Touchy Subject

[nikkan_hanil]

Dondi White is Catholic.

[M.SIGGA]

I'm of mixed ancestry and Catholic and from Louisiana and I would have replied sooner to this topic if I was in town! A very large percentage of African American Catholics in the United States can trace their ancestry to Lousiana because most African Americans ancestors entered the USA through the Port of New Orleans.

New Orleans was the largest slave port in the present day USA, and while under the French and Spanish monarchies, was also a Catholic state. All slaves in the Catholic states of Louisiana, Florida, Cuba, St. Domingue (Haiti), Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Dominica, pre-British Jamaica, Brazil, etc. were required to be baptized in the Church upon ariving from Africa, so many slaves entering the US via Louisiana had already been baptized Catholic and recieved new Catholic names.

The slave trade was dominated by the Catholic monarchies of Spain and Portugal so almost all African Americans were initially Catholic at one time. Catholic slave owners were french and spanards who didn't leave Louisiana so they and their Catholic slaves stayed in Louisiana while the other slaves became Protestants when they were sold into other parts of the South.

After slavery, segregation caused many Black Catholics to leave the Church and join all-black Protestant congregations. Since Vatican II, Black Catholic congregations have begun to thrive again because the popes have encouraged Black Catholics to embrace their heritage in the liturgy and many have come back to the Catholic Church. In Louisiana there is a Black Catholic Church for every white one, especially in New Orleans.

[M.SIGGA]

You prob wouldn't find many black catholics on the east coast above Maryland because slavery wasn't as popular in the north and there also were not many wealthy Catholic land owners who could have owned slaves. The Irish, Italians, Sicilians, Slavs, Germans, etc. who were Catholics were often very poor immigrants that populated the North East. In the Deep South these groups were too poor and were often not allowed to own slaves or large property because of ethnic racism.

In Louisiana, Florida, and along the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama there were many large plantations supported by the Mississippi River owned by wealthy old-aristocratic French families who were Catholics; therefore creating large black Catholic communities in the Deep South.

Large black Catholic communities in other parts of the USA outside the Deep South are found in places where black Catholics fled to in order to escape either slavery or Jim Crow segregation in Louisiana. These are mainly in Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Brooklyn & NYC, Los Angeles, and Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area. There are lots of black Catholic churches in Baltimore and Washington D.C. because there were old Catholic plantation owners in Maryland who baptized and catechised their slaves too.

It is a little bit bittersweet because where there is often an all black Catholic community or a "Black" Catholic church located near a "White" Catholic Church in the South and in some other places around the USA it is usually a sign of the our nation's violently segregated past. Unlike the popular southern Protestant denominations like Baptists and Methodists, the Roman Catholic Church is not doctrinly divided over race, but became locally divided after slavery was introduced. This ended up causing some major problems that called for some major appologies.

Hope this helps!

[mulls]

your posts did help, thanks, but what does this mean?

"Unlike the popular southern Protestant denominations like Baptists and Methodists, the Roman Catholic Church is not doctrinly divided over race..."

[ironmonk]

This question applies only to this country....here it is...

Why are there so few Black Catholics?

In my experience, 19 years as a Catholic, there were never, ever any Black people in the parishes I attended, except for one distinct family in one parish. I don't want to point any fingers or make any accusations, but why do you suppose this is? Most Black Christians I know are Baptist or Pentecostal, which their family has been for many generations.

To note, I live in CT, in a highly diverse and highly Catholic area, right between NYC and Boston.  If people have experienced the same or completely opposite situation from me in their own area, I would appreciate a response. Also, if there are any Black phatmassers who would like to chime in, I would greatly appreciate that point of view. Thanks.

Actually there are many Black Catholics... many of them are in Louisiana.

When blacks were brought over as slaves, many of them were Catholic.

Of course, since the Vatican condemned racial slavery, the protestants in this country did not let the black slaves stay Catholic... hence why the numbers of black Catholics are not great... but there are more than you think.

Your Servant in Christ,

ironmonk

Edited December 27, 2003 by ironmonk

[dUSt]

your posts did help, thanks, but what does this mean?

"Unlike the popular southern Protestant denominations like Baptists and Methodists, the Roman Catholic Church is not doctrinly divided over race..."

I think this is probably an unfair statement.

Living in the south, you see a lot of Protestant churches that are racially divided. For example, you could walk into an all white Baptist church a couple miles from me, and literally, about four blocks down, there is an all black Baptist church. In my area, the Catholic churches are not like that. There's a fairly good mix of races in every Catholic church around here (well, except for the all Viatnamese Catholic church--and that's because of language). I'm sure a lot of Protestant churches around here have a good mix of people too--it's just that around here it's more common to see an all black or all white Protestant Church--and it's rare to see a Catholic church like that--that's all.

But, it's probably more regional than anything. I don't know. But I think that's what the statement was getting at.

[mulls]

that's understandable, by all these posts and my own bit of research i've concluded that it's almost definately a regional thing.

but Sigga said "doctrinally divided over race," which scares me. i'll wait for an explanation before i jump to conclusions.

Edited December 27, 2003 by mulls

[PedroX]

Mulls,

I think M. Sigga may be referring to the fact that some denominations did split over slavery. The Southern Baptist denomination came into being so that they could keep slaves. The American Baptist (read northern baptists) was largely abolistionist in make up. The S.Bs apologized for this several (5?) years ago.

peace...

[hyperdulia again]

I'm descended from black people (and the french, spaniards, and filipinos who owned them) in louisiana.

And from two Irish families the Shorters and the Crenshaws who both made their money and got their people by marrying into a black slave holding family in Mobile called the Montremarts.

They (the Montremarts) were descended from a white family called the Lamottes.

A Shorter male married a first cousin who was the daughter of a Crenshaw woman.

They had a daughter who got pregnanto by some random guy in the middle of the nineteenth century. her parents sent her to cuba for ninemonths she came back a "widow" with a new lastname, "Suarez" and a son who looks about 1/2 black to me.

He for reasons unknown changed his lastname to Hill when he married a Shorter cousin who had a plantation in Montgomery County. (There was a free black slaveowner named Augustus Hill who lived near his grandparents, and our young Mr. Hill named his daughter Mary Augusta.)

They had a son. He married a woman who was 1/8 black from Louisiana she was descended two times over from the Lamottes through the Montremarts. And once over again from the Lamottes through her father who was a Crenshaw.

They had a son. He fell in love with a pretty young German girl whose father was a prince of the house of Hohenlohe and whose mother was a Jewish convert to Lutheranism.

They had a daughter who fell in love with a man whose father at that time was anti-catholic and a member of the KKK. Not only did the man convert, but so did both of hhis parents.

They had fourteen children. I'm number five. I'm also really inbred if you paid close attention to all of that, you know I am.

Edited December 27, 2003 by hyperdulia again

[cmotherofpirl]

I was confused after the second paragraph... :)

[hyperdulia again]

Any of that mentioned in Alabama could lead to physical violence. Sometime in the 1890's the family went from being really, really, light skinned, interesting, unfortunately slave-owning, black people to being Upper Class white Southerners "possessing all the prejudices of their generation and class."

[mulls]

bump for Sigga

[Circle_Master]

bump for mulls for sigga since he's on

[M.SIGGA]

Mulls,

I think M. Sigga may be referring to the fact that some denominations did split over slavery.  The Southern Baptist denomination came into being so that they could keep slaves.  The American Baptist (read northern baptists) was largely abolistionist in make up.  The S.Bs apologized for this several (5?) years ago.

peace...

Yeah this is exactly what I meant.

Abolitionists Baptists in the northern states said slavery was evil while slave-holding and other southern Baptists in the south believed slavery was biblically justified. Most were quotes from the Bible about Ham and words from St. Paul. End of story, they split.

Methodists split over whether or not blacks should be allowed to be bishops b/c blacks were believed to be decendants from Ham, who was to be a "slave to his brethren" which means a black could never be over a white. The northerners said yes, and the southern Methodists said no.

Many blacks formed their own independant African Methodist Episcopal Churches b/c they got sick of the intimidation and racism.

Unlike the Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic Church and Catholic monarchies never used biblical justification for slavery, and Anglicans changed their minds about it later on. It was about cheap labor and money, not religious justification like in many puritanical parts of the U.S. The religious biblical factor was included in all the other states. This is a large reason why Louisiana had an extremely large number of free people of color, some of whom owned slaved in the Carribean and pre-American Louisiana.

I didn't mean all of Protestantism, just the two largest denominations that influence and make up most of American Protestantism, which is very unique. Everyone has since appologized, but it reminds us of how tragic the times use to be for American Christians.

I didn't mean to insult or confuse. God Bless.

[socalscout]

In the United States, there are relatively few black Catholics (this obviously does not hold true in Africa...). The reason is not a matter of religion, but of history. There have large immigrations of Irish, Italian, Polish, French, Volga-Germany, etc.. . (all predominately white) Catholics. They settled in the North and in the plains states. The vast majority of blacks, on the other hand, came to the United States as slaves. They lived in the South where they worked on the plantations. While they came with their tribal religions, many took on the faith of their masters (whether by force or by choice). When they were freed, the majority remained in the South and, logically, joined the denominations that were predominant there. When they moved North and West, they took their faith with them. Faith became cultural, and they stay in those denominations because that is how they grew up (not a comment on any denomination or Protestantism in general).

I have to agree with that explanantion. It does not seem like a matter of Faith and Doctrine to explain why our Parishes are not so culturally diverse. Anglos and Latins do not understand Truth any better than anyone else.