Catholics Working on Their Oppressor Roles
I want to tell you about two Catholic groups that met at recent workshops.
The first was at the South, Central, and West Asian Women’s Workshop held last March in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, led by Azi Khalili, the International Liberation Reference Person for South, Central, and West Asian-Heritage People.
Many religious heritages were represented at the workshop. I can’t name them all, but some of them were Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Bahai, Jewish, and Christian. Azi always reminds us that many of the world’s major religions began in our parts of the world. Some have been “appropriated” by Europeans; and religious leaders, like Jesus, have been depicted as white people.
We broke into groups based on religious heritage, and I led the Christians—both Catholics and Protestants. Protestants have ancient roots in India, and Catholics in West Asia. Our group was in the oppressor role at this workshop.
We talked about our family backgrounds and what we liked about our religions and peoples. Then we discharged on how we’d been taught that our religions were superior to others.
In Egypt, where my dad’s Catholic family lived, Catholics were the agents of the French colonizers, and the French and British singled them out for better education and jobs. They spoke mostly French, even at home, and considered themselves more sophisticated than their Muslim brothers and sisters. When my family came to the United States, they told people that they were French Lebanese, not Syrian or Arab (my grandparents’ heritages). Lebanese Christians (almost all Catholics) were seen as more ready to assimilate into the dominant U.S. culture. They still experienced racism, but it wasn’t as harsh as that directed at Muslim Arabs.
In April I went to an Allies to Jews Workshop, near Seattle, Washington, USA, led by Dorann van Heeswijk. At one point the Catholics met together, led by Tibor Bessko. Tibor talked about the messages about Jews we had received at church and in our homes and how the historic oppression of Jews by Catholics is vicious and we need to work on it—both for ourselves and as allies to Jews. We all had big sessions.
Thank you, Joanne [Joanne Bray, the International Liberation Reference Person for Catholics], for encouraging us Catholics over these many years to look at our oppressor distress. Thanks to everyone who is doing this important work!
Seattle, Washington, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of Catholics
(Present Time 192, July 2018)