Community members in Charlottesville, Va., held a vigil for Heather Heyer Aug. 16. She was killed Aug. 12 during a white supremacist protest over a plan to remove the statue of a Confederate general from a city park. Catholic leaders from around the country have since condemned white supremacist activities and the “evil of racism.”
By Marnie McAllister, Record Editor
You don’t have to be six feet tall to know that a six-foot-tall person has trouble walking through a five-foot doorway.
Annette Mandley-Turner, whose height hovers closer to five feet, uses this analogy to explain that white people can understand racism even if they don’t experience it.
“If you can listen to their stories, you can understand what they are living,” she said during an interview last week. “Once you understand, it calls for a different type of action.”
Mandley-Turner is the executive director of the Archdiocese of Louisville’s Office of Multicultural Ministry. She and Catholic leaders around the United States are calling on the faithful to stand up against racism, which was violently presented to the nation during white supremacist activities in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12.
“All of us must raise our voices in condemning,” she said. “We have to take a position. We also have to be in solidarity. It’s only through being in union — working with one another — that we’ll find a solution. As Catholics, we have work to do.”
Mandley-Turner’s comments echoed those of Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, who called on the Archdiocese of Louisville to take concrete action in response to racism.
Archbishop Kurtz issued a statement on the subject on Aug. 15, days after white supremacist protests in Charlottesville turned violent.
The deadly violence was carried out by a protester the same way ISIS and its sympathizers have created terror in Europe recently, by driving a car into a crowd of people. The crash left one counter protester, Heather Heyer, dead and at least 20 others injured.
The white supremacists were protesting the removal of a monument to a Confederate general.
The archbishop wrote in his statement, “I am deeply disturbed by the evil of racism that was again manifested in the tragic events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. I join with my brother bishops and political and religious leaders across our nation in condemning the actions of white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Neo-Nazi Party that are motivated by hate and seek to foment violence.”
He also said that he takes hope in his Christian faith.
“There is no justification for hate in the name of Jesus Christ. Every person is first and foremost a child of God. Every person has inherent human dignity. Love overcomes evil, and the gift of love comes from God, the Father of us all,” he said in the statement. Working to end such hate and restore peace, he said, will require that all people take “concrete actions.”
He called on each person “to consider what one step you can take, with God’s grace, to make our communities places where all people flourish.”
Mandley-Turner provided some suggestions.
“We have to teach (people) how to respond to this challenge that’s in front of us — in our schools, in our youth groups, in classes we are offering,” she said.
A little less than a year ago, she said, after a summer of racially charged upheaval, the Archdiocese of Louisville held a prayer service at St. Martin de Porres Church that drew a large crowd.
“We have to do more of that,” she said.
She also suggested that individual parishes and schools hold liturgies that highlight racism. Letting young people participate by writing the prayers of the faithful, for instance, will help them learn, she said.
“That’s how you engage young people. Even a first-grader can write something that says we don’t want to be in a racist environment,” she said.
Mandley-Turner also suggested learning from people who have experienced racism by inviting them to speak in parishes or in religion and history classes.
She noted that DeSales High School, whose student body has grown more diverse, recently invited her to advise the school on how to approach diversity and racism.
“I was really impressed by what I saw there,” she said.
Mandley-Turner also noted that parish committees can help combat racism.
“It’s not just the social concerns (committees) — family life, youth ministry, lifelong formation and education —all of the ministries” can get involved, she added.
Most importantly, Mandley-Turner added, it would help if people formed relationships across races, which will help foster understanding.
“What I hear from African Americans, it isn’t so much that people are looking for anyone to save them, but for people to understand what they really are going through.”
Parishes also may contact Turner to learn more about a program called “Moving Toward Oneness,” which addresses racism.
For more information, contact the Office of Multicultural Ministry at 502-636-0296.
