The Catholic Association for Racial Justice (CARJ) was established in 1984 as an independent, Black-led organisation, where people of different backgrounds could meet, exchange ideas and experience, support one another and act together to bring about change.[1]
Over the years, “listening”[2] and “reading the signs of the times”[3] have been central to our mission. This “listening” and “reading the signs of the times” has been important because the context in which CARJ exercises its mission has continually changed, and we have had to understand and respond to that changing context.
For instance, in 2009 CARJ celebrated its 25th Anniversary. The tone was upbeat – acknowledging and celebrating all that had been achieved and “the progress that we all have made toward becoming a truly inclusive Church in a truly inclusive society”.
Ten years later, in 2019, CARJ celebrated its 35th Anniversary. The context had changed – with recession, austerity, the ‘hostile environment’ and Brexit - and there was a different tone to our response. We were “focussing on the complex challenges we face and the diverse groups who need support”.[4]
In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the Amazon Synod took place and reinforced CARJ in its understanding of its role. We learned from the final document of the Amazon Synod that “synodality” is the process of Christians walking together in the practice of discernment, in order to read the “signs of the times”.[5] It can take place at various levels – small communities, parishes, dioceses, regions or globally; and it involves listening, dialogue, prayerful discernment and communal decision making.
As the pandemic took root, we paused to listen, reflect and try to understand. A few months into the pandemic there were two Reports from Public Health England – pointing out that people from BAME backgrounds were more susceptible and vulnerable to the virus.
We produced a Briefing which pointed to demography and comorbidities as possible causes but emphasised the growing evidence that ethnic minorities are at greater risk because social and economic disparities lead to poor outcomes in health.
We also highlighted the vulnerability of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities during the corona virus.
We discussed all this with colleagues working in the health service, who asked us to raise the issue with Catholic Parliamentarians and others in positions of influence. Mrs Yogi Sutton, Chair of CARJ, circulated a letter to “Friends and Fellow Citizens” which pointed out the complex factors that made BAME people more vulnerable, including – geography, age, gender, underlying conditions, poverty, housing and occupation. She went on to urge that we all work to support BAME people in vulnerable situations and that we, as a society, address fundamental inequalities like poverty, unemployment, housing and education. The letter was circulated widely and asked recipients to “use any influence you have to ensure that these issues are seriously addressed by Government and others”.
We were all still in the process of trying to understand the pandemic and respond appropriately when the context again changed. The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis led to Black Lives Matter and others coming out in protest across the USA, in the UK and globally.
These new developments led CARJ to reflect on the past thirty years and the history of tension between the police and the Black community in the UK. We recalled the Scarman Inquiry, the Gifford Inquiry, the death of Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson Report, which finally raised the important issue of “institutional racism”.[6]
We also recalled that, in 1999, the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales had welcomed the Macpherson Report and “its useful definition of institutional racism”.[7] The Bishops went on to urge “all Catholic organisations and institutions to look again at how they could better serve minority ethnic communities in our society”.[8]
This historical reflection led us to ask whether 2020 was an important moment for the Church in this country to reflect on its own record on racial justice. In a statement to the Tablet, Mrs Yogi Sutton raised this question:
We have very many people from BAME communities in our Catholic parishes and schools. At the rite of election in Southwark, and dare I suggest in most metropolitan areas, the greater number of people coming into the church are BAME.
Yet we have no BAME Bishops in the Latin Rite Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. Most of our BAME Priests are from abroad. Why are we not able to recruit home grown BAME men into priesthood?
No Catholic Establishment should be monochrome. Yet, I go to… meetings and I am the sole Black person in the room. All the executive members from ALL the Catholic Organisations in England and Wales are White. Why?
Our churches in the structure, art, statues, artefacts are always of white people. White saints, white Angels, white Jesus, white Holy Family, even God is white. BAME people are subliminally taught that the good, the holy, the righteous are white. There is no place for anyone not white in any of this. Why is this still true?
So in our attempt to read the signs of the times and discern a way forward, CARJ is suggesting that both the Church and the wider Society must prioritise the fundamental inequalities and the institutional racism that have not yet been sufficiently addressed. This is a Kairos moment for us all.
Richard Zipfel is an American citizen who has lived in the UK for many years. In the USA, he was a teacher and involved with the Catholic Worker, Civil Rights and Anti-War Movements in the 1960s. After coming to the UK in 1972, he worked for six years for the Student Christian Movement (SCM). Then he was, for thirty years, a policy adviser on race and community relations for the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales. Since retirement, he has been involved with the Catholic Association for Racial Justice (CARJ) and is currently the Secretary to CARJ Trustees.
[1] During the 1980s, in CARJ, and many other places, it was agreed that people of African, Caribbean and Asian descent would call themselves ‘Black People’. This was seen as a ‘political definition’ which affirmed as a single movement all those who suffered prejudice and discrimination on the grounds of colour or ethnic or national origin.
[2] ‘Listening’ has an important place in broad based community organising and in Training for Transformation. Some would also link it to Cardijn’s ‘see, judge, act’ (Mater et Magistra, §236) and to the theology of liberation. Most recently it was an important theme for the Amazon Synod.
[2] Reading the signs of the times’ can be found in the Gospel (Matt. 16:3), in Gaudium et Spes (§4), and was also an important theme at the Amazon Synod.
[3] Reading the signs of the times’ can be found in the Gospel (Matt. 16:3), in Gaudium et Spes (§4), and was also an important theme at the Amazon Synod
[4] CARJ, CARJ: A history of the past ten years (Online, 2019) https://gallery.mailchimp.com/3d2b3ff9853eab9381ba677d5/files/25de6bf8-d984-4820-9583-ef822a5c560d/CARJTenYearHistory2019.Booklet.pdf, p. 2.
[5] Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region,
Final Document of the Amazon Synod (Online, 2020) http://www.synod.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/documents/final-document-of-the-amazon-synod.pdf, §90-91.
[6] William Macpherson, The Stephen Lawrence inquiry: report of an inquiry (online: Home Office, 1999) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf, §6.5.
[7] Catholic Bishops Conference of England & Wales, Serving a multi-ethnic society: Guidelines for a review of Catholic organisations and institutions in the light of the Macpherson Report (Online: Committee for Commmunity Relations of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England & Wales, 1999) https://www.carj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Serving-a-Multiethnic-Society.pdf, p. 4.
[8] Idem., p. 1.