. Catholicism Demands That “Black Lives Matter!” Inclusion Matt Harper Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere - LA, White People 4 Black Lives Social Equity andSocial Equity Abstract The historical role that the Catholic Church has played in oppressing many different groups is clear: for example, the oppression of women, children, LGBTQ people, and people of Color. Equally clear is the choice many churches and congregants make today to remain silent and inert when it comes to prioritizing the dignity of all marginalized populations, even those sitting beside them in the pews. Specifically, the White, Catholic community of faith is significantly absent in the work to challenge institutions that oppose the liberation of Black communities. However, this reality is inconsistent with the most faithful demands of Catholic scripture and tradition. From the Old Testament to Jesus of Nazareth and his apostles to Pope Francis, one core principle of Catholicism is the priority God places on the lives and dignity of the most oppressed. By exploring the atrix Center of the Advancement for atrix Center compendium of Catholicism, White Catholics can find an appropriate framework for considering how to engage the work for racial justice. Additionally, those of he M he White identity have a unique responsibility to explore the realities of their racial T identity. By taking intentional action and heeding the call that so many others and before them have taken up, they can find that it is very much in the lexicon of God to loudly proclaim the Gospel truth, “Black lives matter!” This is a personal self- reflection, and I envision the primary audience for this article to be privileged White Catholics who impose their social and political beliefs about the Black Lives Matter movement on their faith. The aim is to provide pushback to those who would argue that this social movement, along with others, is contrary to the Catholic faith and hopefully serve as a call to embolden them to action. Note: UDP is a platform for voices to be heard. Therefore, this is a personal, self- reflection article for a specific population, and is not a reflection of the beliefs of UDP. Keywords: Catholicism; Black Lives Matter; White privilege; Exodus; Tradition; he White Privilege Conference Privilege White he Tactics After being activated in college, author Matt Harper got heavily involved with multicultural work on campus. Following graduation, he moved to Belize where he ournal of T coordinated the rehabilitation programs in the youth facility of a Central American Understanding & Dismantling Privilege prison before returning home to Los Angeles to teach middle school students. Since returning home, he has been active in the Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere-LA and, most recently, with White People for Black Lives (the local Showing Up for Racial Justice chapter). His activism and organizing has led him to join the Los Angeles Catholic Worker community, which both operates a soup The Official J The Official kitchen on Skid Row and actively challenges state violence and oppression. Understanding and Dismantling Privilege Harper: Catholicism Demands Catholicism Demands That “Black Lives those crushed by the cogs of powerful Matter!” institutions (Matthew 23:2-4, NIV). I believe this is the foundation of my faith, I have spent the last few years practiced (albeit imperfectly) by my spiritual exploring the social locations I occupy in the ancestors, and it is the one I willingly pursue class, race, and sex-gender structures and the and own today. implications of those identities on my lived experience. A combination of genetics, I remember participating in my first personal decisions, socializations, cultural protest where the phrase “Black lives factors, circumstances, ideologies, matter!” was chanted. It was the night a convictions, and experiences have led me to grand jury decided there was no need to occupy and thus benefit significantly from indict Darren Wilson, a White police officer, my place as an upper-class, White, for the killing of Michael Brown, a Black heterosexual male. As industries travel man. As I marched that evening, I found overseas and unemployment and myself thinking about the White faith underemployment affects all people communities I had grown up in. I reflected (including college graduates), the followers on the many conversations and experiences I of Trump and Sanders can testify that some had in these spaces. I knew the reactions of the power in some of these positions is many wealthy, White families were having eroding. And yet, I still benefit from systems towards the movement and this national of privilege that those holding different conversation because I had been there once identities do not receive. myself. My culture had convinced me of the innocence and integrity of law enforcement While the privileges of these institutions and encouraged me to presume identities are sometimes hard to separate the guilt of communities of Color and the out, two of the identities that occupy much poor, even before considering any of my thinking these days are my racial and situational specifics. As I got older, I did not religious identities. Realistically, my consider questioning the brutality and affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church violence committed by police on Black is more from inherited culture than from a communities because to question the deep conviction of its dogma and theology, integrity of public institutions was to more from a recognition of the constantly challenge the very system itself (and that radical Gospels and occasionally radical would be too disruptive to my worldview tradition than from the institutional and the implications too daunting). I aimed bureaucracy and hierarchy, and yet I choose for “colorblindness”—as if it was even to remain there. And though my spirituality really possible or desired—from the security is far more complex than I can explore here, of my homogeneous community. I pointed I believe in a God of liberation who speaks to a handful of multiracial relationships as truth to power (Luke 6:24, NIV), who my justification that I was not also a culprit overturns the money lenders’ tables (John in this system of racism, even though I never 2:15, NIV), who demands a radical really had honest conversations with those dismantling of everything divisive friends about the differences in our (Galatians 3:28, NIV), who stands against individually lived experiences, let alone how all oppressive systems and who stands with race affected the dynamics of our own ISSN 2152-1875 Volume VII, Issue 1, April 2017 54 Understanding and Dismantling Privilege Harper: Catholicism Demands shared friendships. However, a series of of the institutional Catholic Church. It has events led me to a more honest and critical perpetrated some of the worst acts in history. understanding of human dynamics, where I A series of papal-led Inquisitions permitted began listening and educating myself in a torture and brutal violence to suppress any deeper way. As I marched that night I found “heresy” of the Catholic faith. A series of myself wondering why this community of Crusades brought military violence against mine had not also grown out of these Islam, against heresy, and even in an effort misinformed notions and how we had come to increase political and territorial to such different places with the same advantage. Papal bulls (a charter issued by Gospels and the same God. the Pope) sanctioned slavery and many Catholics (including Jesuit priests) made Despite what the last paragraph money on the ownership and sale of slaves. might suggest, I try my best not to presume The mission system in California enslaved that I can speak for anyone or anything but millions of Native Americans in an effort to myself. I also recognize that much of this spread colonization, sustain Catholic analysis is born of my personal communities, and convert the indigenous interpretation of scripture, my lived peoples. The Native American boarding experiences and the stories of those I care schools that followed aimed to strip about whose experiences bear no indigenous children of their culture, resemblance to mine. White men have language, and history. The prioritization of suggested that we have spoken infallibly for wealth and the collusion with power has, at God for too long, and so I aim not to speak moments and in specific situations, stripped with certitude but with a grace born of the Catholic Church of its values and, in reflection, dialogue, and prayer. many ways, its credibility. Nevertheless, we can only speak the truths we’ve found as best we see them. Hopefully Given this history of oppression, one that image and likeness of God that Genesis might logically question how anyone might reminds me I was born with is respected believe that the Catholic Church could here as I search for thoughtful interpretation possibly demand that Black lives matter. But of stories, parables, and text. And so I began the scripture and tradition of Catholicism are to wonder, “What would God say to this unfathomably deep. While there is much for national movement and to people of the Church to atone for (socially, spiritually, Catholic or even Christian faith?” Is there a and financially), there is also much of value parallel between my God and this phrase, to be reclaimed, much that has been “Black lives matter?” And if there is a forgotten, lost, and even stolen. This in no parallel, how can so many be so opposed to way washes away or covers up the Church’s the Black Lives Matter movement? And for racist, sexist, classist, and heterosexist those who aren’t opposed, why are so many actions, but it offers an alternative, a quieter White Catholics so absent from the struggle portion that deserves to be uplifted and for Black liberation? And so I began to celebrated.