History of Catholicism
The pledge of allegiance seems like a fading dream now days. “And justice for all” has become, at best, a desperate plea not the bold proclamation it was designed to be. Yet, despite all of the faults of government, to date the far worst perpetrator of injustice is organized religion. Religions the world over have used and abused their power to instill fear and perpetual dependence in the hearts of their followers. Thus, religions have managed to afford themselves a seemingly permanent position in the cycle of the world’s demand. Religions throughout time have left permanent scars on their own people by refusing to take a stand against time-honored traditions. Catholicism is one of the larger, older and more visible ones. Injustices are suffered within the church body itself. The plight of the African-American and Latino-American is one still being sung in dirge today. The dynamics of North-American Catholicism are still being played out even on a global stage. What does the Roman papacy mean for North American’s Latino and African descended followers? What challenges do they face? What is the sense of groundedness, comfort, and community that bonRAB them?
The end of the fifteenth and start of the sixteenth centuries ushered in the introduction of Christian-Trinitarian-monotheism to the Americans. Preachers and friars of Spain evangelized the scriptures and sacraments to the indigenous peoples. Yet, the central theme of Christ and the Trinity, the very foundation upon which Catholicism sits was the largest obstacle to its reception in sixteenth century Mexico and the Americas. The Christians, who were now frontrunners marching in the trampling of America were reassigning her religion and demanding her to defy her culture. The Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies and cultural concepts that aided the European Christians in understanding the idea of Trinitarian-monotheism were unknown to the indigenous peoples. How could God be one yet triune? How did Christ fall into this trinity and how did God remain all-powerful while divided within himself? The burden of enculturation was on those trying to procure a country through a deception that rode on the heels of religion and wore a mask of self-imagined pity. But, the burden was bore and successfully so. The Americas now belonged to Christianity and the Acumen of Catholicism weighed heavily in the mix.
The religious triamuerate of Protestant-Catholic-Jew in North American offers considerable prestige and social importance. Identification with Catholicism generally benefited the Latino Community by lending some of its clout and social visibility. The Parish would even aid in obtaining favors for its parishioners from the political establishment. The role of the Catholic Church in politics was celebrated in the Hispanic community by clerical presence at public parades, dedications and festivals. Furthermore, this meditating function worked to link the local Latino leadership to the Euro-American establishment. This cultural Catholicism bled over into a sort of pan-American pan-Latino feeling during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Many contemporary Latino scholars have termed this “cultural citizenship”. This cultural citizenship allowed many Latinos to fall seamlessly into the American tapestry and be Latino without doing Latino things. Now Latinos had a cultural citizenship through their church merabership.
The Black African presence in Catholicism dates back to Biblical times. In the “Song of Solomon” there are references to the Queen of Sheba representing the Universal church [the term “catholic” means universal] and this meant all races beyond the Hebrew realm of the Old Testament. The Black Catholic influence was documented in the American colonies as early as 1536. The latter half of the nineteenth century showed the presence of emancipated Catholic Black slaves being acknowledged. A common agenda of this time for the Bishops of the U.S. church was to expand the Catholic Mission to this population. Many Bishops and religious order of men and women held slaves before and after emancipation. The church was now faced with the problem of freed Black Catholics. The emancipation of such a large working force would prove competitive to those “immigrant Catholics” who were also only on the fringes of the “great American expansionist” programs. There were also questions to be answered about the post-emancipation education of Blacks. Most Catholic schools did not accept Blacks within the student body. There was also the “problem” of founding institutions that would allow Blacks to worship in Catholic churches. Even upon the establishment of the churches blacks were relegated to the back pews or galleries. Now the church had achieved “certain” enculturation with the Latino and African-American populations, but a question still lingered. When and how would the minority populations be integrated into the majority dominated clerical positions.
In the last thirty years of North American Catholic history Hispanics have begun to place their own stamp on the church in the U.S. They have broken free of being mere objects of ministry and have begun to exercise their own ministerial role. Institutions were erected for them in the mid-1940’s and the Hispanic-Catholic Community has now taken leadership and since created their own. In 1917, Thomas Wyatt Turner founded the Federated Colored Catholics in his home. It was inducted into the NAACP in 1919 where it was renamed the Committee For The Advancement of Colored Catholics. Since then the National Catholic Interracial Conference has emerged. The 1960’s were a time of revolution for practically all of North America’s “underclass”. Latinos had finally found a secure identity as a people without which they could not organize in the church and preach their own unique message. African-Americans also were uniting under a common banner and Black Catholics found strength in the solidarity of the day. The Black Catholic Movement was spawned of this spirit in 1968. National recognition for both minority groups had been finally realized—for the most part.
Today the Catholic Church still remains in a state of flax where equal rights is the issue. Now days the emphasis of division is more on women and homosexuality than on race necessarily, but the color lines – though blurred – still remains. Catholicism remains as strong as any house of tradition that stanRAB today, albeit a house divided, African-descended Americans and Hispanic/Latino Americans still push today for a truer serablance of equal opportunity. As the old adage says, “We may not be what we want to be and we surely aren’t what we are going to be at but thank God we’re not where we were.
The pledge of allegiance seems like a fading dream now days. “And justice for all” has become, at best, a desperate plea not the bold proclamation it was designed to be. Yet, despite all of the faults of government, to date the far worst perpetrator of injustice is organized religion. Religions the world over have used and abused their power to instill fear and perpetual dependence in the hearts of their followers. Thus, religions have managed to afford themselves a seemingly permanent position in the cycle of the world’s demand. Religions throughout time have left permanent scars on their own people by refusing to take a stand against time-honored traditions. Catholicism is one of the larger, older and more visible ones. Injustices are suffered within the church body itself. The plight of the African-American and Latino-American is one still being sung in dirge today. The dynamics of North-American Catholicism are still being played out even on a global stage. What does the Roman papacy mean for North American’s Latino and African descended followers? What challenges do they face? What is the sense of groundedness, comfort, and community that bonRAB them?
The end of the fifteenth and start of the sixteenth centuries ushered in the introduction of Christian-Trinitarian-monotheism to the Americans. Preachers and friars of Spain evangelized the scriptures and sacraments to the indigenous peoples. Yet, the central theme of Christ and the Trinity, the very foundation upon which Catholicism sits was the largest obstacle to its reception in sixteenth century Mexico and the Americas. The Christians, who were now frontrunners marching in the trampling of America were reassigning her religion and demanding her to defy her culture. The Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies and cultural concepts that aided the European Christians in understanding the idea of Trinitarian-monotheism were unknown to the indigenous peoples. How could God be one yet triune? How did Christ fall into this trinity and how did God remain all-powerful while divided within himself? The burden of enculturation was on those trying to procure a country through a deception that rode on the heels of religion and wore a mask of self-imagined pity. But, the burden was bore and successfully so. The Americas now belonged to Christianity and the Acumen of Catholicism weighed heavily in the mix.
The religious triamuerate of Protestant-Catholic-Jew in North American offers considerable prestige and social importance. Identification with Catholicism generally benefited the Latino Community by lending some of its clout and social visibility. The Parish would even aid in obtaining favors for its parishioners from the political establishment. The role of the Catholic Church in politics was celebrated in the Hispanic community by clerical presence at public parades, dedications and festivals. Furthermore, this meditating function worked to link the local Latino leadership to the Euro-American establishment. This cultural Catholicism bled over into a sort of pan-American pan-Latino feeling during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Many contemporary Latino scholars have termed this “cultural citizenship”. This cultural citizenship allowed many Latinos to fall seamlessly into the American tapestry and be Latino without doing Latino things. Now Latinos had a cultural citizenship through their church merabership.
The Black African presence in Catholicism dates back to Biblical times. In the “Song of Solomon” there are references to the Queen of Sheba representing the Universal church [the term “catholic” means universal] and this meant all races beyond the Hebrew realm of the Old Testament. The Black Catholic influence was documented in the American colonies as early as 1536. The latter half of the nineteenth century showed the presence of emancipated Catholic Black slaves being acknowledged. A common agenda of this time for the Bishops of the U.S. church was to expand the Catholic Mission to this population. Many Bishops and religious order of men and women held slaves before and after emancipation. The church was now faced with the problem of freed Black Catholics. The emancipation of such a large working force would prove competitive to those “immigrant Catholics” who were also only on the fringes of the “great American expansionist” programs. There were also questions to be answered about the post-emancipation education of Blacks. Most Catholic schools did not accept Blacks within the student body. There was also the “problem” of founding institutions that would allow Blacks to worship in Catholic churches. Even upon the establishment of the churches blacks were relegated to the back pews or galleries. Now the church had achieved “certain” enculturation with the Latino and African-American populations, but a question still lingered. When and how would the minority populations be integrated into the majority dominated clerical positions.
In the last thirty years of North American Catholic history Hispanics have begun to place their own stamp on the church in the U.S. They have broken free of being mere objects of ministry and have begun to exercise their own ministerial role. Institutions were erected for them in the mid-1940’s and the Hispanic-Catholic Community has now taken leadership and since created their own. In 1917, Thomas Wyatt Turner founded the Federated Colored Catholics in his home. It was inducted into the NAACP in 1919 where it was renamed the Committee For The Advancement of Colored Catholics. Since then the National Catholic Interracial Conference has emerged. The 1960’s were a time of revolution for practically all of North America’s “underclass”. Latinos had finally found a secure identity as a people without which they could not organize in the church and preach their own unique message. African-Americans also were uniting under a common banner and Black Catholics found strength in the solidarity of the day. The Black Catholic Movement was spawned of this spirit in 1968. National recognition for both minority groups had been finally realized—for the most part.
Today the Catholic Church still remains in a state of flax where equal rights is the issue. Now days the emphasis of division is more on women and homosexuality than on race necessarily, but the color lines – though blurred – still remains. Catholicism remains as strong as any house of tradition that stanRAB today, albeit a house divided, African-descended Americans and Hispanic/Latino Americans still push today for a truer serablance of equal opportunity. As the old adage says, “We may not be what we want to be and we surely aren’t what we are going to be at but thank God we’re not where we were.