VERSE
Hall, Nellie
The Black Catholic Movement has fought the closing of Catholic schools in Black neighborhoods, even where the majority of students attending the schools have been non-Catholic Blacks. Many Black...
...Other Blacks view the church's anti-abortion stand as a bulwark against genocide...
...however, they are not rejecting their identity as Catholics...
...You place your hand upon the fish you bring to shore in need for measuring...
...or the fish itself, a prehistoric being of scales and lidless eyes...
...Newark's new Black auxiliary Bishop Joseph Francis, president of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, finds it "unfortunate that we've too often seen ourselves as rather marginal in the hierarchical structure...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NELLIE HALL FlSDERMAN You understand the water and those shadows sun leaps for...
...Instead he finds "greater Black participation in the church today than there was six to eight years ago," reflected in larger Black representation at national and diocesan meetings and the growing number of Black bishops...
...While many Black demands such as the one for Black bishops of Black dioceses are not unreasonable, the strict seniority system of promotion within the Catholic hierarchy has been difficult to circumvent...
...This generosity and love is really euphemism for patronage...
...Black Catholics today are reaffirming their bonds with other Blacks...
...Something blurs your visionmis it moving grass in wind and sun so clarified that green is green's question...
...The Catholic Board of Negro Missions and the Catholic Interracial Council seem uninvolved in the Movement's plans and activities, and the Brooklyn Diocesan delegation to the U.S...
...Many Black parents consider education more important than religious programs and they think the church should subsidize its schools for Blacks...
...In the face of slow progress the Black Catholic Movement has resisted any temptation to withdraw from the Catholic Church...
...Thus far the Black Movement within the Catholic Church has resulted in only a few of the proposed reforms...
...They remain hopeful agents of racial progress within the church...
...Thus far only one school has achieved that goal--St...
...He does not think that all reforms have been accomplished, but he states that "progress has been made...
...To the contrary, recent statements by Black Catholic leaders indicate their trust in the church...
...For those who don't see us that way, that's their problem, not ours...
...Bishops' Bicentennial would have included no Blacks, had Black parishioners not protested...
...Last year a spokesman for the National Office for Black Catholics noted that those Blacks who became disillusioned with the church left it as individuals...
...Within many parishes the Black Movement remains a remote issue...
...Father Lucas has stated the Black complaint that "within the church, Black people are a controlled fringe group...
...Furthermore, they insist that Black communities should control the Catholic schools in their communities...
...Joseph's in the Roxbury Section of Boston, which has a 15member parent board that has final say on teacher selection and curriculum...
...The general role assigned to them is to be the recipients of white, Christian generosity and love...
...In such a light the church becomes a protector of the Black community...
...most of the students there are nonCatholic...
...James E. McNeil, former executive director of the National Black Lay Catholic Caucus, said in 1974 that while Blacks must give advice to the church, they cannot become separatists: "There can be an organized Black movement within the church but not a separate Black church because that would go against the whole idea of Catholicism as the universal church...
...Most fundamental, Black Catholics have sought to be full-fledged members of Catholicism, not wards of the church...
...they didn't create any splinter movement...
...27 May 1977: 336...
...The Black Catholic Movement would like to see more of this type of arrangement, in which the church pays the bills and the Black parents make the decisions...
...Brother Joseph M. Davis, executive director of NOBC, rejects the notion that a Black schismatic movement was even a disrant possibility in recent years...
...Light waits simply for the fish in form within the shadows' motion near to where you draw with simple touch your open line...
...He tells Black Catholics, "We have to see ourselves as an integral part...
...The white hierarchy has listened to Black demands, but without acting on most of them...
...Clearly Blacks have wished to be truly integrated into the church, but without sacrificing their Black roots...
Vol. 104 • May 1977 • No. 11
