My close friend and Carmelite sister Valerie Washington was on EWTN last week, discussing the work of the
NBCC, of which she is the executive director. She was as beautiful and articulate as ever.
Here is the EWTN link to Fr. Pacwa's interview with Valerie.
She discussed the NBCC founder Daniel Rudd.
Here is a brief biographical account of this great Catholic American
.
Valerie and I met many years ago on a Carmelite retreat. We were both wearing mantillas, which encouraged our initial conversation. A Carmelite priest, Fr. Peter Roberts, told Valerie and me before he died that we were to always be friends and stay in touch. We have kept our promise to him.
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5 comments:
Thank you for this post. I did not know that this organization existed. Throughout the United States, African Americans worship in different churches even though they live in the same towns and are members of the same denomination. I doubt that this is the case in the Catholic Church, or is it? For sure, friendship across the divide is to be treasured.
Hi, Linda! I don't know the statistics but Valerie probably does and please feel free to email her at the NBCC. She would love to hear from you and answer any questions.
When I was growing up, Linda, all the black and white Catholics went to the same church. There had been a church just for black catholics in Urbana, Maryland, but when I went there (it was our family parish)it was integrated. I don't know how it was elsewhere, though.
When I was growing up most black Catholics went to our own parish. It wasn't that the diocese was segregated it was just that people were used to going to St. Augustine. Today I go to a parish that is mostly white and hispanic. This doesn't bother me but I am thankful that the NBCC exists because many black Catholics feel that we are sort of the forgotten children.
That's very interesting, Dymphna, because I remember reading how St Katherine Drexel encouraged black Catholics to have their own parishes, so that they could have leadership roles. Too often, in "mixed" parishes in the old days, the black parishioners would have to sit in the back and their participation in church organizations would be limited. But in their own parish, they could be leaders, have sodalities, and better minister to the needs and concerns of the black community at large. My childhood parish of St Ignatius Loyola was founded by a black family in the 1880's in Urbana, Maryland for those very reasons.
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