Religion: Black First

Among the 47 million Roman Catholics in the U.S., blacks are a distinct minority, numbering only about 800,000. But the minority is an increasingly vocal one. Last week in Washington, D.C., 350 delegates to the first national convention of black lay Catholics angrily excoriated the church for failing blacks and presented a list of demands.

The delegates charged white U.S. Catholics with “failure to be sensitive to us as a people with a particular culture, heritage and history.” There is, they declared, “little resemblance between the Catholic Church in America and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” While affirming their belief “in the liberating message of the Gospel,” the laymen noted that they were “black first and then Catholic.” Fourteen demands were then adopted unanimously and delivered to the Washington residence of Archbishop Luigi Raimondi, the Apostolic Delegate to the U.S., for transmission to Pope Paul VI. Among them:

> Establishment of four regional black dioceses, each with a black bishop elected only by black Catholics of the region.

> Cooperation of the American church hierarchy in developing a liturgy “reflective of our Afro-American heritage.”

> Black participation at all levels in decisions concerning Catholic education for black children, including black approval of white teachers.

“Our patience is severely limited,” the delegates warned. “We shall move forward whether they [the U.S. bishops] respond or not.”