In the 1950s, Charlottesville’s black
and white residents didn’t go to the same restaurants. They didn’t use the same
bathrooms. They sat in different places on the bus. Their children went to
different schools. There was a black Catholic church and a white Catholic
church. President Dwight Eisenhower had to use federal troops to integrate the
public high school in 1959.
“Prejudice is something I’ve seen all my
life. It was just the way things were,” said Father Horace H. “Tuck” Grinnell,
retired pastor of St. Peter Church in Washington, Va., who was born and raised
in Charlottesville.
Father Grinnell, a white man, was one of
the 300 diverse group Catholics who attended the Listening Session on Racism
held at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington May 21. In the wake of
the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, Galveston-Houston
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, called for the creation of an ad hoc committee on racism. In November
2018, the bishops issued “Open Wide Our Hearts: the Enduring Call to Love, a
pastoral letter against racism.”
To further address the issue, Houma-Thibodaux
Bishop Shelton J. Fabre, chairman of the committee against racism, has been
traveling to dioceses around the country holding listening sessions on racism, such
as the one in Arlington. He acknowledged that it’s difficult to hear the
stories and he knows it must be difficult for speakers to share them. But the
encounter is an important and often inspiring one.
“I have been humbled and I have been
amazed at the faith (of those who have experienced racism at the hands of
church members.) They acknowledge — this happened to me, it was wrong, it was
sinful but I’m not going anywhere and want to help the church to overcome this
so that we can be that beloved community,” said Bishop Fabre. “I thank you for
your faith and your endurance.”
He was joined at the listening session
by Bishop Michael F. Burbidge, Bishop Emeritus Paul S. Loverde, Military
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio and many other clergymen, women religious and
laity.
“We know it is a sin to discriminate
against a person because of his or her race,” said Bishop Burbidge at the
opening of the event. “We pray for an end to racism in all its forms and that
our church may reflect the unity we are called to live while respecting the diversity
of the members who make up the body of Christ.” After several men and women
from the diocese spoke to the bishops and the crowd, participants moved from
Burke Hall upstairs to the cathedral to pray.
Charlottesville and the rest of the
Virginia is no longer segregated, said Father Grinnell, but prejudice toward
people of other races still exists. “When they marched across the University of
Virginia two years ago, do you know what they chanted? Jews will not replace
us,” he said. “Antisemitism has gone through the roof.”
He proposed parishes take pilgrimages to
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National Museum of African
American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian,
then return to their parishes for discussion and a Mass of reconciliation and
repentance. “If we don’t do that, what I’ve seen will be all I see,” he said.
“Seventy years for me is enough.”
Jim Brown, a black parishioner of St. Jude Church
in Fredericksburg was a second lieutenant fighting in the Vietnam War in the
1960s. The head chaplain of his brigade was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but
the junior chaplain was a priest he called Father G.
“What I found powerful is the way he
stood up to racism among the other officers. He spoke truth to power,” said the
veteran. “Father G made a point of letting it be known that he was not going to
tolerate this kind of prejudice.” He hopes today’s priests can follow Father
G’s footsteps by embracing multiculturalism in their own parishes.
Many speakers reflected on racism they
experienced at the hands of the fellow Catholics. Harvesta Greene Williams, a black
parishioner of Christ the Redeemer Church in Sterling, believes she was shut
out of leadership positions in her home parish because of her race. Williams
filled out countless forms to become a lector, and then watched from the pews
as others proclaimed the readings.
So she drove 30 miles to a different
Catholic church. “That parish treated me as a member of the body of Christ,”
she said. “I became a Eucharistic minister, I became a part of the liturgical
team, a member of the choir, religious education (teacher) and, yes, finally a
lector.”
Williams said understanding God’s love
protected her from internalizing the discrimination. From a young age, she was
taught she was created in the image and likeness of God, and that humans were
given dominion over all the plants and animals of the earth, but not over one
another. “Thank God for good parents, because we always knew we were children
of God, no matter what the racially prejudiced people would say,” she said.
Santiago Garcia, an immigrant from
Caracas, Venezuela, has lived in Northern Virginia since 1990. The parishioner
of All Saints Church in Manassas said he hasn’t experienced much racism, but occasionally,
he’ll hear comments such as, “Go back to your country.”
“Those are very hurtful words,
especially because a lot of us have not only made the United States our home,
but we see her as a loving and adopting mother, and we’re very grateful,” said
Garcia. Though he’s able to brush off offensive remarks, he knows it might be
harder for others, particularly children. He also knows racism doesn’t affect just
one ethnicity.
“Racism is not a one-sided occurrence.
It also happens to white people, folks. Any one of any race can commit an act
of racism,” he said. “I encourage everyone in this room to discover the beauty
and unlimited uniqueness of Christ in others, especially in those who are
different from us — seeing others not through the obsolete human eye but
through the holy eyes of our Father and Creator.”
This story has been updated.