Malcolm X and the Limits of “Authentically Black and Truly Catholic”: A Research Project on Black Radicalism and Black Catholic Faith

Based on the talk he delivered during the 2010 Annual Meeting, Massingale here tackles head‐on the unvoiced questions with which most of us have struggled at some point our careers and ministries. He begins by unveiling the conflicted ramifications of ‘authentically black and truly Catholic’. Echoing Copeland’s reference in Volume IV to the price that black scholars and theologians must pay to “speak and act and live in truth” (p. 75), Massingale explores Malcolm X’s call for Black Nationalism and its synthesis and coexistence with Integrationism in current Black Catholicism. Finally, he asks a series of haunting questions about what it means to be a Black Catholic in terms of our identity, our consciousness, and the needs of the Black community. Might “Black” and “Catholic” be oxymorons