Bishop Edward Braxton discusses "The Racial Divide in the U.S."

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Event Details

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

8:00 pm - 8:00 pm

John Carroll University welcomes the Most Reverend Edward K. Braxton, Ph.D., S.T.D., Bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois. “The Catholic Church and the Black Lives Matter Movement: The Racial Divide Revisited” Thursday, January 19 7:30 p.m. Dolan Science Center (Donahue Auditorium) This event is free and open to the public. What is the position of the Catholic Church concerning the Black Lives Matter Movement? How should Catholics and other people of faith respond? Join Bishop Braxton for a lecture and discussion about contemporary race relations in the United States and their relevance in the life of the American Catholic Church. The Bishop’s address will examine key elements contributing to the racial divide in the United States and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter Movement from the perspective of the Catholic Church. He will explore the reasons why only a small number of African-Americans are Catholics (2.9 million out of nearly 70 million American Catholics), the “all lives matter” vs. “Black lives matter” debate, the negative impact of “minority,” ”minority group” language, conflicts over issues of morality, and the impact Catholic social doctrine and the Good News of Jesus Christ should have on the racial divide. The Bishop was invited to the campus of the Jesuit University by the Reverend Robert L. Niehoff, S.J., President of the University, to commemorate the 88th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the 50th anniversary of the election of Mr. Carl Stokes, the first African-American mayor of a major American city. Bishop Braxton ministered for several years in the Diocese of Cleveland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was the Special Assistant for Theological Affairs to the late James Cardinal Hickey, when he was Bishop of Cleveland, serving as the Bishop’s personal theologian and research assistant. During that time, he was also a member of the faculty of theology at St. Mary Seminary and he was a regular celebrant and homilist for weekend Masses at St. Angela Merici Parish in Fairview Park, Ohio. The Office for University Mission and Identity, the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion, and Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion are sponsoring this lecture.

This event is presented as a part of the 2017 Stokes: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future yearlong, community-wide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Carl Stokes’ election as mayor of Cleveland. JCU joins over 60 Cleveland-area participants on this project. For more information about this and other events in the Stokes Commemoration project, see stokes50cle.com.