Pax Christi USA supports NETWORK’s invitation to pray for a national reparations study commission.
For more than a year, our friends at NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice have been engaged with legacy reparations organizations, civil rights groups, faith tables, and other coalition partners in the effort to get President Biden to create a reparations study commission.
There is an urgent need to issue the executive order now. If the reparations commission is to assemble and complete its work in the 18-month window prescribed in HR 40, it must start in the next few weeks. Otherwise, it could be abandoned if the next Administration does not agree that repair and redress is needed for the original sin of slavery – and the racial violence, abuse, and policy that came after it.
During Black History Month, NETWORK invites us all — justice-seekers, from all faiths, and those who claim no faith at all — to “level up” our advocacy with prayer.
Two ways you can do this:
1. Sign the pledge (https://www.mobilize.us/network/event/549632/) and invite others to sign. Once people sign up, they will receive an email with the prayer
2. NETWORK has a toolkit that includes a copy of the prayer and unbranded social media graphics, as well as sample language for social media posts so that you can simply invite your members and supporters to pray.
The Prayer
During this month dedicated to celebrating and honoring Black history, we pause to reflect on the sin of racism—the original sin of our country, whose effects have been perpetuated by systemic racism and inequality. We come together, believing the collective power of prayer and our growing consciousness, as we reflect on the myriad of ways our lives have been impacted by racist policies and beliefs. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “The time is always right to do the right thing.”
We pray:
Good and Gracious God,
We lament the lasting legacy of slavery and the many manifestations thereof, yielding racist policies and deep trauma that has continued for centuries since its ceremonial ending in the United States.
We commit ourselves to ongoing repair and redress of these sins.
We lament our complicity in allowing racist policies and practices to continue.
May we have the courage to disrupt and avert any system of inequity.
We affirm ourselves as members of one human family, believing that what affects one of us, affects all of us.
May we commit ourselves to seeing and hearing one another, and being our siblings’ caretaker.
We lament that HR 40 has been introduced in Congress for 34 years without a floor vote and, now,
We call on President Biden to establish, by Executive Order, the Commission to Study Reparations.
NOW is the time.
Amen.