Campus Ministries: Catholic Ministries
MANY FACES, ONE SMILE
Just as I sat down at the computer to write this, she came by. She wanted to tell me personally that her husband and children were alive. Finally she had gotten word from them. They had escaped Rwanda and were alive. We hugged and smiled and prayed our thanks to God. We prayed too for all the others, who had not been so fortunate. How real this student and her family had made for me the incomprehensible hell I had been witnessing on TV.
How can I adequately express here the dire warnings that Rwanda and Bosnia, and so many other ethnic war zones, are screaming to us? Our shrinking world is coming apart along sectarian seams. Ethnic earthquakes send swift tidal waves around the globe. We're all connected. Our attitudes and our actions in the United States matter.
When I see our society's negative attitudes towards today's minorities, mainly people of color, I find it helpful to remember that at the beginning of this century, when my Irish and Italian ancestors were the immigrant minorities trying to get a foothold in this land, we were the ones looked down upon. So many Irish immigrants filled the prisons, that a common expression of the time was: "Scratch the back of a convict, and you're scratching the back of an Irishman." And in our day, when there is so much concern with illegal aliens, some believe that the origin of the slang word for Italian, "wop," came from the fact that so many of my Italian ancestors arrived in the United States "without papers."
It wasn't just the Wasps who were prejudiced towards the newcomers. Only sixty years ago, in the tenements of NYC, when my Irish father and Italian mother were dating, there was a lot of suspicion, ill will, and tension between Irish and Italians. My parents' intercultural marriage was vehemently opposed, was considered a forbidden interfaith marriage, even though both parties were Catholic! Knowing my own history helps me put modern day intercultural problems in better perspective.
Many of us today have little real understanding of other groups. Those of us who grew up in suburbia may have had only superficial contact other groups, or perhaps we experienced some negative interactions with members of a particular group. We are probably most comfortable with people of our own culture. But ignorance of others can easily lead to false presumptions, misunderstandings, mistrust, and prejudice. When our own insecurities are then combined with stressful economic, political or social situations, prejudice erupts into the ethnic violence and terror that fill the news.
What are our honest feelings and behavior towards those different from ourselves? I fear that few of us are as open or tolerant as we think we are. Some of us may be aware of our biases, and perhaps even of some of the roots of our attitudes.
Others among us may pride ourselves on being color blind, on treating everyone alike, irrespective of their race or culture. But is that not homogenizing people, failing to respect their diverse ethnic and cultural experiences, presuming that everyone feels and perceives things the way we do? Each of us needs to face up to any racist attitudes we may harbor, or, on the other hand, to any naive attitudes that race and culture do not really matter. We need to grow more sensitive to the hidden roots of racism, and to the multiple ways our culture forms us.
Our Catholic tradition teaches us that building understanding among diverse peoples requires that we keep two important factors in balance: (1) respect for differences, and (2) recognition of common humanity. Our troubled times teach us the urgency of developing effective ways to reach out and build bridges of respect and solidarity over chasms ignorance and fear.
MANY FACES
Those of us who have never been immersed in a different culture may find it difficult to even see the problem. We may not see how language and culture so totally color our sense of identity and belonging, our perceptions, beliefs and values, our body language, ways of listening, speaking, expressing opinions, etc. We might be tempted to minimize the importance of these legitimate differences, or, worse still, expect others, especially minorities, to want to join with us and adopt our ways.
That's not the way it was in the Church's first years. When Greek Christians complained that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food, as compared with the widows who spoke Hebrew, the Apostles did not tell the Greeks: "You're living in Jerusalem now; learn Hebrew!" Rather they had the Greeks select for themselves, from among themselves, seven Greek deacons to serve their own community. [Acts 6]
The first great controversy within the Church was one of self-identity. Once Greeks began entering the Church in large numbers, some Hebrew Christians seemed to feel afraid that they would be swallowed up by all the newcomers. These Hebrews went about teaching the Greeks that in order to become Christians, they would have to follow the customs of the Hebrews. It took a council of the apostles and elders to decide that the Greek converts did not have to adopt Hebrew traditions. [Acts 15]
In modern times the Church has continued to teach respect for ethnic differences:
Some mention must also be made of ethnocentricity. This is a very widespread attitude whereby a people has a natural tendency to defend its identity by denigrating that of others to the point that, at least symbolically, it refuses to recognize their full human quality. This behavior undoubtedly responds to an instinctive need to protect the values, beliefs and customs of one's own community which seem threatened by those of other communities. However, it is easy to see to what extremes such a feeling can lead if it is not purified and relativized through a reciprocal openness, thanks to objective information and mutual exchanges. The rejection of differences can lead to that form of cultural annihilation which sociologists have called "ethnocide" and which does not tolerate the presence of others except to the extent that they allow themselves to be assimilated into the dominant culture.
...[L]egitimate pride....can subsequently degenerate into xenophobia or even racial hatred. These reprehensible attitudes have their origin in the irrational fear which the presence of others and confrontation with differences can often provoke. Such attitudes have as their goal, whether acknowledged or not, to deny the other the right to be what he or she is and, in any case, to be "in our country [or neighborhood, or parish]."
Equality does not mean uniformity. It is important to recognize the diversity and complementarity of one another's cultural riches and moral qualities.
It is important for ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities...to enjoy recognition of the same inalienable rights as other citizens, including the right to live together according to their specific cultural and religious characteristics. Their choice to be integrated into the surrounding culture must be a free one.
The Church & Racism Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace 1988, nn. 12, 14, 23 & 29.
In the past the United States was called "the great melting pot." The customs and cultures from many lands were expected to blend together, like ingredients in a creamy soup. Today we are coming to realize that we are more like a great salad--a variety of flavors, textures, colors and shapes. Each culture can maintain its own identity, making its unique contribution to the beauty of the whole. No one culture has a monopoly on what it means to be a human being. Each is a piece of the whole.
Have you discovered different ethnic foods you like? What did these dishes do to your experience of food? Didn't they open up you to new tastes and delights, expand your understanding of what food can be? All cultures have their own concept of food, and of family, of birth and death, of friendship and marriage, of clothing, music and art, of religion, etc. No one culture can capture it all. Each culture enriches our appreciation of humanity, reveals a different face of the infinite God, in Whose image we are all made.
ONE SMILE
In our Catholic tradition, respect for diversity goes hand in hand with recognition of our common humanity. St. Paul put it this way: "There are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. All are one in Christ Jesus " (Gal 3:28). When this teaching was being attacked by Nazi racism, Pope Pius IX stated:
Catholic means universal, not racist, not nationalistic in the separatist meaning of these two attributes.... The term "humankind" reveals precisely what the human race is. It must be stated that people are first and foremost all one great and single species, one great and single family of living beings.... There is only one human, universal "catholic" race...and with it and in it, different variations....
L'Osservatore Romano, July 30, 1938
The recently released Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting in part from the Second Vatican Council, states:
Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that "everyone should look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as 'another self,'..." No legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a "neighbor," a brother.
n. 1931
CATHOLIC ACTION
Important though it is, it is not enough for the Church to teach:
The Church has the sublime vocation of realizing, first of all within herself, the unity of humankind over and above any ethnic, cultural, national, social or other divisions in order to signify precisely that such divisions are now obsolete, having been abolished by the cross of Christ. In doing this, the Church contributes towards promoting fraternal coexistence of all peoples....Within the Church "no inequality arising from race or nationality, social condition or sex" should exist. This is indeed the meaning of the word "Catholic"--i.e., universal, which is one of the marks of the Church. As the Church spreads, this catholicity becomes more manifest. The Church actually gathers together Christ's faithful from all the nations of the world, from the most diverse cultures, who are led by pastors from their own peoples, all sharing the same faith and the same charity.
[In addition to teaching, t]he Church's persuasive task is equally carried out through the witness of life of Christians: respect for foreigners, acceptance of dialogue, sharing, mutual aid and collaboration with other ethnic groups. The world needs to see this parable in action among Christians in order to be convinced by Christ's message.
All Catholics are invited to work concretely side by side with other Christians and all others who have this same respect for persons. The Church wants first and foremost to change racist attitudes, including those within her own communities....She asks God to change hearts. She offers a place for reconciliation. She would like to see promoted initiatives of welcome, of exchange and of mutual assistance as regards men and women belonging to other ethnic groups. Her mission is to give soul to this immense undertaking of human fraternity.
The Church and Racism, nn. 22, 25, & 33.
If St. Paul and his followers had not respected Greek culture, and struggled to permit Gentiles to maintain their own diverse customs, today you and I would be eating only kosher foods, and observing the other Jewish traditions. Better still, if they had not reached out, gone out of their way, to make our Gentile ancestors feel welcome, none of us would even be in the Church today.
As today's "Catholics," it is now our turn to reach out, to "promote initiatives of welcome," to build bridges of understanding and cooperation to people of other races and cultures. Multiculturally rich college campuses offer us wonderful opportunities for such catholic action. Each of us needs to go out of our way, in order to learn the ways of others. It only takes one smile to get peace and harmony growing. For our many different faces all reflect the smile of the one God, in Whose image we are all made.
Ronald Stanley, O.P.
For additional articles relating to this topic see:
TWO EYES TO SEE
WHAT'S IN A NAME
BE RECONCILED!
SALT OF THE EARTH
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
COMMANDED TO LOVE?
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
AFFIRM YOUR NEIGHBOR
HATE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU HATE YOURSELF
ASHAMED OF YOUR FEELINGS?
CHERISHING OURSELVES
