{"id":101,"date":"2008-04-28T10:55:28","date_gmt":"2008-04-28T10:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/benedictions\/2008\/04\/jeremiah-obama-and-catholics.html"},"modified":"2008-04-28T10:55:28","modified_gmt":"2008-04-28T10:55:28","slug":"jeremiah-obama-and-catholics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/2008\/04\/jeremiah-obama-and-catholics.html","title":{"rendered":"Jeremiah, Obama, and Catholics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is back in the news<\/a>, delivering some fiery (the indispensible adjective with the Rev. Wright) rhetoric yesterday at the close of a meeting of the NAACP’s Detroit branch. Wright’s unrepentant talk and prophetic style are likely to make you smile if you are a black Christian or Hillary Clinton, and if they make you wince then you may well be Barack Obama or…Roman Catholic.
\nYes, many have traced Obama’s difficulties in attracting blue-collar Catholic “Reagan Democrats” to his lack of working-class elan (that silver-spoon-fed Hillary can out-maneuver a community organizer from urban Chicago is a tribute to her political machine) or, more disturbingly, his race. The Pew Forum’s resident politics-and-religion mandarin, John Green, explores Obama’s uphill battle with white Catholics in this Q&A<\/a>, noting that Obama lost the Catholic vote by more than 2-1 on Pennsylvania, and Indiana next week could be more of the same.
\nA couple points to make: One is that Obama is having trouble attracting all regular church-goers, which is odd given that he is the only regular church-goer among the three remaining candidates, a man who remains loyal to his congregation (where Wright was pastor until recently) and his denomination, the largely white UCC. But Green also turns the question around, asking whether Clinton has an “African-American problem” or an “unaffiliated problem”–two groups she’ll need to win the nomination, and the general election.
\nIn that vein I would also ask whether the Catholic Church has an “African-American problem.” In other words, is part of the problem for Catholic voters that the Catholic Church is on the white side of the racial-religious divide–which Wright noted last night, an indisputable point–that marks American Christianity? There are just 2.5 million black Catholics out of more than 65 million American Catholics, and many of those are Caribbean or African immigrants with little in common with the Southern, Protestant, and slave-era heritage African-Americans of Wright’s congregation. Indeed, one reason there are so few black Catholics is that the American hierarchy, fearing a schism like those that afflicted other churches during the Civil War, did not speak out with one voice against slavery.
\nBlack Catholics are a remarkable community, and one that could and should inspire the rest of the American church. Yet they are often overlooked in the focus on our enormous Latino growth, and they are often alienated by the shift back toward a more strait-laced, Old World liturgy. It is a shame that Pope Benedict could not have attended a black Catholic liturgy during his visit–now that is the holy rolling Spirit. Among other things, Hurricane Katrina also inflicted a devastating wound on the black Catholic community concentrated in New Orleans, an issue I explored, along with the history of black Catholics in the U.S., in this 2006 Wall Street Journal column<\/a>.
\nIn short, American Catholics find black Christian rhetoric completely “foreign” for all sorts of cultural and demographic reasons. They never hear this kind of preaching, and one wonders whether they should listen more closely; they might hear some familiar notes. Such as the insistence on communal spirituality and solidarity, one of the principal themes of Benedict’s own homilies this month. Or the focus on social justice–a tradition and teaching that has been so crucial to lifting up our own Catholic forebears. Or the powerful laments–jeremiads one might say–that characterize the preaching of our own Catholic leadership, albeit it in a different key.
\nFor a good context, read Father John Kavanaugh’s insightful (and powerful) column <\/a>on the two Jeremiahs (biblical and contemporary) in the April 14 edition of America:<\/p>\n

The problem with much preaching in Christian churches is that we apply the prophetic indignation easily to our enemies, but rarely to ourselves, our church, our nation. But if we think Jeremiah and Jesus are not addressing us, we have nothing to learn from either\u2014at our peril. Was the Reverend Wright speaking in this tradition when he gave his infamous talk after the evils of 9\/11? I think so. His sermon was a commentary on revenge and the violence that returns to those who do violence, especially against the innocent. Wright recounted our national history of killing children, from the Sioux to the Japanese. All just causes, one might sincerely think. But all horrific. And this is where the preacher talked about the \u201cchickens coming home to roost.\u201d As Wright continued, he pointed out that violence and hatred beget violence and hatred. And then the preacher turned to something that possibly no one is aware of from the YouTube clips. Having been in New Jersey on that September day of \u201cunthinkable acts,\u201d Jeremiah Wright was drawn to examine his own relationship to God, his lack of prayer, his honesty. \u201cIs it real or is it fake? Is it forever or is it for show?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One needn’t agree with Wright, or like him, or his words, or his tone. But every Catholic could ask themselves why it is that so few African-Americans find a lasting spiritual home in our church. Pope Benedict urged the American bishops to continue the church’s educational mission to urban areas, where Catholic schools have been a lifeline to many black children. Yet those schools, like all Catholic schools, labor under severe financial strains. Even so, many African-Americans graduate from Catholic schools, and appreciate their education. But they don’t become Catholic. Why?
\nNone of these questions will be answered in time to help Barack Obama, I suspect. But perhaps if he is the nominee, and if he wins the general election, Obama could build a bridge to the Catholic community based on the principles they already share. And perhaps Catholics could walk across it.
\nTwo final suggestions for those who want to explore the issue more deeply: Check out this post (and subsequent vigorous discussion) at dotCommonweal<\/a> by Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at Notre Dame, and a member of Obama’s National Catholic Advisory Council. Also check out this Bill Moyers interview <\/a>with Wright, the pastor’s first since the brouhaha erupted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is back in the news, delivering some fiery (the indispensible adjective with the Rev. Wright) rhetoric yesterday at the close of a meeting of the NAACP’s Detroit branch. Wright’s unrepentant talk and prophetic style are likely to make you smile if you are a black Christian or Hillary Clinton, and if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJeremiah, Obama, and Catholics - Benedictions: The Pope in America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/2008\/04\/jeremiah-obama-and-catholics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jeremiah, Obama, and Catholics - Benedictions: The Pope in America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is back in the news, delivering some fiery (the indispensible adjective with the Rev. Wright) rhetoric yesterday at the close of a meeting of the NAACP’s Detroit branch. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}