The Catholic Church Alone Can Break the Color Line

The great Catholic Church … is the only place on this Continent where rich and poor, white and black, must drop prejudice at the threshold and go hand in hand to the altar. The Catholic Church alone can break the color line. There could be no greater factor in solving the race problem than that matchless institution whose history for 1900 years is but a continual triumph over all assailants. --Daniel Rudd, Black Catholic journalist from Bardstown, Kentucky

[consolidated quotes from his newspaper the American Catholic Tribune]

One of the beautiful things about being Catholic is our church transcends the divisions of country, nation, and race. Even on the small scale of our archdiocese, we have members who are rural and urban, English speaking and Spanish. It comprises those born here and born afar, including priests and religious from India and Africa and Asia. This Church is a model of a new country, a new society, a new kingdom that breaks down human barriers, united as we are by one Lord, on spirit, and Holy Eucharist.

I have been to masses celebrated in many different languages on four different continents. Each was recognizably Catholic while being distinctively rooted in the culture and people gathered there.

Questions

Daniel Rudd believed that our unity in diversity gave us the ability to overcome the structural sin of racism. What part do we have to play in this process?

Prayer

Christ Jesus, you broke down the “dividing wall of enmity” between Gentiles and Jews in the early Church. We pray that you continue to break the walls of race we have erected, establishing peace, and to reconciling us all in you.

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