Papal Encyclicals and Pastoral Letters Addressing Racism

It is now possible to remove from most of the human race the curse of ignorance. A duty most

appropriate in our times, especially for Christians, is to work untiringly to the end that

fundamental economic and political decisions are taken, nationally and internationally, which

will ensure the recognition and implementation everywhere of everyone’s right to human and

civil culture in harmony with personal dignity, without distinction of race, sex, nation, religion,

or social circumstances.

or behavior systematically inspired by racialist prejudice. The members of mankind share the

same basic rights and duties, as well as the same supernatural destiny. Within a country which

belongs to each one, all should be equal before the law, find equal admittance to economic,

cultural, civic and social life and benefit from a fair sharing of the nation’s riches.

Octogesima Adveniens (“A Call to Action”), Pope Paul VI, 1971, #16.

Racism is a sin; a sin that divides the human family, blots out the image of God among specific

members of that family, and violates the fundamental human dignity of those called to be

children of the same Father. Racism is the sin that says some human beings are inherently

The structures of our society are subtly racist, for these structures reflect the values which society

upholds. They are geared to the success of the majority and the failure of the minority. Members

of both groups give unwitting approval by accepting things as they are. Perhaps no single

individual is to blame. The sinfulness is often anonymous but nonetheless real. The sin is social

in nature in that each of us, in varying degrees, is responsible. All of us in some measure are

accomplices. As our recent pastoral letter on moral values states: “The absence of personal fault

for an evil does not absolve one of all responsibility. We must seek to resist and undo injustices

we have not ceased, least we become bystanders who tacitly endorse evil and so share in guilt in

it.”

Brothers and Sisters to Us, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1979.

Let the Church proclaim to all that the sin of racism defiles the image of God and degrades the

sacred dignity of humankind which has been revealed by the mystery of the Incarnation. Let all

know that it is a terrible sin that mocks the cross of Christ and ridicules the Incarnation. For the

brother and sister of our Brother Jesus Christ are brother and sister to us.

Brothers and Sisters to Us, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1979.

Racism and economic oppression are distinct but interrelated forces which dehumanize our

society. Movement toward authentic justice demands a simultaneous attack on both evils.

The difficulties of these new times demand a new vision and a renewed courage to transform our

society and achieve justice for all. We must fight for the dual goals of racial and economic

justice with determination and creativity. There must be no turning back along the road of

justice, not sighing for bygone times of privilege, no nostalgia for simple solutions from another

age. For we are the children of the age to come, when the first shall be last and the last shall be

first, when blessed are they who serve Christ the Lord in all His brothers and sisters, especially

those who are poor and suffer injustice.

transformation, in our own minds and hearts as well as in the structure of our society.

Brothers and Sisters to Us, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1979.

Crude and blatant expression of racist sentiment, though they occasionally exist, are today

considered bad form. Yet racism itself persists in convert ways. Under the guise of other

motives, it is manifest in the tendency to stereotype and marginalize whole segments of the

population whose presence perceived as a threat. It is manifest also in the indifference that

replaces open hatred.

Many times the new face of racism is the computer print-out, the graph of profits and losses, the

pink slip, the nameless statistic. Today’s racism flourishes in the triumph of private concern over

public responsibility, individual success over social commitment, and personal fulfillment over

authentic compassion.

Brothers and Sisters to Us, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1979.

The legal system and the criminal justice system both work in a society which bears in its

psychological, social, and economic patterns the marks of racism. These marks remain long after

the demolition of segregation as a legal institution. The end result of all this is a situation in

which those condemned to die are nearly always poor and are disproportionately

are called to combat in many different ways. But it is a reasonable judgment that racist attitudes

and the social consequences of racism have some influence in determining who is sentenced to

Statement on Capital Punishment, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1980, #3.

our Catholic faith. By sharing we will enrich our community, our Church, and ourselves.

leadership within the Church is still racism. Blacks and other minorities are meagerly represented

recruitment lacks support. This subtle racism still festers within our Church as it does in society.

Some progress has been made, but much remains to do. This stain of racism, which is so alien to

the Spirit of Christ, is an opportunity to work for renewal through evangelization….The causes

of justice and social concern are an essential part of evangelization. To preach to the powerful

without denouncing oppression is to trivialize the Gospel. As Black people we must have

concern for those who hunger and thirst for justice throughout the world. We must not ignore

talents and our possessions with the forgotten ones of this world, we share Christ. This is the

John Paul II in turn reaffirmed: “Man’s creation by God `in his own image’ confers upon every

human person an eminent dignity; it also postulates the fundamental equality of all human

beings. For the Church, this equality, which is rooted in man’s being, acquires the dimension of

an altogether special brotherhood through the Incarnation of the Son of God…. In the

Redemption effected by Jesus Christ the Church sees a further basis of the rights and duties of

the human person. Hence every form of discrimination based on race…is absolutely

The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society, Pontifical Commission on

convergence among the various disciplines which reinforces the convictions of the majority of

people of good will and allows the drawing up of universal declarations, conventions and

international agreements for the protection of human rights, and the elimination of all forms of

racial discrimination. It is in this sense that Paul VI spoke about “an axiom of the highest human

Faith in the one God, Creator and Redeemer of all humankind made in his image and likeness,

any people in other than brotherly fashion, for all men are created in God’s image.”

The Church has therefore the vocation in the midst of the world to be the people redeemed and

reconciled with God and among themselves, forming “one body, one spirit in Christ,” and giving

witness before all to respect and love. “Every nation under heaven” was symbolically

represented in Jerusalem at Pentecost, the antitype and victory over the dispersion of Babel. As

Peter said, when he was called to the house of the pagan, Cornelius, “God has shown me that I

should not call any man common or unclean…. God shows no partiality….” The Church has the

sublime vocation of realizing, first of all within herself, the unity of humankind over and above

any ethnic, cultural, national, social or other divisions in order to signify precisely that such

divisions are now obsolete, having been abolished by the cross of Christ.

The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society, Pontifical Commission on

Justice and Peace, 1988, #22.

the Church. . .transcend the distinctions of race and nationality.” Within the Church “no

inequality arising from race or nationality, social condition or sex” should exist. This is indeed

the meaning of the word “Catholic”-i.e., universal, which is one of the marks of the Church. As

the Church spreads, this catholicity becomes more manifest.

The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society, Pontifical Commission on

Justice and Peace, 1988, #22.

Equality does not mean uniformity. It is important to recognize the diversity and

complementarity of one another’s cultural riches and moral qualities. Equality of treatment

therefore implies a certain recognition of differences which minorities themselves demand in

common good of society and the world community. No human group, however, can boast of

Doctrine and examples by themselves are not sufficient. The victims of racism, wherever they

may be, must be defended. Acts of discrimination among persons and peoples for racist or other

reasons-religious or ideological-and which lead to contempt and to the phenomena of exclusion,

must be denounced and brought to light without hesitation and strongly rejected in order to

promote equitable behavior, legislative dispositions and social structures.

The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society, Pontifical Commission on

Justice and Peace, 1988, #26.

Racism will disappear from legal texts only when it dies in people’s hearts. However, there must

groups. It is important for ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities who live within the borders of

the same State, to enjoy recognition of the same inalienable rights as other citizens, including the

right to live together according to their specific cultural and religious characteristics. Their

choice to be integrated into the surrounding culture must be a free one.

The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society, Pontifical Commission on

Justice and Peace, 1988, #29.

The 1965 U.N. Convention expressed this conviction forcefully: “Any doctrine of superiority

based on the difference between races is scientifically false, morally condemnable and socially

unjust and dangerous.” The Church’s doctrine affirms it with no less vigor: all racist theories are

human dignity, racism still exists and continually reappears in different forms. It is a wound in

The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it:

Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of

sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as

incompatible with God’s design.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Vatican, 1992, #1935.

Access to employment and to professions must be open to all without unjust discrimination: men

to circumstances, help citizens find work and employment.”

but sadly that has not always been the case in practice nor has it been so in history. In this regard,

the name of the Church, so that the Church’s memory might be purified from all “forms of

counter-witness and scandal” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Tertio millennio adveniente, n. 33)

which have taken place in the past millennium (cf. International Theological Commission,

Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past.)).

Contributions to World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia

and Related Intolerance, Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace, 2001, #6.

The international community is aware that the roots of racism, discrimination and intolerance are

found in prejudice and ignorance, which are first of all the fruits of sin, but also of faulty and

inadequate education (cf. CR, Part IV, n. 28). To take a main theme of the Durban Conference,

the role of education, understood as a “good practice to be promoted” in the struggle against

these evils, is fundamental. In this regard too, the Catholic Church recalls her very extensive

active role “on the ground”, in educating and instructing young people of every confession and

on every continent through many centuries.

and Related Intolerance, Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace, 2001, #13.

Quoting from the Bishops of Asia: “Harmony is not simply the absence of strife. . . . The test of

Asian and Pacific Presence: Harmony in Faith, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

(USCCB) Committee on Migration, 2001, III.

based on the assumption of racial superiority. Such attitudes and actions violate the rights and

dignity of other people because of race. A second type of racism is institutional or structural.

In God’s Image: Pastoral Letter on Racism, Archbishop Harry Flynn of Archdiocese of St.

Paul and Minneapolis, 2003, #5 & 6.

Racism is a serious offense against God precisely because it violates the innate dignity of the

human person. At its core racism is a failure to love our neighbor. Since we cannot claim to love

God unless we love our neighbor, we can only be one with God if we reject racism and work

aggressively to remove it from our personal lives, our church, and our society.

In God’s Image: Pastoral Letter on Racism, Archbishop Harry Flynn of Archdiocese of St.

Paul and Minneapolis, 2003, #30.

has my skin color enhanced my life or hindered me, helped or prevented me from understanding

(Reviving the Common Good, 1991)