By Rita McInerney

There is only one agenda for African American Catholics, Bishop Joseph Francis, SVD, auxiliary bishop of Newark, said on the final day of “Pastoring in Black Parishes Workshop III” held April 29-May 3 in Atlanta.

“Realize that we do not have the luxury in this day and time for any other agenda or plan other than that of the Black Congress of 1987. The pastoral plan must be for all of us; it is not just for the office of black ministry only, or for the black priests sisters caucuses only or even for the African American priests.”

“It is for each of us singly who work in the African American Catholic community. Each of you who are members of a diocese or a religious community, must make the pastoral plan an integral part of your community or diocesan agenda. We cannot afford to have individual unrelated plans that weaken the structure we have worked so hard to have endorsed.”

The National Black Catholic Pastoral Plan, endorsed by the U.S. bishops in November, 1989, was developed by the sixth National Black Catholic Congress held in Washington, D.C. in May, 1987.

As he began his talk, Bishop Francis spoke of the five black Catholic congresses, held between 1889 and 1894. Participants, he said, “had hoped for acceptance from the church as a body. Little acceptance was found nearly a hundred years ago. Even in more recent times, the civil rights movement and the gains of the 60s never had the unanimous approval of the bishops of this country.”

Bishop Francis mentioned the example of Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, who last December requested parishes in the Atlanta archdiocese to begin a year of reflection on the national plan to evangelize blacks more effectively.

“We cannot be naïve,” the Newark bishop said, “and think that every bishop” will follow the archbishop’s lead.

“We are not so overcome by euphoria at the move of the bishops that we are not unaware that in some dioceses and in some diocesan offices that plan will never be implemented or perhaps even looked at without some confrontation or at least with some constant prodding.”

The Newark bishop spoke at length on the new accent on African rather than black in the black community and the beginning of acceptance of the nomenclature “African American.”

Since the close of the 1987 congress, he said, “there is a current in our schools, colleges and churches that speaks with an Afrocentric mind set. It is important for us as church leaders to be aware of this and try for an understanding of its implications.”

Because of the work of scholars, he added, “We are learning that blacks were not little people at the back door of history who made no contribution to the advancement of world knowledge.”

Bishop Francis said African Americans earlier had to be content to pass on a history written and researched from an Eurocentric view which gave only a partial glimpse of the role Africa played in world history. It is important, he said, to become aware of “today’s scholarship which is discovering what was there all along.”

He expressed the belief that “as we continue to find ways of expression in an African American motif, I believe that people who for one reason or another have strayed from the church will find their way back. They will realize that this message is one that will touch their lives and give them a new meaning.”

Bishop Francis said the Afrocentric approach is “not a denial of the need for white input as co-workers in the vineyard. It is rather a positive approach detailing for each of us, black and white, that the African Americans in their roots have made remarkable world contributions and that they continue to do so today.” This must be recognized as a “most important element of authentic black pride.”

“The need for you is obvious,” he told the white priests, brothers, sisters and lay men and women among the 370 people attending the workshop. “The church in the black community would be hard pressed if you and your co-workers were not here and not interested…Your leadership must be that of a bridge builder.”

The four-day program was held under the sponsorship of the National Black Catholic Congress. Bishop John H. Ricard, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore, is president of the board of trustees. Mrs. Rhonwyn Rogers, director of the Office of Black Catholic Ministry for the archdiocese of Atlanta, is a trustee.

How to include authentic African values in the black Catholic community was a main focus of the sessions at the Radisson Hotel downtown.

Attendance at the workshop, third in a series leading up to the Sixth National Black Catholic Congress in May, 1992, drew a record number according to Leodia Gooch, director of the National Black Catholic Congress office in Baltimore. She said the workshop is for all who minister in African American Catholic communities.

Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, auxiliary bishop in Chicago, and member of the USCC committee on liturgy, shared insights and concerns in an address on Catholic worship and African Americans on May 2.

Inculturation, the term used in referring to the second phase of liturgical reform since Vatican II, is the “single most significant liturgical concern facing the contemporary church,” he said.

“The children of the same mother do not always agree,” he said quoting an unnamed Nigerian from the past. “The entire history of the church is one of competing expressions of the wisdom that belongs to the one church but has been expressed in many different ways.”

African Americans, one group within the church, are “still largely ignored or relegated to an insignificant place within the church in the United States,” Bishop Gregory said.

“We have made some progress during the past generation in being recognized for our unique presence and contribution within the Catholic Church in the U.S. Unfortunately, much of the progress only came in reaction to an unfortunate occurrence or ugly situation. We only seem to be noteworthy in the throes of controversy.”

“Soon after the crisis subsides or the modest gesture is extended, we become once again that small segment that needs attention only after the greater issues are adequately addressed. This does not mean that the church in the U.S. does not believe our needs and aspirations are legitimate. Many documents from the highest offices have publicly condemned racism both within and outside the church and have lauded the presence of gifts of African American Catholics.”

“But the type of generous, effective and compelling attention that the church pays to other issues and groups is rarely directed toward African American Catholics…Nevertheless, the church in the African American community provides a vitality, a warmth, a spirit of joy which invigorates our communities and offers hope to the entire church,” the Chicago bishop said.

Bishop Gregory advised his audience to learn about the respect the people and traditions and planted them in our worship,” sometimes with little appreciation of the origin, meaning or significance of the practice, he claimed.

As pastors and people, he added, “We ought to encourage the careful and serious study of African traditions and history. But before we simply select masks and drums, cloths and headgear, robes, and jewelry from African cultures, we ought to probe their meaning, significance, and use within the cultures from which they come.”

“What we do not need are facile, inaccurate, incomplete, uninformed exposure to certain African traditions used in a Catholic ritual context without proper explanation and reverence for either the ritual or the African custom.”

Another concern expressed by Bishop Gregory was that of the relationship between freedom of expression and liturgical law. He acknowledged that neither of two extremes would be satisfied in his addressing of this issue.

Those who believe that pastoral need, personal charism, liturgical reform, or evangelical zeal are immediate, universal, and irrevocable dispensations from all liturgical law will not be happy with any attempt to explain the importance of the church’s insistence that the liturgy be celebrated according to certain prescriptions,” he said.

While these laws are binding, they also allow interpretation, Bishop Gregory acknowledged, “capable of accommodating the needs of our people.

“Without offering an opinion” on the feasibility or wisdom of such a rite, Bishop Gregory commented on the calls for an autonomous African American rite in the U.S.

“I believe that such discussions ought to take place,” he said. “I believe that we ought to listen to the arguments which will have to be clarified and be put forth in such a discussion. But even if an African American rite were established it would have its own liturgical laws. And I want to remind you that the liturgical prescriptions for the non-Roman Catholic liturgical families are as strict, and frequently more exacting, then any comparable Roman liturgical laws,” he said.

Bishop Gregory cited visits to Rome such as that recently sponsored by the archdiocese of Washington for a number of African America Catholics as promoting and fostering “a needed spirit of openness.”

“I do not believe that Rome is always aware of the complexity of our community nor the origins of many of our religious and cultural traditions,” he said. “It is our responsibility to help the Holy See some to understand our heritage. It only helps our cause when choirs, pilgrimages, and symposia occur which describe and demonstrate what African American Catholics are doing.”

He reminded the workshop participants of the “traditional” black Catholics who want nothing to do with “so-called African American Catholic style of liturgy with its ‘Baptist’ music and antics.”

“It is a true sign of our Catholicity to have the African American Catholic community so stratified in our ideological opinions regarding our Church. Why would you even think that all Black Catholics fit neatly within one category when it is so blatantly clear that no one group of Catholics can be so described?” he asked.

“What most want from worship is an encounter with the mystery of God,” Bishop Gregory said. “They want to feel holy and be wholly engaged in the power of God’s otherness…Black Catholic worship, when it is well celebrated satisfies these longings…it is colorful and expressive, mysterious yet human.”

Some parishes have become havens for Catholics of other racial heritages who find in the African American liturgical expression a welcome and inviting encounter with God, Bishop Gregory said. This helps in the rediscovery that the same elements which make for good liturgy cross many different cultural and racial boundaries.

Prayer services and liturgy during the workshop manifested the joy, mystery and humanity expressed in African American worship, according to many of the workshop participants.

Father Henry Gracz, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes, a parish for black Catholics established 77 years ago in Atlanta, came away from the talks and workshops with a new “sense of the African roots that are our biblical heritage.”

Father Gracz, who termed himself “the new kid on the block” in pastoring a black parish, was amazed to learn there are 112 million people of African descent in the Catholic Church worldwide. He sees this a source of “commonality and strength that has to be tapped into.”

In the preaching workshops he said he felt a “real call to bring the best of your gifts and yourself to your ministries.”

For Father Thomas Barberito, SJ, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Baton Rouge, La., for the past three years, the talk by Dr. Naim Akbar, a clinical psychologist from Florida State University, made a strong impression.

Dr. Akbar asked his audience, the Jesuit priest said, whether those who now come with gifts (Christian churches including the Catholic Church) can be trusted because of their history of racism.

For the black community to reclaim its history, the speaker, a follower of Islam, said, it is necessary for the church to attack the sickness of racism and to spend as much energy and time dealing with it as it does with abortion.

Father Barberito said this statement “touched a clear nerve” and brought “thunderous applause.”

Bishop Ricard said the turnout for the third annual workshop “exceeds expectations and indicates the tremendous need people have to be affirmed and to interact.”

He said the aim of the workshops is to provide “continuing formation and retooling of our clergy, so very important in these parishes,” The workshops demonstrate how to grow and develop “with the good pastoral leadership” provided on the program.

For those traditional black Catholics who are uncomfortable with liturgy incorporating African-American elements, much depends on pastoral leadership, Bishop Ricard said, on “how adroitly and careful” the pastor can handle those accustomed to, and comfortable, with the older liturgical style. Such Catholics, he added, need to be challenged “into looking at what may, in many instances, have a much wider appeal to African American Catholics.”

As the church “more and more expands itself within the African American community, many elements will be incorporated into mainstream thinking,” he predicted.