Diocesan Resources
Racism and the Criminal Justice System - Spanish
Racism and the Criminal Justice System - Spanish
In the November 2018 Pastoral Letter Against Racism, Open Wide Our Hearts, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urge all Catholics to acknowledge “the scourge of racism” that still exists in our hearts, words, actions, and institutions. Racism is rooted in a failure to acknowledge the human dignity of people of a different race. Racism does not reflect the inner life of God—the Triune unity of three-in-one— that we are called to imitate. Racism manifests itself in sinful individual actions, which contribute to structures of sin that perpetuate division and inequality, as has been seen throughout our nation’s history and into the present. One such structure in need of conversion is the criminal justice system.