
<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Witness of African-American Catholics in the Americas*</h2>
<h3>Africana Catholicism</h3>
<ul><li>
<p>Embraces both the Continental African Experience and that of the Black Diaspora</p>
</li><li>
<p>Sustained contact with Africana experience begins in the 15th century</p>
</li><li>
<p>In the Americas, Black Catholic Spirituality has traditionally had two foci</p>
</li>
<ul><li>
<p>Evangelism</p>
</li><li>
<p>Elimination of racism</p>
</li></ul>
<li>
<p>Afro-Catholic Spirituality shares a commitment to preserve the historic deposit of Catholic faith while embracing certain values that are at the heart of the Black Experience</p>
</li></ul>
<h3>Black Catholic Spirituality - Key Features (from the 1984 Pastoral Letter from U.S. Black Bishops - What We Have Seen and Heard<br /></h3>
<ul><li>
<p>Contemplation</p>
</li><li>
<p>Holism</p>
</li><li>
<p>Joyfulness</p>
</li><li>
<p>Communitarianism</p>
</li></ul>
<h3>Africana Catholicism in the U.S. -- 2004 Statistical Profile<br /></h3>
<ul><li>
<p>14 Bishops</p>
</li><li>
<p>250 Priests</p>
</li><li>
<p>400 Deacons</p>
</li><li>
<p>500 Sisters</p>
</li><li>
<p>4% (2.4 million) of the 62,000,000 Roman Catholics in the U.S.</p>
</li></ul>
<h3>Significant Religious Orders</h3>
<p>Society of St. Joseph (1871)&nbsp;</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.josephite.com/vocations/">http://www.josephite.com/vocations/</a></li></ul>
<p>Oblate Sisters of Providence (1829)&nbsp;</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://oblatesisters.com/">http://oblatesisters.com/</a></li></ul>
<p>Sisters of the Holy Family (1840s)&nbsp;</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.cmswr.org/member_communities/SHF.htm">http://www.cmswr.org/member_communities/SHF.htm</a></li></ul>
<p>Handmaids of Mary (1916)&nbsp;</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://members.aol.com/fhmnyc/index.htm">http://members.aol.com/fhmnyc/index.htm</a></li></ul>
<p>More Information at Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark: Office of Black Catholic Affairs at <a href="http://www.rcan.org/bca/index.htm">http://www.rcan.org/bca/index.htm</a></p>
<h3>Black Catholic Educational Institutions<br /></h3>
<p>Xavier University, New Orleans, LA (1925)</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.xula.edu/">http://www.xula.edu/</a>&nbsp;</li></ul>
<p>Research &amp; Teaching Initiatives - Institute for Black Catholic Studies (1969)</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.xula.edu/IBCS/">http://www.xula.edu/IBCS/</a></li></ul>
<p>Black Catholic Theological Symposium (1978)</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.bcts.org/about_bcts.htm">http://www.bcts.org/about_bcts.htm</a></li></ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>*Information here was taken from the following articles in the Winter 2004 edition of In All Things: A Jesuit Journal of the Social Apostolate - "What Black Catholics Have Offered the Church" by Cyprian Davis (1-3); "Uncommon Faithfulness: The Witness of African American Catholics" by the Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory (4-6); "The Black Catholic Population Today" by Beverly Carroll and James Cavendish (7-8); "Ignatian and African American Spiritualities: Shifting Paradigms" by Allan Figueroa Deck (12-13); "A Tradition of Evangelization" by Cyprian Davis (14-15); "Oblate Sisters of Providence - 175 Years Young" by M. Reginald Gerdes (15); and "Another of the Best Kept Secrets of the Catholic Church in the United States: Xavier University of Louisiana's Institute for Black Catholic Studies" by Shawn Copeland (Winter 2004 Online Supplement, 1-2). The brief selection from Stephen J. Ochs' Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Priests, 1871-1960 (Louisiana State University Press, 1990) was also consulted (14).</p>
