Healing the Racial Divide

 Healing the Racial Divide:  a Catholic Racial Justice Framework Inspired by Dr Arthur Falls.   This is the title of a book by Lincoln Rice.  If you thought that sounded like the title of a doctoral dissertation, you wouldn't be wrong.   Apparently the book is at least to some degree adapted from his doctoral work which was on the same topic.  

The book is worth reading for its careful, well documented portrayal of Dr Arthur Falls,  a black Chicago physician who lived from 1901 to 2000, and thus saw and was involved in a tumultuous century of history.    Dr Falls was an impressive man, seemingly without fear in his approach to civil rights and integration.   His primary approach was practical, yet he wrote letters and articles, speaking of the "mythical body of Christ" which takes the place of the Mystical Body when Church members say that every Catholic is equal in dignity and yet exclude black Catholics in various ways.  

Lincoln Rice uses Dr Falls' life as sort of a paradigm of a way to work for racial justice.   He discusses the virtues of justice, militancy and hope.  Militancy in this context doesn't mean violence but assertive, organized work in pursuit of goals.  

I haven't read much about this topic so this was sort of an introductory book for me.  There were some terms and concepts that had little context for me.   For example, "agency" was a word often used in the book's discussion of the history of Black Catholicism.  From reading a bit outside the book I see that agency is an important concept in liberation theology; it sounds like it includes the resistance to objectification.  Liberation theology is another area I know very little about.   So sorting out the themes in the book will take me longer than the reading of the book itself.  However, the story of Dr Falls was unequivocally worthwhile, and did show clearly how obnoxious racism could be during the time he was growing up and raising his own children.  

Read August 2023.