When it comes to social justice issues, “the church can show up as moral first responders or as funeral directors,” says Cornell Brooks.

Dana Sweeney joins “The Gloria Purvis Podcast” this week to discuss mass incarceration, economic and racial justice and government accountability in Alabama.

It is not enough to issue occasional condemnations of racism. The U.S. church must invest in Black Catholic churches and schools, as well as diocesan offices for Black parishioners.

Catholicism was the established religion of colonial Haiti, the site of one of the largest populations of enslaved peoples in the Americas.

Bishop Robert J. McManus of Worcester, Mass., stripped the “Catholic” moniker from a Jesuit-run school over its decision to continue flying flags supporting L.G.B.T. pride and Black Lives Matter.

This week on “The Gloria Purvis Podcast,” Gloria talks to Natalie Wilson, the co-founder of a nonprofit dedicated to searching for missing people of color when police and the media fall short.