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.

Archbishop José Gomez’s speech on social justice movements displays a lack of understanding of Black Catholics and other groups too often at the margin of the church.

While American Catholics today would unequivocally condemn the institution of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, most do not see or work against one of its most prominent present-day manifestations: mass incarceration.