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May 16, 2019, Montgomery, Alabama – Eight representatives of the Adrian Dominican Congregation, along with a contingent from First Presbyterian Church in Tecumseh, Michigan, took a 15-hour bus ride to Montgomery, Alabama, to immerse themselves in the racist violence of the late 19th century to the civil rights efforts of the mid-20th century.

<< View a presentation about the trip at the bottom of this article. >>

The eight people representing the Adrian Dominican Sisters were Sisters Attracta Kelly, OP, Virginia (Ginny) King, OP, Carleen Maly, OP, Patricia McDonald, OP, Kathleen Nolan, OP, and Suzanne (Sue) Schreiber, OP; Associate Deb Carter; and Co-Worker Robyn Wellman, a nursing assistant. The First Presbyterian Church of Tecumseh had invited members of the Congregation to join them in the bus trip to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama.

“It really was like a religious experience every place we went,” said Sister Kathleen, Director of the Adrian Dominican Sisters Office of Peace, Justice and Integrity of Creation.  

Sister Attracta Kelly, OP, crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of the Bloody Sunday attack on Civil Rights marchers in 1965. Photo by Sister Suzanne Schreiber, OP

The April 26-28, 2019, tour included visits to the Selma Interpretive Center, the welcome center for the National Historic Trail: Selma to Montgomery, following the 54-mile route of the three civil rights marches that took place in 1965; the Edmund Pettus Bridge across the Alabama River in Selma, the site of the March 7 Bloody Sunday in which civil rights demonstrators were attacked by police; and the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the first church at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served. 

The group also visited the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Justice and Peace, which features about 800 monuments on which are engraved the names of the 4,400 people who were lynched in various counties in the South. Both the Museum and the Memorial were opened in April 2018 by Equal Justice Initiative, founded by attorney Bryan Stevenson, who focuses on “fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.”

Many of the participants were particularly moved by the display of coffin-sized monuments of the people who were lynched in each county. “The steel monuments for each county hung at eye level at first but progressively became higher and higher off the walking platform,” Sister Suzanne explained. “I felt the power of that design in space as we gradually walked under the steel panels that were lifted up, dramatizing the hangings.”

About 800 coffin-sized memorials, featuring the names of African Americans lynched in various counties in the South, are on display at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Photo by Sister Suzanne Schreiber, OP

Sister Kathleen said it was difficult to fathom. “You’re looking at thousands of people who lost their lives, whole families.” She added that the National Museum for Justice and Peace also has duplicates of each memorial so that the counties involved can take their monument home and memorialize the people who were killed there.

Sister Ginny was shocked by the lynching of entire families. “I had no idea they grouped families and children,” she said. She was also saddened by the reasons given for the lynchings: as harmless as walking too closely behind a white woman.

Deb was surprised by photos she saw in the Legacy Museum of white people celebrating at lynchings, and the famous photo of Hazel Bryan Massey, then about 15 years old, screaming in anger as Elizabeth Eckford, a black student, walked into the Little Rock School after the Court had ordered it to be integrated. 

Sister Attracta was also moved by the Legacy Museum and its history of racism in the United States – and the continuation of racism even today. “There’s a whole section on discrimination against people of color,” she said. But people of color “are still stopped and pulled over while driving with no reason other than their color. Young men are convicted of crimes and put in jail – and it goes on and on.” 

The Civil Rights efforts, especially the Selma to Montgomery Marches and the Edmund Pettus Bridge were also highlights for many participants. “Walking across the bridge brought back the experience of Bloody Sunday – just being in that environment,” Sister Ginny recalled.

Sister Carleen was moved by an encounter at a park across the bridge with Charles, an African American veteran of the Korean War who had been on the front line during one of the marches and been struck on the head by police. “Charles showed a huge scar on his head,” she recalled. “He was surprised at how much hatred there was.” Sister Carleen also recalled Charles’ sense of urgency about speaking to younger people, making sure that they are aware of the bigotry in our nation’s history.

Overall, the participants were overwhelmed by the intense experience, and all the more determined to work for a world in which hatred no longer exists. 

Sister Kathleen, who participated in the trip to Alabama after working with people seeking asylum in El Paso, Texas, drew connections between the bigotry and racial discrimination experienced in the South and continued instances of injustice and hatred. 

“I couldn’t get [the experience in El Paso] out of my head,” she said. “A group of people is being terrorized and victimized because of the color of their skin, because of where they’re from, because they’re different. ... You’re confronted with the sin of racism.”  

Sister Sue was inspired by the clear language used at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. “The words give us ways to think and talk about the horrors of that time, the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” For example, the National Memorial spoke of the discrimination as “reinforcement of racial dominance over political and economic resources.” 

This clear language “helps us feel the stories of terror, name the injustices, and work toward awareness,” Sister Sue said. “I want to be part of that process, and visiting the Memorial helps me to internalize our history and see how it has affected our current social climate.”

Feature photo (top): Sister Patricia McDonald, OP, explores an exhibit at the interpretive center of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Photo by Sister Suzanne Schreiber, OP


Representatives of the Adrian Dominican Sisters and their hosts, members of the First Presbyterian Church of Tecumseh, pose in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the first church at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served.

 

View the Presentation about the trip given by the pilgrims on June 26, 2019:

 


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May 31, 2017, Chicago – While the Catholic Church has not changed its dogma on homosexuality, Pope Francis has issued “an invitation to be more pastoral” to brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community.

That was the take of Sister Virginia “Ginny” King, OP, who attended the New Ways Ministry’s New Life Symposium. Held at the end of April in the Hilton Rosemont Chicago O’Hare Hotel, the symposium focused on “Justice and Mercy Shall Kiss: LGBT Catholics in the Age of Pope Francis.” New Ways Ministry, which focuses on ministry to the LGBT Catholic community, hosts the symposium once every five years.

Speakers included Lisa Fullham, Associate Professor at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, “Sexual Ethics and Same Sex Marriage”; Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, “The Catholic Church, Criminalization Laws, and the LGBT Experience in Uganda”; Leslie Griffin, Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, “Religious Liberty, Employment, and LGBT Issues”; and Father Bryan Massingale, Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Fordham University, on “Pope Francis, Social Ethics and LGBT People.”

Sister Ginny said she was particularly struck by Father Massingale’s talk. He pointed out that, while the Catholic Church teaches about the human dignity of homosexual persons, the Church also discourages them from acting on their inclinations. “In other words, we don’t condemn you for your homosexuality, but don’t tell anybody and you’re OK,” Sister Ginny said. “That denies people their rights.”  

Father Massingale encouraged the audience to look at people as humans, Sister Ginny said. “Everyone should have the right to live and to work and to pray where they are called to do these things,” she added. 

Sister Ginny also took away from the symposium the idea that, while Pope Francis has not changed the Church’s dogma or laws regarding homosexuality, he brought about “an invitation to be more pastoral” to people who so often hear negative and rejecting words about themselves. Pope Francis has shed a “pastoral light of appreciating people,” she said. 

Sister Ginny also sees the need for people to become more educated on issues of sexuality, including LGBTQ issues, and to have more open conversations about these topics.  For example, she said, New Ways Ministry sponsors a dialogue between lesbian women religious and people in the religious communities and in formation work. One such dialogue will be held in 2018. “These are opportunities for people to engage in these conversations,” she said.


 

 

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