Catholics call on church leaders to stand against racism as one Pa. diocese establishes Black parish
“I want to raise awareness of the need to walk with our Black sisters and brothers."
By Ivey DeJesus/PennLive
Keith Srakocic / AP Photo
Janice Simmons makes a 35-minute trek to get to church every Sunday.
The trip across Pittsburgh takes her past several other Catholic churches.
For Simmons, a lifelong Catholic, Mass at Saint Benedict the Moor Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District is intricately tied to her worship and faith experience.
Saint Benedict the Moor has long served as the parish for Black Catholics in the Hill District, and in fact, throughout the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Simmons, who is Black, says her church offers her an experience not readily found in other parishes.
“There is a spirituality that is common within our culture, among Black people,” said Simmons, who has attended Mass in numerous other churches, including some in Mexico and Rome.
“We are in tune with gospel music and a way of being brought up that has us walking with the Father hand in hand throughout all the trials and oppression that is able to be expressed in our way of clapping and singing, and in a way that is accepted and not looked at as different as when we are in a parish that doesn’t recognize that this is the way we sing and praise.”
Now, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has made official the role and ministry that St. Benedict the Moor has served for the past 130 years.
Bishop David Zubik has designated the church the personal parish for the Black Catholic community of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, with the intention that the parish will respond to the specific spiritual needs of the Black Catholic community.
“Along with their sincere enthusiasm and passion for their Catholic faith, I heard and felt their desire to have their unique spiritual and cultural needs met,” said Zubik, who earlier this year met with Black parishioners to listen to their concerns.
“I want to raise awareness of the need to walk with our Black sisters and brothers as they continue to enrich and be an integral part of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and the Catholic Church Universal.”
The move by Zubik comes at a time when Black Roman Catholics are calling on church leaders to invest and engage more in the fight for racial justice. In the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody, Black Catholics across the country have demanded that church leaders take a more aggressive role in standing against racism and police brutality.
Simmons notes that while in the past the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and even Pope Francis have issued pastoral letters condemning racism, words have fallen short of translating into action.
“We are always looking at the fact that we are all equal and made in the image and likeness of God,” said Simmons, a member of the Diocesan National Black Catholic Congress Leadership Team.
“However, when it comes to the issue of unarmed men and women being murdered in the streets by police or different issues that are race related or biased or prejudiced, I personally, and I know others, don’t feel that there is enough said and enough outcry about these kinds of things,” Simmons said. “It seems people are afraid or hesitate to adopt Black Lives Matter. They want to adopt ‘all lives matter.’ We know all lives matter, but we want to stress that black lives matter too.”
Zubik stressed that the decision does not signal any deepening of divisions.
“This is not a call for separatism but instead for a pledge of commitment to the Church and to share in her witnessing to the love of Christ,” he said in a written statement.
But Shannen Dee Williams, a Black Catholic who teaches history at Villanova University, is uneasy about the move, and she points to history by way of explanation.
“During the Jim Crow era, African-American Catholics were overwhelmingly relegated to parishes specifically designated for them and excluded – sometimes violently – from attending many white and white ethnic parishes,” she said.
“While some might think this is just the story of the southern Catholic Church, it was reflected in parishes across the country. Oftentimes, African-American Catholics fundraised and petitioned their local bishops and archbishops for parishes of their own to escape the humiliating segregation and exclusion that they faced in hostile white and white ethnic parishes.”
Williams finds the new designation for Saint Benedict the Moor curious, considering the church is a historically Black parish with a rich history in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
“It is not the sole responsibility of Black parishes to fight institutional racism,” Williams said. “Racism must become a pro-life issue for all Catholics if racial justice, reconciliation, and peace will ever be achieved. Black Catholics are calling for massive re-investment in the Black Catholic educational system, the teaching of Black Catholic history in all Catholic institutions, the stopping of the closings and/or mergers of active Black parishes, formal apologies and atonement for the church’s sin history of slavery and segregation, and broader and substantive leadership opportunities for Black Catholics.”
In the wake of Floyd’s death, dozens of bishops have since underscored efforts across their respective dioceses to combat racism.
Last week, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., the highest-ranking Black leader in the U.S. church, joined eight fellow bishops from his region in acknowledging the Catholic Church’s “sins and failings” on racial justice.
“Prayer and dialogue, alone, are not enough. We must act to bring about true change,” their statement said. The bishops called for greater equality in health care, education, housing and criminal justice.
Responding to inquiries made by PennLive, Bishop Ronald Gainer of the Diocese of Harrisburg pointed to programs and ministries that support Catholic parishioners across racial and cultural lines, including the Black Catholic Apostolate, which, among its ministries to the Black community, holds a monthly Gospel Mass and a monthly Swahili Mass.
“As Catholics, we believe that all humans are made in the image of God and therefore, we are all brothers and sisters. In the Gospel of John, our Lord commands us to ‘love one another as I have loved you,‘” Gainer said. “This love for each other is something we strive to put into practice across all our ministry programs, but most especially those ministries that reach across multiple cultures.”
Simmons, who served in the diocese’s task force that was instrumental in the new designation for Saint Benedict the Moor, welcomes her church’s new official ministry.
She notes how across the diocese, the city’s diverse communities made up of immigrants from all over the world have put their own stamp on their local parish – from parishes that have Italian, Irish, Polish or Slovak ministries and sensitivities.
A parish named for the Franciscan monk born into slavery and worshipped particularly by Blacks and those in captivity the world over holds a deep spiritual meaning for her.
“It’s not like you feel that you are not served or not a part of a church in general and in particular,” Simmons said. “That’s the big picture. The small picture is that there are people who have not been open and willing to touch you or give you the sign of peace and who look at you like you are in the wrong place when you come in. Those are incidentals that come about being in a parish where most people do not look like you and maybe don’t appreciate that you are there and the fact that you are there. I ‘m talking about today and now. Those kinds of things still go on.”
Greta Stokes Tucker, the Secretariat for Parish Services of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, stressed that Zubik’s decision on Saint Benedict the Moor was not a reaction to Floyd’s death. In fact, the move would have happened earlier had it not been for the coronavirus pandemic.
“This to me doesn’t diminish what Black Catholics can do. It’s an even stronger marching order. A kind of a mandate. Here’s your charge to serve the community,” Stokes Tucker said.
Saint Benedict the Moor, she said, offers the diocese’s Black community a powerful opportunity to expand on the national conversation on racial justice and to serve Black Catholics whether they are newcomers or whose family ties are linked to slavery.
“There was a time when I could not go but to one place,” she said. “This designation does not mean that Black folk have to come to Saint Benedict. This is not ‘you have to go over there and worship’ and no one has to come or leave other parishes. That’s not what is being done. This is a parish that focuses on spirituality in terms of how you wish to worship within the spirituality and expression of the African-American experience. The full expression of a people should permeate liturgically and programmatically, and how it serves the wider community.”
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