A prominent English Archbishop used his homily on Racial Justice Sunday to state “everyone is welcome in the Church” and warned that “if you don’t like it, there’s the door”. Archbishop of Southwark John Wilson, speaking at a special mass for the occasion in is episcopal see, St George’s Cathedral, told the assembled faithful “we cannot be silent about the existence of racism and we cannot be silent about its causes”. The mass was organised with the Southwark Commission for Promoting Racial and Cultural Inclusion, a recently founded diocesan initiative to educate Catholics on racial justice issues and build up leadership from within Bame Catholic communities.
Acting as a national focus for the English and Welsh church’s 2022 Racial Justice Sunday theme, “Image and Likeness of God”, the mass featured music from the St Thomas the Apostle School Gospel Choir and was attended by members of the Ethnic Chaplaincies of England and Wales.
An online library of the Our Father and Hail Mary in more than 20 languages was among other initiatives by the bishops of England and Wales for Racial Justice Sunday. A special message to schools in the Westminster diocese was recorded by Bishop Paul McAleenan and masses marking the occasion were celebrated throughout the country.
Other Christian groups joined in the commemoration of Racial Justice Sunday, began in 1995 as an ecumenical event marking the murder of Stephen Lawrence two years before.
In a reflection for the interdenominational group Churches Together In Britain and Ireland, Fr Philip Sumner, parish priest of St Mary’s with St Patrick’s, Oldham and a trustee of the Catholic Association for Racial Justice, pointed to the racial abuse of England players during the 2021 World Cup, the rise in reported hate crime after the 2016 Brexit vote and the international protests for racial equality after the 2020 murder of George Floyd as examples of the continuing relevance of racial justice issues.
Fr Sumner cited Pope John Paul II’s concept of “a spirituality of communion” alongside more recent papal statements on diversity. In his most recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis reiterated a longstanding concern with racial justice: “Instances of racism continue to shame us, for they show that our supposed social progress is not as real or definitive as we think.”
A recent report by the Runnymede Trust stated that systemic racism, embedded in legislation, economics and cultural practices, continue to impact Bame people across the UK.
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