General
What We Have Seen and Heard: A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization from the Black Bishops of the United States (1984)
What We Have Seen and Heard: A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization from the Black Bishops of the United States by Joseph L. Howze, Harold R. Perry, S.V.D., Eugene A. Marino, S.S.J., Joseph A. Francis, S.V.D., James P. Lyke, O.F.M., Emerson J. Moore, Moses B. Anderson, S.S.E., Wilton D. Gregory, J. Terry Steib, S.V.D., and John H. Ricard, S.S.J., Issued September 9, 1984, Feast of St. Peter Claver
We, the 10 Black bishops of the United States, chosen from among you to serve the People of God, are a significant sign among many other signs that the Black Catholic community in the American Church has now come of age. We write to you as brothers that "you may share life with us." We write also to all those who by their faith make up the People of God in the United States that "our joy may be complete." And what is this joy? It is that joy that the Ethiopian eunuch, the treasurer of the African queen, expressed in the Book of Acts when he was baptized by the deacon, Philip: He "went on his way rejoicing" (Acts 8:39). We rejoice because, like this African court official, we the descendants of Africans brought to these shores are now called to share our faith and to demonstrate our witness to our risen Lord.
We write to you, Black brothers and sisters, because each one of us is called to a special task. The Holy Spirit now calls us all to the work of evangelization. As he did for Peter, the Lord Jesus has prayed for us that our faith might not fail (Luke 22:32), and with Paul we are all compelled to confess: "Yet preaching the gospel is not the subject of a boast; I am under compulsion and have no choice. I am ruined if I do not preach it! (1Corinthians 9:16)
Evangelization is both a call and a response. It is the call of Jesus reverberating down the centuries: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15). The response is: "Conduct yourselves, then, in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ" (Philippians 1:27). Evangelization means not only preaching but witnessing; not only conversion but renewal; not only entry into the community but the building up of the community; not only hearing the Word but sharing it.