Pope Francis set in motion the synodal process for the global Catholic church to listen and discern, and from that foundation, to enhance our mission in the world. Millions of Catholics participated from around the world. Poland, Tanzania, New Zealand, Peru, Trinidad, Brazil, Germany, the United States, Nigeria, Scotland—in fact, virtually every nation where Catholics reside.
Their hopes and concerns for the Church were summarized in several documents, and their input was the foundation for prayerful discussions with over 350 delegates from around the world in Rome. These discussions, between bishops, priests, laymen, laywomen, consecrated religious, theologians, and others took place in 2023 and 2024. The summary of their deliberations is the final document of the Synod on Synodality; “For A Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission.”
That text was declared by Pope Francis to be part of the magisterium (i.e., official Church teaching). Further, Pope Leo XIV has urged implementation of the synodal process in his document “Pathway for the Implementation Phase,” which details what is to take place over the next several years. In short, all Catholics would benefit from reading, and practicing, the wisdom of the synod’s final document.
Nate Tinner-Williams
I believe that the synodal process—particularly when informed by the Black Catholic experience of exclusion, perseverance, determination, joy, and the quest for human dignity—gives hope during these difficult times in America. The government has unleashed a level of racism, cruelty, and injustice that many of us believed were a thing of the nation’s past. They are back with a vengeance. Masked men wrestling innocent wives and mothers to the ground, oligarchs firing Black federal officials with impunity, despots declaring war on Black history, menaces abandoning the poor, and bishops praising as hero, saint, and martyr a man whose racist diatribes were chilling. We live in hard times.
Yet, hard times are not new to Black Catholics. We still await our first African-American beatus or saint, as we watch the canonization of 15-year old Carlo Acutis. We have waited decades longer for a saint than the young Italian was even alive. Our bishops, with some remarkable exceptions, seem deaf to issues of racial justice. Approximately 60% of our fellow White Catholics in America voted for a presidential ticket that to this day spews racist rhetoric, the likes of which we have not seen from the White House in decades.
But what does the synod, a process we often associate with sitting, praying, talking, and listening, have to do with our current context? Well, we must remember that the dialogue and listening are not ends in themselves. They are the prelude to discernment, and then mission. The synod’s final document is 50 pages long, with 155 separate conclusions. One of them, #47, has profound implications for Black Catholics, and all Catholics for whom Christ is more important than race or nation.
“Practised with humility, the synodal style enables the Church to be a prophetic voice in today’s world… We live in an age marked by ever increasing inequalities…increasing autocratic and dictatorial tendencies… The temptation can be to resolve conflicts by force rather than by dialogue. Authentic practices of synodality enable Christians to be a critical and prophetic voice over against the prevailing culture. In this way, we can offer a distinctive contribution in the search for answers to the many challenges faced by our contemporary societies in building the common good.”
(“For A Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission”, par. 47)
This paragraph speaks to the Black Catholic experience in America today. It calls us to be humble, to dialogue and listen, to speak our truth, and out of that discernment to stand forcefully against injustice. The last sentence is profound. It recognizes that right now, we have no answers to these challenges. Yet, it also recognizes that Catholics in general, Black Catholics in particular, and anyone engaged in authentic synodal discernment can offer a unique and distinctive contribution to the quest for solutions. It also affirms the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching: the common good.
The Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain wrote that the common good includes the respect for human dignity, just laws, political virtues, a sense of right and liberty, spiritual riches, justice, and friendship. Those can also be considered prerequisites for the Kingdom of God, which we often pray arrives “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Black Catholics may draw upon a rich legacy as we discern our own distinctive contributions. There is Dr. Patricia Grey (formerly M. Martin de Porres Grey in the Sisters of Mercy), who at 25 worked against racist and patriarchal obstacles to create the National Black Sisters’ Conference. There is Daniel Rudd, who created the first Black Catholic newspaper in America and the Colored Catholic Congress. In modern times, Fr Bryan Massingale, Dr. Ansel Augustine, Patty Chappell of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns, Alessandra Harris, and Gloria Purvis are also but a few of the many African-American Catholics who are humble and prophetic voices for the gospel, justice, and human dignity.
Black Catholics bring a unique voice to the Church and world. There are many Catholics who, if they experienced the indifference and rejection suffered by their African Americans co-religionists, would have left the Church. Yet we remain. Studies show that Black Catholics are virtually the only ethnic group in U.S. Catholicism who mostly worship in spaces where they are in the minority. This is in contrast to White Catholics, White Protestants, Hispanic Catholics and Black Protestants. One could conclude then, that for most Black Catholics, serving God, being Catholic and celebrating the Eucharist are more important than worshiping with their own race. Our perseverance and “uncommon faithfulness” are but a few of our gifts.
Much can be said of the difficulties of our time, but St. Paul makes the path forward plain:
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit… To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
We all have particular gifts given us by God, not least of which is bringing our Blackness to the Catholic faith. Reading, praying over, and joining with others to implement the final document of the synod, and especially paragraph #47, will enable us to serve and witness despite current challenges. We need not wait for the bishops, though their leadership would be nice. The apostle reminds us—Black Catholics, all Catholics, and all Christians—that we possess, right now, our particular gifts to use for the good of others.
These times and this context remind me of the words of the El Salvadoran martyr, Jesuit priest Ignacio Ellacuría.
“If the Church fills its life with the Spirit of Christ, and cultivates its prophetic potential, it can, from the gospel itself, and from its specific means, can be a radical force for liberation.” (“On Liberation,” 1989)
Daryl Grigsby is the author of “Catholics for the Common Good: An Eternal Offering.” He is on the board of directors for Color Me Human and has a Master’s in Pastoral Studies from Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry.
