Has the Silence Been Broken? Catholic Theological Ethics and Racial Justice

This survey discusses the emerging contours of a distinctive Catholic ethical approach to race, racism, and racial justice. Among its features are the adoption of a more structural and cultural understanding of human sinfulness, engaged intellectual reflection, concern about malformed white identity, an intentional dialogue with African American scholarship and culture, and the cultivation of spiritual practices and disciplines. The “Note” concludes with a discussion of the global challenges of racialization and the future challenges for Catholic ethical reflection on racism

The Systemic Erasure of the Black/Dark-Skinned Body in Catholic Ethics

One of the questions I address in my scholarly work is this: What would Catholic theological ethics look like if it took the Black Experience seriously as a dialogue partner? To raise the question, however, is to signal the reality of absence, erasure, and missing voices. The question is necessary only because the Black Experience --the collective story of African American survival and achievement in a hostile, exploitative, and racist environment--and the bodies who are the subjects of this experience have been all too often rendered invisible and therefore missing in U.S. Catholic ethical reflection