SOCIAL FAITH task force: learn, dialogue, educate, act

This is a new ministry at Sacred Heart created on June 2020. In view of the recent events showing the racial fracture in our society, Sacred Heart is starting a group that will learn, dialogue, educate, and act in the area of social issues and Catholic Social Teaching. Anybody can be part of this group, but there will be certain standards—an ability to complete the learning tasks, a willingness do dialogue, an ability to educate others, and a desire to act on behalf of our parish. As we continue navigating the CoVID pandemic, part of the work of this group will be initially done virtually. If you are willing to be part of this group, you can register here.  

LEARNING STEP #1: "white fragility"

We start by educating ourselves. We are asking members of the group to read the book "White Fragility" by Robin Diangelo, and to watch or re-watch Fr. Bryan Massingale's video. Our first dialogue meeting by Zoom will be on Friday, June 26 at 7:30 PM.  In the first meeting, besides logistics, we decided on a methodology. For meeting #2 the members of the group will have read White Fragility, and will select two main ideas they take from the book. One of the goals will be to produce a one page, bullet-point summary of the book for general parish access. We will also bring to the meeting our own thoughts on what we learned about ourselves in reading it, as well as our testimony of how do we reflect about our own ethnic/cultural experience. 

LEARNING STEP #2: "THE NEW JIM CROW"

Race experts tell us that once slavery was eliminated, our society started a systemic process of black incarceration. In addition to the book, we will watch the documentary "13th" We will look at that systemic process in our own city (Racine, Milwaukee.)