The Provincial Leadership Team is committed to initiating a process of reflection and action within the Congregation of the Holy Spirit United States Province to address the issue of racial injustice within our Spiritan community and ministries. We seek to respond to the challenges we face in our local communities and our country during this time.
At a recent Provincial Council Planning meeting, the Provincial Leadership Team endorsed a proposal to develop a process to address
Our Spiritan Mission in the Context of Racism. The following are the three key elements of this initiative:
Provide opportunities for province members to listen and learn from each other through listening sessions. Members will be invited to share their personal experiences of living the reality of racial injustice both in the context of the U.S. and in the Province. The intent of the listening sessions is to provide a safe and supportive atmosphere for confreres to support each other on a personal level.
Provide opportunities for all province members to learn more about institutional racism within the Church and our country, including a virtual Town Hall program with a panel discussion addressing important topics related to the history and current reality of racism in our Spiritan communities, the Church, and within the United States. We seek to respond to our cultural reality and to continue the process of deepening our commitment as a province to “live our mission interculturally” as part of the Province’s ongoing commitment to embrace and celebrate the diversity represented in the Province as well as the pain and challenges we face. We affirm our priority to create and nurture communities of “radical welcome” where every member of the Province feels “at home.”
Reflect together on how our experience as an intercultural community enriches our Spiritan mission as we live it out in our local Spiritan communities, Spiritan parishes, and educational institutions. We encourage our professed and lay Spiritans throughout the Province to find creative ways to address together this critical issue of racism with the people we serve. These efforts may also include responding to our communities’ identified priorities and needs with effective educational and liturgical programs. We will continually update the Justice and Peace page of the province website, providing a variety of resources. We will develop a Spiritan response to promoting and advocating for racial justice in our Spiritan communities and local communities where we live, and in/with the ministries/ people we serve.
As Spiritans, we are deeply impacted by the social reality in which we live. We are called to respond concretely to the challenges we face and the people we serve. We have an important contribution to make through our Spiritan mission and charism.
Provincial Leadership Team: Fr. Bill Christy, C.S.Sp., Fr. Jeff Duaime, C.S.Sp., Dr. Anne Marie Witchger-Hansen, Fr. Mike Onwuemelie, C.S.Sp., Fr. Francis Tandoh, C.S.Sp., Fr. Martin Vu, C.S.Sp., and Fr. Dan Walsh, C.S.Sp.