Reflection - opening wide our hearts to racial justice

  A couple of weeks ago, we in the Diocese we found out that St Dominic Hospital was not able to host us priests for a workshop that we had scheduled for the priests of the Diocese the very next week.  Our parish staff, Deacon John and I decided that St Jude would be able to safely host the workshop.  I am thankful for their hard work that helped us host this workshop here at St Jude to make it a great successful.  The presenter of this workshop on Racial Justice was Bishop Shelton Fabre, the Bishop of Houma-Thibodaux, one of principal authors of “Open Wide Your Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love,” a document issued by the US Bishops that examines the history of racism and identifies the Biblical remedy—doing justice, loving goodness, and walking humbly with our God.  Bishop Fabre began served as Chair of the USCCB Subcommittee for African-American Catholics, as a member of the USCCB Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church, and Chair of the Bishops ’Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism.

        We priests of the Diocese of Jackson very much appreciated this workshop on racial justice, as this topic is very timely in our Church and in our world.  Our Diocese had a survey a couple of months ago about attitudes regarding racial justice, a survey some St Jude parishioners filled out.  Racism is an issue that is very difficult to address or talk about in our society and in our Church.  I remember that when I was pastor of St James in Tupelo, there were several incidents that occurred in that city that heightened racial tensions.  Even when we pastors from the various churches in the city got together to discuss these issues of racial tension, some of the pastors were very vocal in voicing their own opinion and wanted everyone to listen to them, but were not open at all to what the other pastors had to say.  It shocked me that Christian ministers in the same city cannot even have a conversation about a topic that was dividing our city. 

       In the coming months, our Diocese is hoping to roll out a program to address the issue of racial justice in our parishes. Bishop Fabre challenged us priests to have the courage to preach on this topic and to speak to the hearts of our parishioners about it.  Racial justice is an important part of Catholic social teaching and a part of social justice. We should see this as an opportunity to engage in this important social justice issue. You will hear more about this in the coming months.  

Blessings to all of you

Father Lincoln