The Catholic church shut its doors on Black Americans. But we can still be made new.

Chris Smith is the only African-American Jesuit in formation in the United States. But he comes from a multi-racial family and recently wrote an article for America, My white mom’s marriage to a Black man outraged my grandma. But she learned to love us.

Smith joins the Gloria Purvis Podcast to talk about his family’s legacy of love, racism, reconciliation and healing. They also discuss how the Catholic church actively shut the doors on African Americans in America and how this can be traced in his own paternal family line. 

Although he’s witnessed plenty of generational racism, Smith testifies to the goodness of people, even when you can’t see it. It’s what he has witnessed in his own family and among the mostly older, white Catholics who welcomed him as a child into the faith. And it’s what leads him to the conviction that, “God can change any heart with love” and that we, the faithful, have to “let people be new” or evolve in their spiritual journeys. 

Looking for a spiritual practice to help you see people anew? Smith says that you have to step out of your comfort zone. He regularly attends mass at a Ukrainian Greek Catholic church, although it bears little familiarity to his own incultured celebration of the faith. It’s there that he is challenged to appreciate the variety in the church and the possibility for us all to see things differently. 

“If you are a liberal person and you can't stand traditional people on the internet” Smith urges, “go to a traditional parish [...] you’re going to find saints there.” 

Related links:

My white mom’s marriage to a Black man outraged my grandma. But she learned to love us.

For a Church That is Unafraid to Welcome Black People

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