I am very grateful to everyone who posted comments and raised questions about my exchange with the woman whose grandparents were ostracized from the very parish into which her local parish was to merge. As I mentioned, the conversation was life changing for me because it painfully illustrated the deep wounds created by institutional racism, even in the life of our Church.
A number of people have asked about the “ending of the story”. Did the parish close and did this wonderful woman have to go to the new parish? The answer is yes and no. More specifically, the merger of the two parishes did move forward but the local church remained open as a worship site of the new, larger parish. Soon after this arrangement was finalized, I was appointed as bishop here in Bridgeport.
Continuing my reflection on the incident, there is another spiritual lesson that I have come to appreciate with greater clarity. It is the inescapable legacy of our decisions, whether for good or evil. While we usually do not consider the long term consequences of our actions, we can see clearly that our decisions can have long term consequences upon the lives of those around us. For example, whoever it was that told this woman’s grandparents that they “did not belong” because of the color of their skin, I wonder if they had any idea of the hurt that their sin would have both on the persons that were standing before him but also on generations to come? The words took just a few seconds to say and the hurt lasted for many, many years.
When we make sinful decisions, we are responsible not only for the immediate effects of our actions but also their long term consequences. Perhaps we need to start reflecting upon this spiritual reality when we are tempted to easily excuse ourselves when we sin. For while we may wish to convince ourselves to believe that our sins do not create long term damage, but in fact they do. And when we stand before God, we will have nowhere to hide when we will be rightly held responsible for those consequences.
The previous reflection originally appeared on Bishop Frank Caggiano’s Facebook page. Follow the Bishop for daily reflections and weekly homilies.
