Pope’s message of justice and peace was also a call to action against racism

Washington Post (Opinion)

By Courtland Milloy

October 6, 2015

Pope’s message of justice and peace was also a call to action against racism

An open letter to people of goodwill — more specifically, white people:

Once again, an attempt has been made to stir you into action against racism and economic inequality. Pope Francis made the appeal, however subtly, during his recent speech before Congress.

“Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent,” the pope said.

The effects of unjust structures are a reality that many black people live with every day. But its often not apparent to everybody, so the pope used four champions of justice to “offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality.”

He named Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. I don’t believe it was a coincidence that he chose four who had labored to prick the conscience of white people regarding the evils of racism and poverty.

I bring up the pope’s speech belatedly, having taken time to read how others interpreted his remarks. Most dwelt on his allusions to abortion, climate change and immigration. But surely the pope wouldn’t have chosen to speak to you “through the historical memory” of that particular foursome if racial and economic injustice were to be ignored.

Why mention King? Not just because he had a dream.

In his 1963 “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” the civil rights leader wrote: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klaner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”

The pope, in his address, envisioned a future where a community “sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life.” Through the memory of King, however, we see that even white people of goodwill, while sympathizing with black aspirations for justice, have long been reluctant to overhaul institutions and social structures that produce unjust results.

Racial disparities in wealth, employment, education, incarceration — all have origins in public policies that were designed to benefit whites at the expense of black people.

A lament in King’s letter echoes through the decades: “Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

Why include Merton? Sure, as the pope noted, the Trappist monk advocated dialoguing across racial and religious lines. But what did he want to dialogue about with you people of goodwill? Read the first of his four “Letters to a White Liberal,” that one also penned in 1963. You’d think he was bearing witness to present-day protests against police accused of killing unarmed black people.

“We deplore his demonstrations,” Merton wrote of white attitudes toward the black protester. “We urge him to go slow, we warn him of the consequences of violence (when, at least so far, most of the organized violence has been on our side and not his). At the same time, we secretly desire violence, and even in some cases provoke it, in hopes that the whole Negro movement for freedom can be repressed by force.”

Paul Elie, a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, provides a profound analysis of Merton’s life — interwoven with the lives of Dorothy Day, Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor — in his 2003 book “The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage.”

So why did the pope choose Day? Not because she was a Bohemian turned radical Catholic convert. Among the photographs in Elie’s book is a copy of the Catholic Worker newspaper, which Day co-founded in 1933. A drawing over the newspaper’s front-page logo shows a black man and a white woman holding hands, Jesus standing behind them with his hands on their shoulders, all against the backdrop of the cross.

The depiction reflects Day’s fearless social activism. And for decades she used that newspaper to stir the souls of people of goodwill throughout the country, prompting legions to join in the struggle against poverty and racism.

The pope had to be subtle in broaching the matter of racial and economic justice. No subjects inflame us more, no other issues are so deeply implicated in the nation’s bloody war against itself.

Why include Lincoln? Perhaps because he personified what it means to be a white person moved to action.

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