Catholics should be more intersectional, Fordham professor claims
A Fordham professor recently addressed the Pax Christi USA conference and used his speech to discuss 'White supremacy' and intersectionality 'in both theory and practice.'
The professor has authored multiple publications on racial justice as it pertains to the field of religion.
Father Bryan Massingale, a professor of theology at Fordham University, recently told a crowd at a Catholic event that White nationalism is the “greatest threat to peace in our time, both nationally and even internationally.”
Massingale made thsoe remarks at the Pax Christi USA conference, where he recalled telling the organization in 2013 that if they wanted to maintain relevance, then they would need to, “be more intersectional in both theory and practice. Peace, I declared, could no longer be a stand-alone issue.”
“To remain relevant and on the frontier of the Catholic movement of peacemaking and justice, you must perceived as not only anti-war and pro non-violence,” he said. “You must also make explicit linkages between peacemaking, consumerism, racism, and ecological justice. And you have to be LGBTQ inclusive.”
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“White nationalism is the existential and visceral conviction that this country – it’s public spaces, its history, its culture – belong to white people in a way they do not belong to others.” he claimed to the Catholic conference.
He then tied these comments to the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “The brutal mob violence of Jan. 6 was a clear declaration that many white Americans would rather live in a White dictatorship than in a multiracial democracy. If that democracy means sharing power with people of color, especially Black people, they want no part of it.”
He added, “White nationalism is a threat to global health and stability, through its irresponsible and reckless denigration of mask wearing and vaccination in the face of the greatest health crisis to afflict humankind in over a century.”
“Genuine peace, the goal, dream, and passion of Pax Christi – is impossible without a cultural revolution so profound and far-reaching it is almost impossible to imagine – and perhaps terrifying to envision.”
Massingale has a long history of speaking out on racial and social justice.
In 2010 he published the book “Racial Justice and the Catholic Church,” in which he explores the ways in which Catholic teaching has been used to, “promote reconciliation and justice.”
On Nov 2017, he gave a speech denouncing White supremacy at the Ignatian Family Teach in For Justice.
On Dec 2019, during his course on African American religious ethics, he asked the class, “What have religious ethicists said about Black love?” He then continued, “White supremacy impacts the way we love.”
In a 2020 interview with The Revealer, Massingale claimed that many bishops struggle with understanding racial issues. He said, “On some level, they do not want to articulate that they live in a world that privileges white lives because if they face reality, then they are called to change. I think that’s something people don’t want to do.”
Campus Reform reached out to Fordham and Massingale for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.
