“Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, plead for the widow._- Isaiah 1:17
Today, I join a delegation of PICO Network clergy and lay leaders who will engage in a week of listening, discussion and reflection with key Vatican leaders and advisors of Pope Francis. Without a doubt, this global religious leader has made a universal impact and appeal to the moral conscience of nations and the moral centers of humanity to care for and embrace the poor and marginalized around us.
Our friendship and ministry partnership, forged in the crucible of the Ferguson Uprising, has led us to travel to many communities, joining a chorus of clergy leaders and faith based networks, prophetically calling the systems of state violence and racial oppression into account. And the same blood that calls out to us from the streets of Ferguson, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Miami, Detroit and New Orleans is calling out to the largest religious institution in the world for a response.
We are going to compel this transcendent moral leader and Holy Father of the largest Christian denomination to join us in this holy endeavor: Affirming the dignity and imago dei of vulnerable and marginalized people of color, who are experiencing the effects of sinful principalities and powers through the evils of mass incarceration and state sponsored violence.
We are carrying with us the stories of wailing mothers, angry youth, terrorized fathers, exploited women, marginalized families and vulnerable communities. We are naming the sins of racial oppression made concrete through economic exploitation. We want to make visible the consequences of the looting of our neighborhoods by global financial institutions. We want to elevate the searing of our souls and minds through psychological and physical violence. And we want to welcome Pope Francis’ voice into the clarion call affirming black, brown and all the lives of the marginalized matter, by calling us all to see in one another’s faces our shared reflection of the Divine. We want to strengthen the public resolve and voice of the Catholic church to stand boldly and unitedly against the forces of institutionalized oppression and systemic racism which effaces the imago dei in all of us.
We come from many Christian denominations: Pentecostal, UCC, Baptist, Methodist, Non-Denominational. We are male and female. We are black. And we stand in a long tradition of prophetic preaching, organizing and justice ministry. This tradition has helped to inform one of the many theological influences of many Catholics known as liberation theology. This idea that Jesus is the ultimate and greatest liberator is not a tangential dogma for us. Nor is it a peripheral practice of Christian faith. We believe the work of justice is the result of faithful discipleship after the ways of Jesus.
As Pope Francis prepares for his trip to the United States this fall, we travel across the ocean to seed our prayers and hopes. We journey to offer our humble stories, knowing that we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the words of our testimonies. We stand at the intersection with many of our clergy and lay leaders from varied racial, classist and political background praying that we may see the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
This is why we are going. And we are bringing you all with us. May the God of all peace, power and grace guide our feet, open our ears, speak through our mouths and fill our hearts.
Pastor Traci Blackmon
Christ the King United Church of Christ
Ferguson/St. Louis, MO
