As the 40th anniversary approaches of a pastoral letter that he authored with the nine other Black U.S. bishops in September 1984, Bishop J. Terry Steib occasionally finds himself perusing his copy of the letter, which has become yellow with age.
As the National Black Catholic Congress XIII at National Harbor, Maryland, on July 21, the retired bishop of Memphis discussed his thoughts on What We Have Seen and Heard, the pastoral letter on evangelization. The one-hour session attracted an overflow crowd of about 200 people, including Bishop Joseph N. Perry, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, who helped field audience questions.
During the last 40 years, Bishop Steib, who served as prelate for the Diocese of Memphis from 1993 to 2016, said he has seen a great growth in Black Catholic institutions. From the National Black Catholic Congress to the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans to the National Black Sisters Conference, the National Black Catholic Clergy Conference, and the National Association of Black Catholic Administrators, Bishop Steib is seeing more organizations form and grow that can help with Black Catholic evangelization.
He is also very encouraged by the causes for canonization that are active for six Black American Catholics, including Mother Mary Lange, the foundress of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, who last month was declared venerable by Pope Francis.
Nonetheless, Bishop Steib concedes that much work remains to be done, including in Catholic education, which has traditionally been a key tool for evangelization among Black Americans, as embodied during another National Black Catholic Congress session, where five out of six young African American priest speakers had attended Catholic schools when they were growing up. Bishop Steib was ordained a priest of the Society of the Divine Word.
During his tenure in Memphis, Bishop Steib reopened eight “Jubilee schools,” parish schools in the city that had been closed, in part due to the support of two Memphis billionaires. Sadly, the schools closed after he completed his tenure as Memphis bishop. Bishop Steib told the Catholic Standard that he is encouraged that six public charter schools serving 1,500 students have opened on the sites of the former Jubilee schools, and that he regards their service to the public as very important.
Ali Mumbach, a student at Howard University pursuing a master’s degree in sociology, pointed out during her PowerPoint-driven presentation that about 6 percent of Black Americans are Catholic, and that they are not unlike other Americans, prone to the trends of secularization, dehumanization by living in a technology-driven society, and materialism. Many Americans, particularly those in younger generations, find themselves glued to electronic devices, perpetually distracted, lacking focus and unable to sit in silence, she said.
“God didn’t leave us to our own devices,” Mumbach said, intending a pun that drew laughter from the audience.
A native of Houston who has completed courses at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University and also serves in Catholic campus ministry at Howard University, Mumbach said Black Catholics do well in building communities. She sees opportunities in evangelization coming on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing and mask mandates made more Americans isolated and lonely, with a greater awareness of their need for social connections.
“God made us social beings,” Mumbach said. Part of the challenge within this context is that many people are “afraid to be vulnerable,” she added.
Echoing the language of What We Have Seen and Heard, Mumbach said that evangelization in the African-American community is “both a call and a response.”
Toward that end, Mumbach encouraged the audience to “walk the talk and talk the walk,” both engage in good works and talk about faith and belief with others.
Encouraging people at the session to share their faith, Bishop Steib said, “Brothers and sisters, we have the gifts and the talents” to respond to their baptism call for salvation. As a tangible sign of call and response, a member of the audience led both speakers and attendees in a rousing version of the spiritual, “Hush, Somebody’s Callin’ My Name.”
Mumbach added that vocations to the priesthood and religious life show God’s radical generosity, and within that context, one can sense the drama of salvation unfolding.
She challenged Church leaders, including at the diocesan and parish level, to tap into the talents of young people and engage them more fully.
“It’s not that young people are not in the church, but that they are invisible,” she said.
Linda Duhon-LaCour, former director of Black Ministry for the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, and director of African American Ministry for the Diocese of Beaumont, Texas, moderated the session.
In 1984 when the 10 Black Catholic bishops in the United States wrote What We Have Seen and Heard, Bishop Steib served as an auxiliary bishop of St. Louis. Bishop Steib was among three of the original authors of that pastoral letter who played key roles at the National Black Catholic Congress XIII meeting July 20-23, 2023 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.
The other authors of What We Have Seen and Heard who participated in the 2023 National Black Catholic Congress included Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who gave the keynote address at the July 21 opening plenary session and was the main celebrant and homilist at the opening Mass later that day; and Bishop John Ricard, the superior general of his religious order, the Josephites, who formerly served as the bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, and was the homilist at the July 23 closing Mass for the congress.
When the pastoral letter was written, then-Bishop Gregory served as an auxiliary bishop of Chicago, and Bishop Ricard served as an auxiliary bishop of Baltimore.
Cardinal Gregory and Bishop Steib also participated in a Youth Town Hall at the congress on July 20.
