"Service confronts Catholic racism." The Baltimore Sun, 7 December 2000.

Service confronts Catholic racism;
Keeler leads prayers asking forgiveness for acts of discrimination

By John Rivera
Sun Staff

December 7, 2000

Calling racism "a spiritual evil" that must be "named, confronted and dealt with," Cardinal William H. Keeler prayed for forgiveness last night on behalf of Baltimore's Roman Catholics for their past acts of racial discrimination and participation in the slave trade.

"We gather here this evening mindful of the pain of poverty so many feel, mindful also of an evil, a spiritual malady that has gnawed at the moral fiber of our nation, our community and our church from the early days of Colonial America," Keeler said during an evening prayer service that nearly filled the Basilica of the Assumption, the first cathedral of the American Roman Catholic church.

"The early history tells us of the slave trade," Keeler said. "Like other sad pages whose message causes pain, these pages have been torn from the history books most people study, but the scars, the consequences remain. The illness festers. And today we call it by the name of racism."

Keeler's prayer of repentance echoed the words of Pope John Paul II, who in a service at St. Peter's Basilica in March prayed for forgiveness for Catholics' intolerance toward Jews, women, the poor and the unborn.

Keeler particularly mentioned the church's role in slavery. He also noted the segregation that occurred in the sanctuary where he made last night's act of contrition.

"Among the sad facts of our own early history is that religious communities, Catholic laity and even our first bishop (Archbishop John Carroll) had slaves," Keeler said. "The slave of Bishop Carroll was set free in the end, but the Catholic slaves and free blacks were required, when they came to the Basilica in the early days, to take their places in the galleries in the rear of the church."

Keeler also pointed to the good works performed by Catholics, including those of Mother Mary Lange and her order of black nuns, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, founded in Baltimore in 1828.

"What odds these sisters had to overcome," Keeler said. "They could not teach the little children of slaves or freed blacks the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic legally, but they taught them nonetheless, because they knew they were teaching God's children."

Keeler called on the church to commit again "to living the gospel of justice," working for fairness in hiring, housing and education practices.

Many in the congregation seemed moved by the service. But some felt that the church did not go far enough. Keeler's reference to the church's culpability in the slave trade, and a single reference to church segregation, accounted for just several sentences in a sermon of about 15 minutes.

"It left me in tears, because I thought of all my ancestors went through," said M. Maggie Fauntleroy, a non-Catholic from West Baltimore. "To me, none of that was really addressed in depth, the damage that was done. It just didn't address my pain."

For Charles Tildon, a parishioner at St. Gregory the Great Church in West Baltimore, it was encouraging just to hear the church address the issue of racism.

"It was a good beginning with a lot of work to be done," Tildon said he told Keeler at the back of the church after the service. "And, hopefully, this will be the impetus for that work being done -- vigorously."