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GEORGIA BULLETIN. THURSDAY. JANUARY 23,1996 9
Chicago
Black Clergy Will Spurn
6 White Style 9 Integration
The Southern branch of the National Black Catholic Clergy
Conference issued a single statement after a two-day meeting here,
rejecting integration according to white specifications and advocating
continuation of black territorial parishes.
At a press conference chaired by Father Rawlin Enette, S.S.J.,
Newman chaplain, Southern University, Baton Rouge, and chairman
of The Southern region, the black priests answered a variety of
questions concerning the aims and
During the (Jan. 12 and 13)
conference, it was announced the
National Black Catholic Clergy
Conference would hold its
national meeting here in April.
The regional statement,
hammered out in a daylong
meetingendorsed,encouraged, and
“promised that the black priests
would positively labor for the
continuation of the black
territorial parish as a black unit
not only for the spiritual
formation of souls, but as a unit
for self-determination and black
development- socially,
psychologically, economically,
and politically.”
The statement concluded:
“We reject the current practice
and trend toward ‘integration’
(solely according to white
specifications) which is neither a
present reality nor will be in the
future until black Catholics have
achieved self-determination.”
The conference began with a
Mass in an Afro-mood,
highlighted by the use of Negro
spirituals in place of traditional
church hymns. The chasubles
worn by three of the nine
con celebrants were patterned
after the African dashiki.
In the homily Father August
Thompson of the Alexandria,
La., diocese explained the black
caucus of priests as a “banding
together of black priests to push
the Church to do what it should
do.”
He called on black men to be
proud of being black, to
overcome the past shame of being
black. Father Thompson said
men should love God and their
neighbor, but black men should
now begin to practice love of self,
to be proud of their blackness.
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ambitions of the black clergy.
“No man can live without a
sense of his own personal value,”
Father Thompson declared. “Let
each man be accepted by black
and white on his ability and his
work. Let each man ‘do his own
thing’ as ordained by God.”
At a session following the
Mass, Dr. Melvin Sikes, associate
director of the Western region,
U.S. Community Relations
Service, emphasized the black
mood today is a “mood of black
rage,” a result of white racism.
White society today calls for
qualified blacks to fill skilled
jobs, but white society never
permitted blacks to get the type
of education and training needed
for skilled jobs, he said.
“Law and order?” he asked.
“Law and order for whom?
Birchers? Gov. Wallace? When
they want law and order, they get
it. But let a young black want to
stand up and be heard, he doesn’t
get this same law and order. He
gets put under the jail.”
“The mood today is" of black
rage-and whatever blacks are,you
helped make them that,” he said.
Whites talk about their'
ancestors, pulling themselves up
by their bootstraps, Dr. Sikes
said.
“But you never even gave us
boots. What your forefathers did,
they did on top of our black
bodies. The only legacies our
fathers could leave us was fear
‘Start Atlanta’
Big Success
The first week of EOA’s
“START NOW ATLANTA”
campaign to involve more
Atlantans in the war on poverty
has been declared an
overwhelming success by EOA
Executive Administrator T. M.
Jim Parham.
“We are amazed at the
response,” Mr. Parham said. “The
wide cross-section of Atlantans
requesting poverty tours and
volunteering their time proves
that people want to know what is
happening in their city and want
to help. Success of the campaign
is due to the outstanding support
of Atlanta’s religious and civic
leaders and the news media.”
For information about tours,
speakers or volunteers call
and debt,” he declared.
The ^churches are still talking,
he said, and added “the most
^segregated time in America is
Sunday at 11 a.m.”
“Don’t give the blacks any
song and dance about suffering
now and getting a reward in the
hereafter. Christ forgave and
healed and cared for people here
and now when He was on earth.
We don’t want later, we want
some rewards here and now,” he
declared.
The black rgge, Dr. Sikes went
on, is part of the seeking of self, a
seeking of black identity.
“Blacks are developing pride
in being black, are finding
themselves. A black man has a
right to be, and to do his thing,
simply because he - is. And the
black today is saying ‘join with
me or get off my back,”’ he
asserted.
The same sentiments were
echoed by the 25 representatives
of black priests from Louisiana,
Mississippi and Texas.
“Integration on white terms is
toleration,” Father Enette said.
When a black ethnic parish is
amalgamated into a white
territorial parish, the blacks
usually have to give up what they
have. “But black parishes can
serve as a source of pride to
blacks. They have something to
offer too.”
The priests called for
integration to be a coalition of
equals, to be achieved as a parity
of both blacks and whites.
The black clergy, in seeking to
achieve a black Christianity as
well as “Whitianity,” are
preparing to explore a black
liturgy and to start using black
art in the churches.
“Christ only gave the matter
for the liturgy,” the priests
pointed out, “not the form. We
must adapt the form to need, to
the racial and cultural strain of
the people.”
On their decision to form a
black clergy conference, the
priests explained “black priests
-are not going to survive in black
neighborhoods if they don’t get
to the grassroots and work and be
as one of their people.
“Black means pride, dignity,
and worth today for the black
man. It’s more than a color, it’s
deeper than that. We are going to
do our own thing in our own
way,” they said.
As far as the opinion of their
white peers, the black priests said
some of the white clergy see the
black power movement as a result
of the work they have done in
the past in the black community,
and for those who don’t
understand, the black priests said,
“we really don’t care what the
white priests think.”
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diocesan director, The Rev. Noel C. Burtenshaw, P. O. Box
12047, Northside Sta., 2699 Peachtree Road, N.E., Atlanta,
Georgia 30305.
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