Black Faith Matters

Happy Feast Day of St. Josephine Bakhita, the first Black woman to be canonized in the modern era!

In honor of Black History Month and all our Black Catholic saints, Mary Queen of the Apostles takes this month to celebrate the rich culture and contributions that the Black community has made and continues to make to the life of the Church. We especially celebrate the many within our parish who identify as Afro-Latinx who enrich our faith community.

We also take this time to acknowledge that the history of Catholicism reveals a Church which has contributed to the pain and struggle of being Black (and the challenge of being both Black and Catholic.) This month we invite our parish and the wider Salem community to take part in a conversation around a short documentary called “Black Faith Matters.”

We invite you to reflect on “what we have done and what we have failed to do” as a church and as individuals. We also invite you to reflect on what resonates with you as you watch this documentary. What stays with you? What compels you?

We invite you to share, comment, celebrate, respond, reflect, resist, reclaim, reconcile, criticize, lament, affirm, and validate, but always in a spirit of respect, compassion, sensitivity, and a desire to learn and understand. In doing so, our hope is that we might grow as a parish community, provide healing, and bring about awareness and a justice-oriented commitment to the perspectives and concerns of Black individuals, inside and outside MQOA.
 
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