From Fr Michael Blackman
Sir,
I found it ironic that you mentioned the treatment meted out to BAME people and the Windrush generation in your editorial (July/August edition) as you extolled the virtue of hope in response to the challenges arising from the Coronavirus pandemic. But the reality has been that the Church of England was toxic for BAME people and the Windrush generation long before Covid-19. And nothing has changed. Our own catholic constituency has been part of the miasma of discrimination and deceit.
`One question that should be addressed is the absence of vocations of BAME candidates from our constituency. What has been done to foster, nourish and sustain vocations? Another would be; to what extent has mature lay leadership been encouraged? At the last National Assembly (November 2019) in a congregation of over three hundred there were only two of Afro-Caribbean heritage present. Hardly a manifestation of catholic diversity. To identify a wrong is admirable yet it is more noble to have the will and desire to redeem the injury. The letter of St James reminds us that ‘For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead’.
The Revered Michael Blackman
New Malden, Surrey, KT3