Let It Shine! by McGann Mary E.;Lumas Eva Marie;Harbor Ronald D.;

Author:McGann, Mary E.;Lumas, Eva Marie;Harbor, Ronald D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 2008-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Doctor Toinette Eugene: “Developing Black Catholic Belief: Catechesis as a Black Articulation of Faith”

Invited to speak to the 1978 symposium on catechesis in the African American community, Dr. Toinette Eugene11 challenged participants to name and reclaim the story of Black Catholics through the ministry of catechesis.12 While faith-formation rather than worship was her primary focus, she alluded several times throughout her presentation to the reciprocity between catechesis and liturgy.13 It is my contention that the agenda she spells out for Black catechesis finds a parallel in the aesthetic requirements of authentic and fully realized Black Catholic liturgy. Her work is pertinent to our task of constructing a liturgical aesthetic for several reasons: (1) she emphasizes that the formation of both the worshiping community and its ministers is essential to effective liturgy; (2) the spiritual heritage and quests that inform the content and methodology of the catechesis she envisions are likewise those that lead to authentic Black Catholic worship; and (3) her claim that a Black articulation of Catholic faith is essential for catechesis is instructive for constructing a lexicon of performative values for African American Catholic communities.

Eugene states categorically that Black catechesis must be rooted in Black experience—a contention, she argues passionately, that has not been the assumption of most of the Church’s leadership. She roots this perception in the centrality of the Word of God to the task of catechesis. The Word of God, she states, determines both the content and the form of catechesis—defining its content as a proclamation of events, not ideas or precepts; and underscoring its form as Revelation, that is, as Good News! Hence for African American people, “God’s revelation of [Godself] and the [Good News of the] redemptive mission of Jesus can only fully occur in the context in which Black people can perceive God’s presence and action in their lives,”14 that is, in their Black experience.

Eugene’s view of a catechesis articulated from the Black experience has several salient features: first of all, it “gathers an entire Christian community … in a participatory experience of deepening maturity in the faith,” while “utilizing and leaning upon God’s gracious Word and Presence … as revealed in the midst of Black struggle, survival, and success.” It seeks to build up the believing community as persons who “collectively profess the Lordship of Jesus Christ, … accept the liberating presence of God’s Holy Spirit,” and embrace the call to participate prophetically “in the transformation of the Church’s institutions and the renewal of all peoples.”15 This rich vision of catechesis, as described by Eugene, might well find a parallel in a vision of fully realized Catholic worship.

Key to Eugene’s vision is a call for the indigenization of catechesis in the Black Catholic community. Historically, African American Catholics have been denied all three dimensions of a true indigenization: that is, the establishment of a self-ministering, self-sustaining, and self-propagating faith community.16 Yet although racist and sexist exclusionary policies have historically denied many available and competent Black Catholic ministers a role in Church

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