Origin Story
A Story of listening. A call for reimagining. A mandate to act.
Ways of the Gods, Carla Jay Harris, 2020
How It Began
In August 2023, FADICA released And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: A Report on U.S. Black Catholic Dreams Toward a Just Church, authored by Dr. David W. Robinson-Morris.
Grounded in listening to Black Catholic communities across the country, the report surfaced both urgent challenges and extraordinary hopes—calling for more than institutional change, but new ways of imagining. The findings revealed both persistent challenges and expansive possibilities pointing toward the need for a new way of understanding Black Catholic life.
The Call
The report recommended a different, forward looking initiative
centered on flourishing—one that would:
Reframe how Black Catholic life is understood
Elevate cultural and spiritual contributions
Inform institutional practice and philanthropic investment
Build a hub of resources and national network of leaders and collaborators
While anti-racism is a necessary and noble endeavor, and an active practice of identifying and eliminating racism by altering the systems, organizational structures, attitudes, policies, and practices so that power is redistributed and shared equitable—as practiced today, it is largely a non-Black centered endeavor.
“Conversely, Black flourishing and thriving requires a wholly different orientation to anti Black systemic racism, which decenters whiteness and relocates the center to margin where education, healing, understanding, joy, and love for beauty of Blackness can be celebrated without fear or surveillance.”
—And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (2023)
Our Response
The Black Catholic Flourishing Initiative is a response to that call. It is more than an initiative—it is a movement—a living process of reflection, inquiry, co-creation, and organizing that brings together scholars, clergy, religious, funders, and community practitioners.
This is Sankofa-in-action: retrieving what has always been present, in order to move forward with wisdom and purpose.
ANCHORED IN
Advancing interdisciplinary approaches to imagination, community, and transformation.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
