By Jean Driskell

Five priority items dealing with the needs of black Catholics and evangelizing unchurched blacks were developed from small group discussions during the Archdiocesan Day of Reflection; Catholic Evangelization and the Black Community held Sat., Sept. 13, at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Decatur. About 193 people attended.

These five priority items are Education, Evangelization in the Black Community, Leadership, Social Issues, and Unity and Reconciliation among Black Catholics. They were voted upon by those who attended the Day of Reflection and were passed by a majority vote.

The items will be sent to the National Coordinating Team in Washington, D.C. This team, made up of representatives from the National Association of Catholic Administrators, National Black Catholic Sisters’ Conference, the 10 Black Catholic Bishops, National Catholic Black Clergy Caucus and the Knights and Ladies of St. Peter Claver, will take these five items from the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the items from 100 other dioceses across the country and synthesize them into five priority items to deal with the needs of black Catholics and evangelization on a nationwide basis.

Under the first priority item, Education, one concern was to clarify the role that Catholic schools play in parishes and in the black community and to strengthen education in the black community.

A specific item mentioned was the need for a high school on the southside of Atlanta and attention to keeping Catholic children in Catholic schools, especially high school. Black high school students tend to leave the Church and never come back once they join the public school system, said Father Bruce Wilkinson, pastor of St. Anthony’s Church and Priest-Secretary of the Commission for Black Catholic Concerns.

Another item was educating and preparing the clergy to be sensitive to the needs of the black community. In adult religious education, participants said, greater awareness is needed of black history and black involvement within the history of the Catholic Church.

Father Wilkinson mentioned that there is a lack of emphasis upon black Catholic involvement in both American and Church history. For example, he said that there were three black Popes: St. Victor I (189-199), St. Melchiades (311-314) and St. Gelasius (492-496); and that most people do not know that St. Augustine was black. Also, when a black saint is mentioned, it is usually St. Martin de Porres, leaving the others to remain in obscurity.

This leads to the second priority, Evangeliztion in the Black Community, again with a concern for communicating black history in the Church. “Both black and white communities need to know the presence of black history and it is an issue often ignored and needs to be dealt with,” Father Wilkinson said.

Another major concern under this priority dealt with spirituality within individuals and the church community. This spirituality, described in a pastoral by the black bishops, is based on four values and deals with the question of being authentically black and truly Catholic. The four values are contemplative – experiencing God’s presence in all things and in one’s life; holistic – the black culture does not separate things into categories, e.g., no separation of Church and State; joyful – even in the midst of difficulties have a sense of joy pervade everything and rise above the situation; and communitarian – where community values generally supersede personal values, e.g., the black community sees itself as a single entity.

Leadership is the third priority item and the concerns here dealt with lay involvement, the need for visible black leadership among priests, sisters, deacons and lay people. “Leadership deals also with the ownership of the parish, with black Catholics saying this is my parish, my responsibility for making sure programs grow and work,” Father Wilkinson said.

Also, the need for strong and sensitive leaders on black issues and an accountability of lay people and the clergy in the community was stressed.

Under the fourth priority item, Social Issues, racism was seen as a concern still needing to be dealt with since it exists within the Church.

“Racism still exists and a continuing, honest and earnest dialogue needs to be done now,” Father Wilkinson said. “And we need to ask such questions as how can we combat it in our Church and our society in light of the Gospel values.”

He went on to say that evangelizing in the black community is difficult when the Church will not act or will do very little in dealing with an issue such as racism.

Also, concerns dealing with family, youth and young adults need to be addressed, especially in the areas of drug abuse, crime and teenage pregnancy. And the matter of money and economic resources was also brought out as a concern.

“The question here,” Father Wilkinson said, “is where is our money being invested. When we give to charities and invest monies what is the criteria and do we ever consider investing in the black community, especially in black Catholic owned businesses.”

Unity and Reconciliation among Black Catholics was the fifth priority item. The concern here dealt with what does it mean to be authentically black and truly Catholic. “For the last 10 to 15 years there has been a debate within the black Catholic community; I’m black and not Catholic or I’m Catholic and not black. We’re not able to say both,” Father Wilkinson said.

He said that this dilemma has affected the way that Liturgy is celebrated and music is used. “We are dealing mainly with exteriors instead of the interior self, our own spirituality. A healing must begin inside the black Catholic community. We need to come together and center on one thing, the Good News of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Father Wilkinson explained that issues include whether or not to have Gospel music, much like the debate in the early seventies over whether or not to have Folk Masses. For some, Gospel music or Folk Masses can enhance one’s worship just as playing organ music and singing traditional hymns can for others.

“It’s a question of how much do we want,” he said. “Part of it has to do with identity. Who are we as black Catholics? Too often we are caught up in the exterior circumstances and not really dealing with the interior, or spirituality within ourselves.”

These five priority items were synthesized by the Atlanta Archdiocesan Coordinating Committee for the Sixth National Black Catholic Congress, to be held in May 1987. The five came from the reports of the small group discussions held earlier in the day.

Ten delegates from Atlanta will be sent to the National Black Catholic Congress in Washington, D.C. in 1987. Suggestions for delegates will come from the groups’ facilitators and from the Archdiocesan Coordinating Committee.

“This is a continuation of something that began over 100 years ago, but was never completed. The last congress was in 1894 and it dealt with the same issues then,” Father Wilkinson said.

The issues that were discussed at the Fifth National Black Catholic Congress held in 1894, were Black Leadership, Black Vocations and Racism. The main question for the Church was how it was going to minister to the freed black Catholic slaves. The response was that two orders from England were brought in to deal specifically with ministry to the black community. The orders were the Josephites and the Society of the Divine Word.

“The black community is now back in the position in the Church to address its growth and survival and, in particular, to develop leadership, to witness the Good News and for us in Atlanta, to see that we are part of a larger black Catholic Church community linked together by faith and history,” Father Wilkinson said.

There will be a follow-up process within the archdiocese on the five priority items developed during the Day of Reflection and again on the five national priority items that will come out of the National Black Catholic Congress in 1987.