Pax Christi USA’s 20-year Anti-Racism Initiative

NOTE: This initiative began in 1999. Pax Christi USA is currently in a stage of evaluation and strategizing for next steps in the long journey toward becoming an authentically anti-racist organization.

Brothers and Sisters All is a 20-year initiative to trans­form Pax Christi USA into an anti-racist, multicultural Catholic peace and justice movement. Pax Christi USA seeks to embrace this new identity and do all its work from an anti-racist perspective, in the convic­tion that personal and systemic racism continues to perpetrate deep spiritual and social brokenness and endangers creation.

Pax Christi USA is committed to establishing strong, honest, caring relationships—both personal and in­stitutional—across racial lines in order that togeth­er, with the whole Body of Christ, we can transform structures and cultures of violence and domination. To accomplish this transformation, Pax Christi USA is committed to transforming its organizational struc­tures, policies, practices, and forms of decision-mak­ing to include participation of, and accountability to, people of color.

Because racism inflicts violence on people of color; because violence anywhere is injustice everywhere; and because injustice is a sin against humanity and against the God, who creates, redeems, and sanctifies us, racism is contrary to who we are called to be: brothers and sisters all.

As a sign of our long-term commitment to dismantle racism within our hearts our structures and our culture, Pax Christi approved the following 20-year vision for its Brothers and Sisters All Anti-Racism Initiative:

Grounded in our baptismal promise to resist all evil, and committed to denouncing the sin of racism, Pax Christi USA has made a preferential option to transform itself into an anti-racist, multi-cultural movement for peace with justice.

This transformation can only be accomplished with intentional relationships and full participation across cultural communities in our work through

  • Organizational structures that foster mutual respect and dialogue and which create accountability to people of color
  • Policies which affirm the dignity and utilize the talents of every person
  • Practices which hold multiple and at times conflicting perspectives in creative tension
  • Decision-making processes which depend on and incorporate the multi-cultural identity that is the Church, the Body of Christ.

We have chosen this identity in order to confront the persistent, destructive personal and systemic racism that perpetuates violence in our communities and result in deep spiritual and social brokenness.  We are confident that a spirituality of nonviolent anti-racism makes our transformative vision a reality.

THE PAX CHRISTI ANTI-RACISM TEAM

> Find an archive of articles by the Pax Christi Anti-Racism Team at this link.

At the same time, the Pax Christi National Council mandated and commissioned the formation of a multi-racial Pax Christi Anti-Racism Team (PCART) that has been trained to facilitate Pax Christi’s anti-racist transformation. In addition to its organizing work PCART members offer eight-hour introductory workshops for Pax Christi regions and parishes that:

  • Explores a faith-based understanding of anti-racism rooted in Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching
  • Introduces definitions of racism that will en­able Pax Christi USA and its members to disman­tle racism in their structures and culture
  • Presents a critical analysis of the “powers” of racism
  • Provides concrete ways to build an anti-racist, multicultural Catholic movement for peace with justice.

Please contact PCART at least three months in advance to schedule a workshop in your area. For more information about the workshops contact Johnny Zokovitch at jzokovitch@paxchristiusa.org. We also invite you to regularly visit the Pax Christi USA website for new resources and for the next invitation to apply for membership on PCART.

BACKGROUND RESOURCES