Black and Catholic: many say they are faithful despite church's inattention

National Catholic Reporter, March 13, 1998 by Robert McClory

"Everywhere I go around the country, black people come up to me and say, `I used to be Catholic.' They say it in such a matter-of-fact way, without any regret or shame or guilt." -- Fr. George Clements, director, One Church One Addict Program

"I fear we're reaping the whirlwind. The problem goes way back to the church's maintenance of slavery, its acceptance of segregation and its failure to develop a native clergy." -- Sam Dennis, sociologist, Washington

"With attention and emphasis on Hispanic needs and concerns, many feel that issues in the African-American community are ignored. Many African-Americans still view the church as a racist institution." -- Jacqueline Wilson, former president, National Association of Black Catholic Administrators

"The institutional church does not have a clue how to relate to blacks and has no desire, does not put forth the effort and will not take the time to find a clue." -- Fr. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina's Church Chicago.

In 1989 Franciscan Sr. Thea Bowman, then in the advanced stages of bone cancer, addressed a meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops from her wheelchair. "What the church's people need to do is walk together," she said. "If we as a church walk together, don't let nobody separate you. The church is a family ... and the family got to stay together."

She then asked the bishops to rise and sing "We Shall Overcome" and to cross their arms and join hands. "You got to move together to do that," she said. "See, in the old days you had to tighten to do that so that when ... the tear gas would come, when the dogs would come, when the horses would come ... brothers and sisters would not be separated."

And so the black-suited, pectoral crosswearing assembly bunched up together and, some even swaying, sang forth with unusual gusto the words of the civil rights anthem.

During the past 15 years the hierarchy has issued an impressive series of documents underscoring the importance of African-Americans to the church, the special contributions of black culture and the whole church's responsibility to the poor and marginalized. The documents include "What We have Seen and Heard" (1984), "Brothers and Sisters to Us" (1989) and "Keep Your Hand on the Plow" (1996).

Programs have been launched and organizations established. Yet nothing has altered the slow leakage of African-Americans from the church; nothing has changed the kind of malaise that seems to grip veteran black Catholics. Despite a lot of activity, the family is not holding together.

Two years ago, in "A Study of Opinions of African-American Catholics" commissioned by the National Black Catholic Congress, 51 percent of the respondents declared, "The Catholic church as a whole does not seem to care about the needs of African-Americans."

Sixty percent said, "I sometimes feel discriminated against in the church because of my race." And another 63 percent called for a more "African-American focus" in the Mass and sacraments.

The results of this poll are especially interesting because almost half of the 632 respondents were black priests, sisters, deacons and bishops. Of the lay respondents, 87 percent said they attend Mass every week or almost every week, and 79 percent of these feel "welcomed and comfortable" in their own parishes.

The vast majority (79 percent) showed no enthusiasm or interest in a separate and distinct African-American branch within the church. Given the level of personal and parish commitment of these Catholics, their sense of dissatisfaction with the church as a whole is noteworthy.

There are no reliable figures on the number of African-American Catholics in the United States or on population changes from year to year. Yet virtually every authority NCR consulted on the subject said the black community is slipping -- or, at best, barely holding its own thanks to immigration from Africa and the Caribbean.

A tentative hold

In the 1970s the number of black Catholics was generally given at about 1 million. Then, based solely on the results of a Gallup study in the early 1980s, the accepted number soared overnight to 2 million and has remained about the same ever since. As a working figure, the Secretariat for African-American Catholics, an affiliate of the U.S. Catholic Conference, claims 2.3 million African-Americans today.

Even under this optimistic estimate, black Catholics still represent a minority within a minority: Less than 7 percent of the 33 million U.S. blacks are Catholic, and less than 4 percent of the 61.2 million Catholic population is black. Clearly, the church's hold on black Americans is tentative at best.

Meanwhile, the erosion that Fr. Clements referred to can be observed at many levels. According to Sheila Adams, the Chicago archdiocesan consultant for African-Americans, the archdiocese claimed 125,000 black Catholics in 1985 and currently claims 100,000. Adams is quick to point out that this does not mean 25,000 blacks left the church, since some shrinkage is due to migration outside the metropolitan area.