THE CATHOLIC HOUR Lq 1C!f"jc2- . J0/l)", Tn€. Chvll'~ aM. ,_ THE CHURCH AND INTERRACIAL JUSTICE BY REV. JOHN LaFARGE, S. J., E xecutive Edit or, America, Cha plain, Catholic Interracial Council of New York City A:DT~ I..{ 80S- The eighth in a series of nine address es on THE CHURCH IN ACTION, de- livered in the Catholic Hour, broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Nat ional Council of Catholic Men, on October 24, 1943. National Council of Catholie Melt Washingtolt, D. C. THE CHURCH AND INTERRACIAL JUSTICE The present program of the Cath- olic Hour is devoted to practical topics. When we speak of the Church in Action we are telling a story, and a very great story. We are showing how the Church found- ed by Jesus Christ is healing the wounds of mankind, like the Good Samaritan of whom the Savior speaks: Counseling the doubtful, consoling the sorrowful, encourag- ing the hopeful, and strengthening the bonds of human society. The Church tells man that he has here no abiding home. Weare made for eternity, and all the genius and wisdom of all time can make noth- ing out of this life but a passing pilgrimage. It is a brief time in which to believe, to live, to suffer, and to die. Yet the Church is not indifferent to the conditions of that pilgrimage. Her Divine Founder wrought the miracle of changing water into wine so that the guests at the marriage feast should be merry, that the dignity of matri- mony should be symbolized, and the bride and groom would be better prepared, better equipped, to carry out their' life-task of building a noble and God-fearing home. The Church gives answers to the deepest problems of eternity, but she gives practical answers also to those of time, to those problems which affect our spiritual life, af- fect our love and service of God. One of these problems grows more difficult as the world grows older and more civilized: This is the problem of human unity, the ques- tion how the different groups and nations and races of men can learn to live together .on the face of this much-troubled globe. The Church is deeply interested in this question. Her Divine Founder, J esus Christ, the night before His Crucifixion, prayed the F ather in Heaven that all men might be one, as He and His Fath- er are one. Saint Paul, the .Apostle of the Gentiles, told the Athenians tha t God had made of one kind . all the nations of the earth, and he re- minded his Christian followers that we should all live and treat one an- other as members of one spiritual Body, whose head is Christ Him- self. " So the Catholic Church today teaches that all mankind are one by their very nature. All are chil- dren of one Father, all are endow- ed with the same immortal soul, and are subject to the same rights and obligations. The social teach- ing of the Catholic Church recog- nizes no exceptions on the score of race or color when it comes to the question of fundamental human rights. If we are going to live together in unity upon the face of the globe we cannot, according to Catholic teaching, make or permit any such txceptions to be made. We say to an employer: Look, here is the father of a family. He has a wife to suppor~ his children to educate, his obligations to perform as a citi- zen and as member of a ·Christian community. You must pay him wages sufficient to perform his duty. You, or the community of which you form a part, must see that he has proper conditions for the exercise of family life, proper recreational facilitie s, proper safe- guards for health. But what if the employer replies: Yes, I agree to all that, because this man is of my own race. But when he is a ma n of another race, I cannot recognize these rights on his part, but mu st treat him as an inferior. The Church's answer will be: No such exceptions can be made, for they are contrary to human unity. They are a violation, says our present Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, of "the uni- I versal law of human solidarity and charity," which is the law of Christ's Kj.ngdom. The world today, unfortunately, presents a picture very different from that which Christian teach- ing would like to have realized. It is' a world where race is being in- flamed against race, where certain races arrogate to themselves the right to dominate over all others. We have seen the terrible effect of such teaching as proclaimed by Hitler in ·Europe. The Nazi rac- ism seems to us unbelievable, yet a younger generation is being train- ed to accept it without question. Witness to its ravages are the graves of J ews and Christians slain in the name of this teaching, ' in Eastern Europe. We are not immune from such teaching, and some forms of it have struck deep roots into our national life. Its poison is still capable of rousing a mob to reckless fanatic- ism. In view of such a picture, the Catholic Church, with her sublime . teaching on human unity, cannot rest indifferent. Interracial justice is her answer, the doctrine which t eaches that the relations between racial groups should be governed, not by false theories of essential racial superiorities, but by the Christian teaching as to the spir- itu al dignity of the individual hu- man person, and the essential unity of mankind. Within the sacred confines of her temples, the Catholic Church daily enacts a spectacle which is in it- self the denial of all that race hatred would proclaim. Before her altars kneel, in complete equality, men of all nations and races. All receive together the sacred Body and Blood of the Lord, and all are united together by the common sharing of the Savior's Person. To tliis most sacred and intimate bond of personal intimacy with the God- Man, no bars of race, color, or na- tionality are tolerated. Her priests are drawn from all races, and black priests offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Catholic altars here in the United States, equally honored by their own racial brethren and by white Catholics. But her action is not confined to her church sanctuaries and altars. She goes out into the highways and byways to meet this evil on its own ground, and demands that inter- racial justice shall be put practi- cally into effect. No more practical field for such action can be found than that which . concerns the situation of the Ne- groes in this country. A recent survey, made by Catholic students of the problem, showed that the Negro community is a glaring ex- ample of the results of neglect and artifically arrested progress. Among the conditions peculiar to the N egro community, reports this survey, are the following: SEGREGATION: With a grow- ing population, there exists a scar- city of living accommodations, and resultantly higher rents, overcrowd- ing and unhealthy living conditions. UNEMPLOYMENT. Is found to a far greater extent than found a mong any other group in Ameri- can life, with the highest percent- age on the relief rolls. LOW WAGES: Where Negroes are employed, save under the ab- normal conditions of war time, they receive, as a rule, a wage much low- er than that paid to others for do- ing the same work. Because the fathers of f amilies are denied a living wage, many mothers are ob- liged to go out to work to supple- ment the . family income. With both father and mother away from home, the children, left without parental supervision, are the more subject to mischief, delinquency, and crime. Race prejudice denies the Negro employment in jobs for which he is amply qualified. Cer- tain types of labor unions are griev- ous offenders in this regard. As a result, the natural lea ders of the race are obliged to devote all their efforts· for its welfare, and all their energies, to the problem of securing the basic rights and priv- il eges of citizenship. Until these fundamental, natural, and CIVIC rights are granted, the Negro com- munity will be denied the benefits of the leadership of those best qualified to direct the race's pro- gress. For this reason groups of Cath- olic men and women, of both races, are working in different parts of the country to remedy such disor- ders by whatever means are at hand -of public education and constant repr esentation of those who are in a position to apply the proper cor- rectives. This is but a beginning, a small beginning, in view of the vast amount of work that needs to be done. But it is a vigorous be- ginning, and the Catholic program for interracial justice is making steady progress, winning wider and wider circles of support among the clergy and the laity of the United States. You may ask: but is such action reali stic? 'Or is it aiming at a Utopia which can never be attain- ed? How can a change be made in the deep-seated prejudices of men? The answer is that this program is entirely realistic, and that for two good· reasons. The firs t is that a truly Catholic program must necessarily be real- ist ic. The Church deals with peo- ple not as they are imagined to be, but as they are: she deals with liv- ing persons, not with masses and abstractions. For that reason in- ten'acial justice, as conceived in the Catholic sense, is not satisfied with generalities, but deals with . specific problems and the specific prejudices which cause these prob- lems. It believes that people. can learn to overcome their prejudices, and that these will yield to educa- tion, to the persistent, quiet, but effective presentation of the facts. On the otherhand, the program for interracial justice takes an im- portant truth into account. No mat- ter how successfully prejudice is dissipated, this will mean little or nothing unless there is a corre- sponding progress in the race against which the prejudi ce is di- rected. Our country cannot s ur- vive, and we can have no special peace, if the Negro an d other min- ority groups are not fully integ- rated into the life of the country- into our religious life and our civic life. As long as they are burdened with the weight of race prejudice, thi s integration can never t ake place. But in order to be fully in- t egrated, the race mu st be built up, spiritually and materially. It must be educated, and learn to educate itself. It must develop its leaders, strengthen its inn er resources. In- ten'acial Justice, therefore, battles on two fr onts: a warfare against injustice and prejudice, a campaign for the spiritual and educational progress of the race. One evening last Augu st I was watching a sight which illustrated the simple truths that I have just spoken. It was the amazing work of salvaging the former ocean liner Normandie, now the Lafayette. Out of the ship's hold were being pumped great cascades of water and, as the streams poured over her deck, the immense bulk of the hull was steadily righting itself. A giant measuring rod that hung from the boat's stern down into the water was slowly, imperceptibly, being pulled higher and higher. Already, by that date, the deck, which had lain over at a~ angle of ninety de- grees, half buried in the Hudson "' River mud, was now listing at an angle of but some thirty degrees, and soon would be practically hori- ,zontal. The wide, dirty, black band which had marked the ship's line of submersion, was now lifted far above the water level. That band was a grim reminder of the - fate that had befallen the once mighty vessel; yet was now a pledge of the freedom she would experience again-freedom from that clinging mud, which seemed to mock and baffle all human ingenuity, all me- chanical power. The work of righting the N or- mandie was a triumph of engineer- ing wisdom. Out of 5,000 plans, one was chosen, which was dishearten- ing in its complexity and tedious- ness. Two great processes had to go hand in hand. The vast bulk of the ship had to be strengthened, girded from within, protected against cracking and breaking. Con- crete was poured into her bulk- heads, and armies of engineers and workmen planned and welded the bonds that would hold her form to- gether. Yet all the time the work of righting and freeing the ship's hull was proceeding. Nothing was allowed to drift, nothing would have taken place without the steady forces being applied that once more brought back the Normandie, as in former days, upon an even keel. So with the great work of bring- ing back to a level the lives of those of our fellow citizens which are submerged in crime or poverty or ignorance because of racial an- t a gonism, the work of freeing these lives from the clinging mud of ra- cial prejudice. The level sought is the levei of justice and charity, the freedom sought is that of equal op- portunity, whereby a man and his , family may sail safely to the port of eternal salvation. As the bonds are loosed, so the fabric of the fam- ily and the race must be built up, through the great mission aposto- late of the Christian Church, through the work of devoted lead- ers of both races, through zeal and self-sacrifice and cooperation. This is a mighty work and a dif- ficult one; but so are all things which are worth while. Is it im- possible? Are we to yield to those who clamor that nothing can be done, who cry defeat? I recall the motto of the engineering company which so notably effected the sal- vage of the Normandie. "The dif- ficult things," says the motto, "we do now; the impossible takes a little longer." So, too, in the mat- ter of interracial justice, that which is difficult we shall do at once. That which is impossible will take a little longer; but it will still be done, for all things are no defeat, Whose Kingdom is the possible to Him whose power knows Kingdom of the ages. b THE CATHOLIC HOUR 1930-Fourteenth Year-'1943 The nationwide Catholic Hour was inaugurated on March 2, 1930, by the National Council of Cath- olic Men in cooperation with the National Broad- casting Company and its associated stations. Radio facilities are provided gratuitously by NBC and the stations associated with it; the program is arranged and produced by NCCM. 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