the lives of God’s children in and around New Orleans?
An important part of the answer is revealed in the title of Archbishop Rummel’s pastoral letter: “racial segregation.” Archbishop Hughes likewise points to the destructive impacts of segregation when he says, “One of the phenomena of the recent past which we need to look at very realistically is the significance of white exodus from the inner city and the toleration of poverty resulting in inferior schools, housing and healthcare for those who are racially and culturally different.”
Certainly, it would be a mistake to blame all of today’s inner-city woes on racism. However, it would also be a tragic mistake to deny that “white flight” to the suburbs helped catalyze the process of decay that has turned many urban centers – including New Orleans – into incubators for violent crime. The mass exodus from our central cities created a drain on their tax bases, making it difficult or impossible to adequately fund systems of education, police and fire protection, recreation, health care, and criminal justice, and we are seeing the results today.
Some members of God’s family have displayed an aversion to living, learning and even worshiping alongside certain other family members. Therefore, persistent patterns of racial segregation in housing, schooling and parish membership are still readily visible around our archdiocese. In attempting to flee the challenge of living harmoniously together, we have reaped a harvest of unfamiliarity, distrust and fear that is unbecoming for the children of God.
Archbishop Hughes also recognized a psychological side effect of white flight: “Persistent challenges regarding community life, public education, economics, drugs and violence have been labeled ‘their problem, not ours.’” In other words, “out of sight, out of mind.” As long as it’s not happening on my block, it is easy to detach myself from it and to evade responsibility for addressing it.
But it did happen on my block: A year and a half ago, a home invader’s bullet left me paralyzed from the chest down. I became a victim of black-on-black crime. However, I am able to recognize the likelihood that institutional effects of racism (inadequate schools, etc.) were factors in transforming a once-innocent child, brimming with positive potential, into the young man who callously pulled that trigger. This recognition in no way exonerates him for making that choice, but it does help me see him within the larger context of our racially dysfunctional (human) family.
The bottom line is this: Unless and until I regard every other person on the planet as my brother or sister, worthy of dignity, respect and love, I fall short of the vision of family to which my Catholic faith calls me. The same goes for you.
Walter Bonam is associate director of evangelization and catechumenate (RCIA) of the Office of Religious Education.
Tags: Uncategorized