#FaithFormationFriday - Overcoming Our Country’s Original Sin

When people of color shine a spotlight on various things that they perceive – often correctly – as manifestations of racism in our society, they are sometimes accused of “being divisive” or “dividing our country.” The sad truth, however, is that American society was divided along racial lines long before anyone now living drew his or her first breath, and it largely remains so today. Therefore, to point an accusatory finger at those who dare to acknowledge this division is akin to blaming meteorologists for pointing out that it is raining.

In Made in the Image and Likeness of God, the pastoral letter on racial harmony that he published in 1995, then-Archbishop Alfred Hughes (now our Archbishop emeritus) echoed many others who have referred to racism as our nation’s “Original Sin”. As a theologian, he was hardly oblivious to the magnitude of comparing this social sin with the evil done by our first parents. He meant to say that this grave sin – manifested not only in the institution of slavery, but also in what amounted to a centuries-long campaign of genocide against the indigenous peoples of this continent (a.k.a. Indians or Native Americans) – has reverberated from the beginning of European settlement down to this very day.

In their 1979 pastoral letter, Brothers and Sisters to Us, our national body of bishops highlighted the magnitude of this social sin when they stated:
  Unfortunately, nearly four decades after their publication, these words remain true. The human family in our country is still divided and in need of radical transformation on both an individual and a structural level.

Bishop Robert Barron, chief architect of the popular Catholicism series, makes the same point in a brief YouTube video, recorded in response to the violent incident that occurred in August in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a group of avowed white supremacists encountered a group of counter-protesters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fsw_nujLLI .

Like Archbishop Hughes, Bishop Barron points to the only force for unity strong enough to overcome this persistent division: Jesus Christ. It would be a mistake, though, to suppose that the name of Jesus is a sort of mantra that we can chant as a means of combating the monstrous evil of racism. Rather, we must look to Jesus as the one who dares to tell the truth – as prophets have always done – regardless of whether or not people wanted to hear it, mindful always that self-sacrificing love such as that which he displayed on the cross is the highest and deepest truth of all. We must also look to the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist, as sources of grace in this struggle.

Such love is the only medicine strong enough to cure the radical evil of racism and the terrible division it has wrought in our society, and even within our Church. However, we will not seek the cure unless and until we are willing to forthrightly acknowledge the accuracy of the diagnosis. Only our willingness to confront the presence and extreme gravity of this cancer that continues to afflict our country will prompt us urgently to seek the one treatment capable of overcoming it. Continued denial, on the other hand, will allow this malignancy to keep growing and metastasizing, thus threatening the very life of our society.

The urgent necessity of combating the “Original Sin” of which our bishops have spoken calls to mind a bumper-sticker slogan authored by the late Fr. Albert McKnight, C.S.Sp., as he did battle against it in Lafayette, Louisiana: “Racism – Our national disease. Getting sick was not our fault. Getting well is our responsibility.” Our bishops have pointed out the deep historical roots of our sickness, so getting sick was truly not our fault. Therefore, we need not feel guilty regarding our condition. In fact, inappropriate feelings of guilt are counterproductive, since such strong negative emotions are more likely to paralyze us than to galvanize us into constructive action toward fulfilling our responsibility for getting well.

Make no mistake, however; acknowledgment of the social sin of racism is a necessary first step, in light of which we might do well to recall the words of 2 Chronicles 7:14: