Catholics should be prison abolitionists
Efran Menny reflects on the call of transformative justice, and the need for Catholics to treat seriously the prospect of prison abolition.
Longform
Opinion: Masks off at US Catholic bishops' meeting in Baltimore
The USCCB's annual fall assembly in Baltimore was a roller coaster of messaging from brazenly anti-Francis to performatively aligned, Nate Tinner-Williams opines.
Bishop Edward Braxton's keynote for National Association of Black Catholic Administrators' annual meeting
Transcript from a retired Black Catholic bishop's address to the nation's Black Catholic diocesan officials and other leaders earlier this fall in Texas.
US Catholic bishops' 1968 statement on the 'National Race Crisis'
A 54-year-old statement from the nation's Catholic prelates on racism, protest, and social action reveals perspectives that may surprise some—and galvanize others.
A tribute to 'Old Gilbert', a founding Knight of Peter Claver
Historian Jari C. Honora fetes Gilbert Faustina, the first Supreme Knight of the nation's premier Black Catholic fraternal order.
Reflection: Dr. Shawnee Daniels-Sykes, pioneer of Black Catholic womanist ethics, dead at 61
The nation's only Black Catholic female bioethicist has died at the age of 61 following a battle with pancreatic cancer. Nate Tinner-Williams reflects.
Reflection: Remembering St. Anthony's Mission House, a 1920s integrated US Catholic seminary
The first integrated Catholic seminary in 20th-century America is not well known, but that's what Black Catholic History Month is for. Read on.
August Wilson, the Catholic
Remembering one of the nation's greatest playwrights, not just in the frame of his well-known works, but also the undying specter of religion.
Review: 'Afro-Atlantic Catholics' is the Black history of the Americas, remixed
A new book on Black Catholics in the Americas traces Church history in colonial West Africa through the slave trade and its peculiar influence on African-American Christianity.
Ahead of two Jazz Masses Sunday in Detroit, an explainer on America's most unique Catholic liturgical form
Nate Tinner-Williams dives into the history of Jazz Mass in the Church, a phenomenon dating back to the 1950s and the beginnings of bona-fide Black Catholic liturgy.
Opinion: Stay awake, Bishop Barron
Gunnar Gundersen dissects a new interview by Bishop Robert Barron of actor Shia LaBeouf, a recent Catholic convert alleged to have abused multiple ex-girlfriends.
The former slaveholder who founded a convent and became a Black ministry pioneer
The founder of Texas' first women's religious order died 115 years ago Thursday. Nate Tinner-Williams explores her shocking life story.
Opinion: The sainthood process doesn’t work for US Blacks because they don’t see us
Ralph Moore Jr., a member of the group behind a letter-writing campaign to canonize the six African Americans to sainthood, makes his case for hagiological inclusion.
Reflection: Tupac’s wisdom challenges the culture
Efran Menny discusses how a popular song from one of the greatest rappers of all time fits into the narrative of Black liberation and intracommunity uplift.
A tweet in time: Black Catholics in the age of liturgical shaming
A Black parish in Mobile was the subject of online controversy after posting a video of a parishioner dancing at Mass. Nate Tinner-Williams explains.
Opinion: Purgatory is a roomful of people arguing about the Latin Mass for a thousand years.
Stephen Staten dissects the controversy surrounding the Latin Mass as bishops worldwide give their final decisions on its fate in their jurisdictions.