The Black Community Has Left The Church,

Not the Other Way Around!

By Donald Jeanne

The Black Community has left the church, not the other way around. Here is an example from my own experience. A lot of the young adults in the city of Atlanta and on the south side of the city complain that the majority of Young Adult Ministries (YAM) events are north of the Perimeter i.e. “The Archbishop is only concerned about the wealthy white populous parishes.”

However, the Archbishop and his offices have nothing to do with the event programming. All the event programming is done at the grass roots by the parishes themselves. The north side parish based YAMs host the events at their parishes because it’s for their own people and then they extend an invitation to the whole YAM community. Are the YAM leaders at St. Andrew’s supposed to organize an event at Our Lady of Lourdes? Naturally, that’s absurd. The reason there are so few YAM events in the city and on the south side is that those parishes have no YAMs at their parish and those that do don’t host many events.

Here is another example. Every year there has been a black speaker at the Eucharistic Congress. Every year I invite people to attend the event. Last year over 21,000 Catholics attended. 99% of them are Atlanta Catholics. The Congress is advertised everywhere for months before hand. When I tell St. Paul of the Cross parishioners about the conference they say they never heard of it. Then they ask, “Are black people going to be there?” Naturally, very few black people attend the event. However, the Archbishop would get a licking if no black speaker were on the speaker list.

St. Anthony’s school was closed down because black people were not sending their kids to the school. When St. Paul of the Cross School closed, from what I was told, Lourdes and St. Anthony’s were quiet about it. But guess what, the white people spend their money to send their kids to the schools out there. They put their money where their mouths are and the Archbishop naturally follows their lead.

The complaints about the Archbishop and his office are plenty as with every bishop in every diocese. For example, at our own parish the participation rate for the Archdiocesan appeal is less than 10%. The office here in Atlanta is going to make a big deal about the Martin Luther King celebration and there is nothing wrong with that. I love it. I’ll be there. But it is not so concerned and will not equally promote the Eucharistic Congress.

We black folk are full of mouth. We do not put our money where our mouths are. This really well describes the Black Congress. There are lots of opinions, complaints but no suggestions, no commitment, and certainly no money. However, at the end of Black Congress, the opinion statement was presented to the Archbishop. What was he supposed to do with it? The previous statement was apparently so unimportant that even the Atlanta delegation could not find it.

St. Paul of the Cross Church is technically older than the Archdiocese because it was established a few years before the Atlanta Diocese was established independent of the Diocese of Savannah. However, in all those years, how many men and women have entered into religious life/service? None.

Never the less, I understand and concur about the “not being fed” statement. That’s literally a quote that I hear all the time. I think, by and large, the problem is that homilies do not promote active Christianity/Catholic lifestyle, do not thank the laity, and do not well connect the gospel message to ordinary family life.

I shall explain an example of how the homilies do not promote active Christianity/Catholic lifestyle. If I hear the words “Christian Love” one more time, I’m going to scream. Christian love means nothing!!! It’s too vague. Instead, a homily needs to say something like, “We have a food pantry and we have a food donation box in the entrance of the church and it’s NOT a trash can. There isn’t any sense in coming to mass if you are not going to donate a single can or box of food to people who need it. So please make it a part of your own personal Christianity to come to mass every Sunday with a food item.”

Naturally the big one is tithing. Clergy are basically scared to even bring it up. Well if clergy are going to be silent about the issue after so many, many, many years of silence, is anyone surprised that churches are being closed and parishes merged. Without tithing can any of us enter Heaven? Can the church survive without a membership that understands that tithing is ultimately thanking God the Almighty?

The homilies do not thank the laity. In a homily tell a story about a family whose life was drastically changed for the better this week because St. Vincent DePaul Society gave a family all the food they needed for the month. “On behalf of that family, myself, the Archbishop, the Pope, Holy Mother Church, and God the Almighty, I thank the members of St. Vincent DePaul for sacrificing your family time and volunteering to help people and thereby, building the Kingdom of God.”

When was the last time you heard anything like that in a homily or even in the announcements at the end? With talk like that who knows people might start coming to mass with food to donate. People might join the St. Vincent DePaul Society. People might begin to think that coming to mass is important to their salvation.

The homilies also do not well connect the gospel message to ordinary family life. The Protestants have this one down pat. Maybe because they are family men, and consequently they see the gospel in their daily lives just like the laity. Also they do not have the sacraments or anything else so all they have is their sermons. The sermon is everything. On the other hand, our homilies are only 15 minutes at most. However, even the deacons (family men) hardly connect the Gospel to family life. The seminaries and in particular the deaconate just do not emphasize homilies like they emphasize other values of the church like Catholic Social Values.

As an aside, in general, it seems to me that the Post-Vatican II/Post Sex-revolution clergy have left the authoritarian aspect of the clergy. This in my opinion is in general a good thing. However, the clergy has also left its authority, which it cannot do. Consequently, we have these funny-bunny homilies about “Christian Love” instead of anything about doctrine, or authoritative, and then no one believes anything, i.e. “not being fed.”

For example, “Christian Love” is like cotton candy. It’s not going to feed you and after a while you just get sick of it. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is like a good meal of steak and potatoes. That is going to really fill you up, in my mind, literally in your stomach and ultimately - IN YOUR SOUL.

I could go on but I think you see my point. Two recent books that I have read that are pretty good on these subjects: 1) Goodbye, Good Men. (The Priest shortage is actually man made within the church itself.), and 2) Excellent Catholic Parishes. (Priests must find a way to grow and let the laity express their spirituality in as many ways as possible, while keeping them theologically correct.)

- Don