This presentation will (1) identify four core myths about the U.S. Catholic Church and its foundational relationship to the African American community as it relates to the transatlantic slave trade, slavery, segregation, and the long African American freedom struggle and (2) demonstrate why historical truth telling about the Black Catholic experience must inform and guide any Catholic interrogation of white supremacy and reparation project. This presentation will also focus on the moral necessity of Black Catholic historical truth telling in religious formation programs, paying particular attention to the history of slaveholding among religious orders of men and women and the largely unreconciled history of anti-Black exclusion and segregation within religious life
