THE GOOD THAT CAN COME FROM BLACK LIVES MATTER

   

There are events that happen in the world which ignite protest and strong feelings from people and cultures that are very distant to the people who were actually involved in the historical event. 

It was May 25 of this year, in Minneapolis, USA, when a black man, George Floyd, was the victim of a horrendous crime – and all this was recorded and broadcast to all the world. After almost ten weeks we have not seen the end of the protests that have hit the streets of so many of our cities, worldwide.

Some Catholics have called for an official teaching on racism, like a papal encyclical (clear Church policy) to be issued. I know the concern that is expressing this but this is not something that we need at this point in time. 

These protests challenge us (i.e., believers) to dig into the recent roots of Church teaching with regard to racism and relations between differing minorities. Everything is already in place. We only have to discover it (most often for the first time)

One of the strong features of a church that has bishops is that you have an authorative voice that must responsibly speak the truth of our faith. The statements that our bishops make are carefully prepared and evaluated. Not only does the Pope speak authoritatively, but the conferences of bishops within each country also speak with authority. Our task is the search for the teachings on racism and apply them to our own spiritual lives. We do not have to reinvent the wheel, but rather, we must do the homework of working with the bishops towards the truth about race relations.

Almost immediately, there will be people who try to block this dialogue by claiming that “black lives matter” or “aboriginal lives matter” is a political issue. The churches have no business dealing with political matters! By pushing the question into the political arena such people are effectively neutering the matter.

Race and race relations are always a deeply spiritual matter. How we treat people of different color from ourselves is tied up directly with our service of God. For every Christian this is a very intense question of what we actually believe and how we structure our lives. 

Be realistic on this one!

Even though we may have clear teachings on how we are to value and treat people who are different from the majority, it does not mean we actually put this into practice. The criticism is honestly thrown towards Christians, that their faith is mostly lived on stage (it is a performance), and often, is not rooted in real life (in the trenches).

We will have people upset in our churches over this issue. Strong feelings, fear and anger will explode from time to time but that does not allow us to back away from the issue of race relations (how do we treat each other in his society?). Do not let anyone off the hook, that is, believer and indifferent person. How are you actually living our conviction of faith that all people are created in the image of God and have equal human dignity?

I firmly believe that out of this struggle in Church and society, all these protests, all these heavy discussions that greater good will come out of this.