Newsletter
Our Newsletter is up and running called "African American Catholic Lay Voice" this Newsletter comes out quarterly. If you are interested in getting this Newsletter, please let me know by emailing me at rlee641999@earthlink.net
Pastoral Letter is coming out in a few months. This Pastoral Letter is written by African American Catholics and written for the lay people sitting in the pew on Sunday morning. Stay tuned for this wonderful letter coming out. It is written by us and for us and the world to read and reflect.
Recent News:
At this point, we are all aware of the mass shooting that occurred on May 14, 2022. In a Black community in Buffalo, New York, a lone shooter walked into the local supermarket and indiscriminately killed ten people. Following the shooting various faith leaders gathered to console the families and the larger community. While the support of the local clergy and people of faith provide strength and a consolation to those effected by this tragedy, it prompts the question: How do we effectively minister or pastorally care for communities following such horrific events? One thing is certain: if any ministry is to have meaning, it must speak to human thought, feeling, and experience. Pastoral ministry must be relevant to human life. Being relevant means speaking substantively to the human condition. Effective ministry and pastoral care need to address the existential realities of people in a pertinent way; otherwise, it is nothing more than irrelevant intellectual talk and grandstanding.
In the African American community, one reality with which pastoral care must be concerned is that of suffering. When we look at events like the shooting in Buffalo, we witness times in life when suffering can be so extreme that the boundaries of rationality are surpassed by those who suffer, and the realm of explanations are shattered. These are times when people are thrust into the arena of the inexplicable and must endure wrenching emotional distress. When intellectual inquiry is insufficient and the inexplicable is embraced, fundamental questions about God begin to surface.
For Christians, the coexistence of pervasive suffering and the belief in a providential, benevolent God is difficult to reconcile. In America, this is particularly true for the African American Christian. For the majority of African Americans, life can be characterized in various terms of human suffering. Though the degree of suffering varies among its population, all African Americans, on some level, can attest to experiencing inexplicable suffering. Why is this so? The primary calculation consists of the long shadow of slavery, segregation, and discrimination to which African Americans have been subjected to in North America. Just as common as the experience of absurd suffering among its population, the African American community share a collective inquiry—where is God amid this persistent suffering.