Saints Simon and Jude: A grisly end for Simon?

African American Heritage Hymnal in a pew at Cure d’Ars Catholic Church in Denver. / Jonah McKeown/CNA

Denver Newsroom, Mar 16, 2022 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

A new survey of Black Catholics in the United States sheds light on what makes Black expressions of Catholicism unique, but also highlights the fact that Black Catholics remain a minority in the country as a whole, and in most parishes.  

The survey found that Black Catholics are significantly less likely than other Catholics — and also less likely than Black Protestants — to attend a church where most of the other parishioners are of the same race or ethnicity they are. 

About 6% of the Black population in the U.S. — around 3 million total people — is Catholic, compared with some 66% who are Protestant. Black Catholic communities in the U.S. include not only African-Americans, but also African and Caribbean immigrants. They make up about 4% of all Catholic adults. 

Black Catholic communities have been present in the United States for centuries, with large African-American Catholic populations in cities including Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, and numerous cities throughout the South. Overall, 45% of Black Catholics in the U.S. live in the South, while 29% live in the Northeast, 15% live in the West, and 11% live in the Midwest. 

Pew’s survey suggests that only a quarter of Black Catholics who attend Mass at least a few times a year report that they typically go to a Mass where most other attendees are Black, and about 17% of Mass-going Black Catholics say they worship at a “Black church.”

That compares with 80% of White Catholics who worship where most attendees are White, and 67% of Hispanic Catholics who worship where most attendees are Hispanic, Pew reported. And in contrast, more than two thirds of Black Protestants say they attend a predominantly Black church. 

Pew’s survey drew on a sample of nearly 9,000 Black Americans and was conducted between Nov. 19, 2019-June 3, 2020. 

According to the survey, 59% of Black Catholics say they pray at least once a day, while roughly half say that religion is very important in their lives. Black Catholics are somewhat more likely than White and Hispanic Catholics to say they pray every day, and somewhat more likely than White Catholics to say religion is very important to them. Black Catholics also are more likely than other Catholics to say they rely “a lot” on prayer for guidance in major life decisions. 

Worship at predominantly Black Catholic parishes is different from that of predominantly White parishes. For one thing, Black Catholics are much more likely to report that other attendees often or sometimes call out “amen” or other expressions of praise during Mass. 

Black Catholic Masses are typically longer than those attended by White Catholics; more than a third of Black Catholics say their Masses are longer than 90 minutes. But Black Catholic Masses are still shorter on average than most Black Protestant worship services. 

About a quarter of Black Catholics say they have experienced jumping, shouting, and dancing spontaneously during Mass, or charismatic forms of worship such as speaking in tongues. Still, Black Catholics are less likely to report that these more charismatic forms of worship are present at their churches than are Hispanic Catholics, or Black Protestants. 

Black Catholics also tend to travel farther to get to Mass than their White or Hispanic counterparts, with 41% saying they have to travel more than 15 minutes to get to Mass. 

In terms of preaching at Mass, Black Catholics are more likely to report hearing a homily about racism, and slightly less likely to hear a homily about abortion, than are White Catholics. 

A majority of Black Catholics — 77% — say opposition to racism is essential to what being Christian means to them. This contrasts with only 26% of Black Catholics who say that attending church regularly is essential to their faith, 22% who say opposing abortion is essential, and just 16% who say avoiding sex before marriage is essential to their religious identity. In addition, the survey suggests that most Black Catholics (71%) believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Compared to White or Hispanic Catholics, more Black Catholics are converts to the faith. Roughly half of Black adults who were raised Catholic still identify as Catholic (54%), compared with 61% of White adults and 68% of Hispanic adults who were raised as Catholics and still identify with the faith, Pew reports.

Compared to White or Hispanic Catholics, Black Catholics differ in their expectations of what their parish should be like, and what the congregation should do. Black Catholics are more likely than White or Hispanic Catholics to say they think it is essential that churches offer a sense of “racial affirmation or pride,” as well as to say it is essential that churches assist people who need help with bills, housing, or food.

[…]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 11, 2020 / 03:29 am (CNA).- Benedictine College had a problem.

After students returned to campus for the fall semester, 38 of them tested positive for COVID-19. And while none of the students who tested positive had serious symptoms or required hospitalization, Atchison County, Kansas, where Benedictine College is located, was spooked.

So, out of a sense of desperation, Benedictine College President Stephen Minnis told his students to pray and fast for the health of the college from August 28 until September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. The college had already made adjustments, at the behest of the county, to its existing coronavirus mitigation protocols.

“We had a commitment to be open in a safe and healthy environment, but with dynamic campus life, including athletics, with access to a strong faith program–including the sacraments–with in-person classes, all with the intention to stay open and true to our mission,” Minnis told CNA in an interview on September 9.

Minnis told CNA that bringing the students back on campus was necessary for fulfilling the college’s mission statement: “to educate within a community of faith and scholarship.”

“We believe strongly that COVID has attacked our mission directly,” said Minnis. “It’s an attack on our community by forcing our students to stay in their homes or in their dorm rooms and away from people. Humans are social beings, and if you take that away from them, they can’t be fully alive.”

The effects of the pandemic also attacked the “faith” and “scholarship” aspects of the college’s mission, with public Masses being suspended, and students sent home away from campus last semester.

“We had students that came back to Benedictine and had not gone to Mass since March, because of where they were living,” Minnis said. “We wanted to provide a really strong faith experience for them.”

While things were improving on the health front–no Benedictine student has been hospitalized with coronavirus, and the number of active cases continues to drop–this was not the case on the county level. According to local media, the county had four recorded cases of COVID-19 two weeks before school started, but that number had leapt to more than 200 once the students returned.

On September 2, Atchison County announced that all 2,000 college students would be required to isolate in their rooms for two weeks to stop the spread of coronavirus. The order, which was given without “any kind of warning” to Benedictine College, was to go into effect at midnight the next day. Students would be required to stay in their dorm rooms or homes and leave only for meals.

This meant no Mass, no athletics, no going for a walk around outside, no in-person classes. Students living off-campus would not be permitted to even go to the grocery store during that two-week period.

Minnis did not want to subject his students to a strict isolation, nor did he want to tell students they could not go to Mass. The school managed to convince the county to hold off for increased negotiations.

“And the County Commission asked the parties not to have this order go into effect, but ask the parties to begin negotiating and see if there could be common ground,” said Minnis.

Those negotiations began September 3. That evening, Benedictine students took it upon themselves to organize a masked, socially-distant rosary to pray for their school community. Minnis told CNA that he believes the same time the Rosary began, he was told that there would be “no chance” the county would budge on their order to require students to be isolated in their rooms.

Minnis decided to fast starting at the Thursday evening meeting with the county’s negotiation team. The negotiations that night were not ideal, and it did not seem as though Atchison County would change their minds.

But the following morning at 8:15 a.m., when the negotiations started again, he found “a completely different atmosphere” than the one from the previous night.

“There was an atmosphere of unity, not of division,” said Minnis. Officials were now “trying to get this resolved, not trying to punish anyone.”

An agreement was reached on Friday that appeased both the county and the school.

The new agreement, which is titled “Atchison and Benedictine: Stronger Together” was announced in a press release on September 4. It allows for greater movement on campus for students, while seeking to protect the broader community.

The agreement prohibits students living on campus from leaving campus, except for work, essential activities, or for academic requirements, and allows for students living off-campus to come on campus for “authorized athletic practices, religious services, work study, labs, or other necessary academic purposes.”

“By the end of Friday, we had an agreement and, and this agreement allowed us in-person classes. It allows our students to be out and still socialize, still exercise, still go to Mass,” said Minnis. He said the county had a “complete turnaround.”

“And there’s no question about it,” said Minnis. “It was Our Lady that did that.”

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Washington D.C., Jul 20, 2018 / 11:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As Judge Brett Kavanaugh prepares for Senate confirmation hearings, the Supreme Court nominee’s record is being examined for indications of how he might handle a move to overturn Roe v. W… […]