Black Catholic Month
On Saturday, November 15th Bishop Burbidge celebrated Mass in honor of St Martin de Porres at St Joseph Church, Raleigh. When I looked at the worship booklet for this celebration I was chagrined. I had proofread it. It was entitled Black History Month. It should have been entitled Black Catholic Month.
Why Black Catholic Month? The Black Catholic Clergy Caucus started and promotes this observance. Why? There is always the tendency in our country for homogenization. What we should strive for is acceptance of diversity. The meaning of Catholicism as all- embracing is often forgotten.
If we look at the Church for instance in the Raleigh area we see great diversity. There is diversity in liturgical rites. There are Catholics of the Maronite, Byzantine, Ukrainian, and Syro-Malabar Rites.
There are Catholics from all over the world here. They have different feast days, different music, different customs. These we should cherish and help to preserve. This has been done to a great extent among our Spanish-speaking Catholics but not for other people.
Our ministry is striving to do the same among Catholics who are here from the various countries of Africa. Mr. James Waniki of Kenya came to see me some years ago. He expressed his concern that his people were leaving the Church for other churches because they did not feel welcome in our parishes.
This visit by Mr. Waniki was the catalyst to starting a monthly Mass for the Kenyans. This has evolved into the Swahili Mass for the East African People who speak this language. There is also the Mass for Igbo-speaking Nigerians, a Mass for Nigerians and a Mass for the people of Congo.
While we Catholics who are African American are of the Roman Rite, we have music, preaching and feast days which embrace our black heritage. The purpose of the starting of the Black Catholic Month was to bring this before the people of the Church. In the integration of the black and white churches there was a loss to black Catholics of their music, their celebrations and their faith heritage.
Black Catholic month is an attempt to promote acceptance not homogenization. In our Diocese we have done this around our devotion to St. Martin de Porres, whom to a degree we still call Blessed Martin. He is a saint to whom we can readily relate.
- Msgr. Thomas P. Hadden