What does the Church teach about race and racial justice?

• Consider the sin of racial injustice within and outside the Church.  Hear our U.S. bishops' call to conversion and action in Open Wide Our Hearts, A Pastoral Letter Against Racism.  Read the Letter in English or Spanish.  Use the study guide, available in English or Spanish.
• “Racism is not merely one sin among many; it is a radical evil that divides the human family and denies the new creation of a redeemed world. To struggle against it demands an equally radical transformation, in our own minds and hearts as well as in the structure of our society.”  Brothers and Sisters to Us - US Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Racism, 1979.  Read the Pastoral Letter.
• “'You must now give your gifts of Blackness to the whole Church.' What We Have Seen and Heard, a Pastoral Letter on Evangelization from the Black Bishops of the United States, 1984, quoting St. Paul VI to African Bishops in Uganda, 1969. “We believe that these solemn words of our Holy Father Paul VI were addressed not only to Africans today but also to us, the children of the Africans of yesterday.  We believe that the Holy Father has laid a challenge before us to share the gift our Blackness with the Church in the United States.”  What We Have Seen and Heard.  Read the Letter in English or Spanish.