The Church and the Racial Divide Reflections of an African American Catholic Bishop

*  Catholic Media Association - Honorable Mention   /  Catholic Social Teaching

After the shooting death of Michael Brown by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, Bishop Braxton of the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, issued his first major pastoral statement on the racial divide in America. This timely and though-provoking volume opens with that statement, and concludes five years later with the bishops reflection on the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. These events, five years apart, are the bookends on an ongoing effort to contend with the persistent racial divide and its meaning for the nation and the Catholic Church in America.

But they also reveal the ongoing journey and the gradual personal awakening of an African American Catholic theologian and bishop in response to the challenge posed by resistance to the reality that Black Lives Matter. In his addresses, essays, and pastoral letters, Bishop Braxton invites a dialogue for healing in the church and the nation, by urging readers to acknowledge difficult truths with openness to the Holy Spirit call to conversion, justice, and reconciliation.