A racist Church?

by Editor · March 30, 2005

Catholics who this month were greeted with the banner headline informing them that there was a “race shock” in their Church may have reacted in two ways.

Some will have experienced shock at the content or the presentation of the news, or both. Others those who had read The Southern Cross reports on the subject in December and again in February will have been bemused that the Sunday Times should have been so out of touch as to rehash three-months-old news.

Of course, the Sunday Times headline, “Racism shock in Catholic Church”, and the story structure were sensationalistic (a term best used with great circumspection).

The real story was not that there is racism in South Africa’s Catholic Church. It would be naive to believe that somehow the Church should be exempt from a social dynamic that continues to pervade our society, despite consistent Catholic teaching and activism against racial discrimination.

The real story ought to have been that here was an institution that was taking action where many other institutions have failed to and transparently so, as the public access to the bishops’ Justice and Peace department report shows.

The report, “Race Relations and the Catholic Church in South Africa a Decade After Apartheid”, must be seen as a positive step towards bringing the People of God closer together. The J&P report is not, as the Sunday Times seemed to imply, an indictment that disaffirms the Church’s proud history of fighting for social justice.

Nor is it, as some have defensively suggested, a “politically correct” denunciation of white Catholics.

Such a misapprehension itself surely validates the need for such a report, because it suggests that the incidence of racism is not yet fully understood. Issues of race based on fact or just perceived cannot be solved until a common understanding of its nature is arrived at by all.

Racism is not limited to spouting prejudiced invective or barring access to amenities. Often, racism manifests itself unconsciously, even among some who believe themselves to be free of such bigotry.

Conversely, not everything that is being labelled “racist” is necessarily so. Some of the grievances raised in the J&P report are not inevitably a consequence of racism, but could be attributed to issues of cultural differences or economic factors.

Indeed, in wider society, the summons of racism has at times become a convenient stick with which to beat white opposition, even when a prejudiced disposition is in fact absent.

Nevertheless, it would be foolish for some Catholics to wave away the sense of injustice felt by others. An appropriate response would be to discover why these injustices are still being felt in a Church of justice.

The report has given a voice to those who feel that racism has not yet been eliminated from the Church, as it ought to be. Here, then, is an opportunity to discuss, understand and, where necessary, redress such grievances.

The awful legacy of three centuries of racial oppression will remain with us for many years, a time which history will count in generations. The sooner the questions of race are properly addressed, the sooner true reconciliation will become a reality in South Africa.

In this, the Catholic Church may well show this country the way, again.