Catholic Church is pedophilic, racist, and phony.
Quote:Would we want our Black Catholic child to be a priest? Probably not.
One of the proudest moments I have had as a Black Catholic parent is when my two boys received the sacrament of baptism.
Yet, due to the global sexual abuse scandal, lukewarm approaches to racism and combating anti-Black racial injustices in the Church, hyper-partisan focus among many bishops and priests, and our own general displeasure for the hierarchy, my wife and I would have many reasons to withhold our children from being in the divinely grandiose yet painful Catholic Church altogether.
When it comes to Catholic sexual abuse and African Americans, we are even more concerned. The abominable global crisis in the Church has crippled its public image, and there is overwhelming agreement that clerical abuse is an ongoing reality.
The Black Catholic struggle in this regard is hardly at the forefront of the debate. Because the Church doesn't have a system that logs the demographic information of abuse victims, the actual number of Black Catholic victims is untold. Couple this with decades of faithful Black Catholics going abused, traumatized, and largely unseen and you can understand why the issue is even more wounding for my wife and I.
It concerns us that if our children were ever sexually victimized by Church staff or clergy, who would be there to “say their name” when the hierarchy protects its unyielding power and influence against credible allegations, shuffling dangerous priests and hushing victims? We can’t fathom our precious and innocent children becoming a statistic with little to ensure their dignity and sacredness are protected. If we’re supposed to trust the Church elders with our children’s souls but they are assaulted, it would only create further distrust.
When it comes to anti-Black injustice in the Catholic world stateside and abroad, my wife and I have little confidence that the Church can be a leader for our racial, economic, political, environmental, and religious needs. When many high-ranking members dismiss the call to recognize the importance of human dignity and ensure equitable participation in society, it distresses us to see them go against our welfare.
Further, if one of our children were to become a priest, they could end up standing shoulder to shoulder with someone that sees them as undeserving of the vocation. That’s difficult to process for us because we know how it is to receive initial reception in Christian spaces only to be encountered later with disingenuity and a false embrace.
Our child’s potential vocation as a priest would likely result in an assignment to a predominantly non-Black parish, which would likely mean confrontation with implicit bias and stereotypes. It could be a shattering blow to their ministry, just as Venerable Augustus Tolton encountered and Fr Bryan Massingale has also recounted. Even so, perseverance can be achieved. The willingness of faithful Black priests to stick to their upward calling despite hostility is a remarkable testament to the Holy Spirit working in them.
When we see figures like Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, who withdrew from the seminary because of White Catholic racism in the late 1960s, and so many more examples of Black Catholic men and women with a thwarted vocation, spiritual fortitude is not easy.
https://www.blackcatholicmessenger.org/b...onfidence/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
