This first-ever Black Catholic Studies Reader offers an introduction to the theology and history of the Black Catholic experience from those who know it best: Black Catholic scholars, teachers, activists, and ministers. The reader offers a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary approach that illuminates what it means to be Black and Catholic in the United States. This collection of essays from prominent scholars, both past and present, brings together contributions from theologians M. Shawn Copeland, Kim Harris, Diana Hayes, Bryan Massingale, and C. Vanessa White, and historians Cecilia Moore, Diane Batts Morrow, and Ronald Sharps, and selections from an earlier generation of thinkers and activists, including Thea Bowman, Cyprian Davis, and Clarence Rivers. Contributions delve into the interlocking fields of history, spirituality, liturgy, and biography. Through their contributions, Black Catholic Studies scholars engage theologies of liberation and the reality of racism, the Black struggle for recognition within the Church, and the distinctiveness of African-inspired spirituality, prayer, and worship. By considering their racial and religious identities, these select Black Catholic theologians and historians add their voices to the contemporary conversation surrounding culture, race, and religion in America, inviting engagement from students and teachers of the American experience, social commentators and advocates, and theologians and persons of faith.

The Catholic Studies Reader is a rare book in an emerging field that has neither a documented history nor a consensus as to what should be a normative methodology. Dividing this volume into five interrelated themes central to the practice and theory of Catholic Studies-Sources and Contexts, Traditions and Methods, Pedagogy and Practice, Ethnicity, Race, and Catholic Studies, and The Catholic Imagination-the editors provide readers with the opportunity to understand the great diversity within this area of study. Readers will find informative essays on the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic social teaching, as well as reflections on the arts and literature. This provocative and enriching collection is valuable not only for scholars but also for lay and religious Catholics working in Catholic education in universities, high schools, and parish schools.

Explores the contentious debates among Black Catholics about the proper relationship between religious practice and racial identity Chicago has been known as the Black Metropolis. But before the Great Migration, Chicago could have been called the Catholic Metropolis, with its skyline defined by parish spires as well as by industrial smoke stacks and skyscrapers. This book uncovers the intersection of the two. Authentically Black and Truly Catholic traces the developments within the church in Chicago to show how Black Catholic activists in the 1960s and 1970s made Black Catholicism as we know it today. The sweep of the Great Migration brought many Black migrants face-to-face with white missionaries for the first time and transformed the religious landscape of the urban North. The hopes migrants had for their new home met with the desires of missionaries to convert entire neighborhoods. Missionaries and migrants forged fraught relationships with one another and tens of thousands of Black men and women became Catholic in the middle decades of the twentieth century as a result. These Black Catholic converts saved failing parishes by embracing relationships and ritual life that distinguished them from the evangelical churches proliferating around them. They praised the “quiet dignity” of the Latin Mass, while distancing themselves from the gospel choirs, altar calls, and shouts of “amen!” increasingly common in Black evangelical churches. Their unique rituals and relationships came under intense scrutiny in the late 1960s, when a growing group of Black Catholic activists sparked a revolution in U.S. Catholicism. Inspired by both Black Power and Vatican II, they fought for the self-determination of Black parishes and the right to identify as both Black and Catholic. Faced with strong opposition from fellow Black Catholics, activists became missionaries of a sort as they sought to convert their coreligionists to a distinctively Black Catholicism. This book brings to light the complexities of these debates in what became one of the most significant Black Catholic communities in the country, changing the way we view the history of American Catholicism.

"In these prayers you will discover the expression, expectation and desire for a just, human, open, welcoming and inclusive society. Prayer and faith in the African American Tradition is the vibrant connection with a God who liberates." —from the Introduction Traditions come together in this book of prayer. The African American faith tradition, the Roman Catholic Christian tradition and the variety of forms of prayer from African peoples have framed the content of this volume. You will find liturgical prayer, prayers for families and communities, meditations and prayers of healing, inspiration, consolation, freedom and reconciliation.

Before there was an immigrant American Church, there was a Native American Church. The Native American Catholic Studies Reader offers an introduction to the story of how Native American Catholicism has developed over the centuries, beginning with the age of the missions and leading to inculturated, indigenous forms of religious expression. Though the Native-Christian relationship could be marked by tension, coercion, and even violence, the Christian faith took root among Native Americans and for those who accepted it and bequeathed it to future generations it became not an imposition, but a way of expressing Native identity. From the perspective of historians and theologians, the Native American Catholic Studies Reader offers a curated collection of essays divided into three sections: education and evangelization; tradition and transition; and Native American lives. Contributors include scholars currently working in the field: Mark Clatterbuck, Damian Costello, Conor J. Donnan, Ross Enochs, Allan Greer, Mark G. Thiel, and Christopher Vecsey, as well as selections from a past generation: Gerald McKevitt, SJ, and Carl F. Starkloff, SJ. These contributions explore the interaction of missionaries and tribal leaders, the relationship of traditional Native cosmology and religiosity to Christianity, and the role of geography and tribal consciousness in accepting and maintaining indigenous and religious identities. These readings highlight the state of the emergent field of Native-Catholic studies and suggest further avenues for research and publication. For scholars, teachers, and students, the Native American Catholic Studies Reader explores how the faith of the American Church’s eldest members became a means of expressing and celebrating language, family, and tribe.

Morris J. MacGregor traces the history of St. Augustine's from its beginning as a modest chapel and school to its recent years as one of the city's most imposing and active churches. For more than a century, the congregation has counted among its members many of the intellectual and social elite of black society as well as impoverished newcomers struggling with the perils of urban life. This socially diverse membership, enhanced by a constant stream of visitors of all races and classes drawn by the beauty of the church and the artistry of its musicians, has made St. Augustine's an exemplar of Christian brotherhood. The book presents in considerable detail the history of race relations in church and state since the founding of the Federal City.

"If I could, I surely would stand on the rock where Moses stood." --from the Spiritual "Elijah Rock" Taking its theme from the pastoral letter of the Black Catholic bishops of the United States, which spoke of the challenge of being "authentically Black and truly Catholic," To Stand on the Rock invites us "to linger awhile in the garden of our imagination and try to see with the eyes of faith and art how the old ones . . . took a twisted version of Christianity and re-twisted it into a culture of liberation, transcendence, creativity and wholeness." Father Brown begins by recalling the religion and identity of those Africans who were brought to these shores in bondage: the original source in the quest for what it means to be "authentically Black." He then explores the style of Christianity they forged through the sufferings of slavery, which found expression in the Spirituals. Brown then reflects on the struggle of Black Catholics to claim their own style of faith and spirituality and to assert their distinctive gifts to the church universal.