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John Paul's Papacy Had Resonance at Xavier

Photo credit: Xavier University Archive Department In 1987, Pope John Paul II addressed a Xavier University audience in the quadrangle behind the administration building.

By Shawn Chollette and Leslie D. Chustz

As world leaders laid Pope John Paul II to rest, students, faculty and administrators at Xavier University were celebrating the life of a man they say made a concerted effort to reach out to African American Catholics and to the Third World.

Danny C. Davis, a senior biology/pre-med major at Xavier, attended conferences in France and Italy as international relations and communications chairman for the National Catholic Student Coalition, which represents Catholic college students.

He said of John Paul II, "his visits to various Third World nations, that we as Catholics would have never paid attention to, are going to have rather immediate influence on [who] becomes the next pope."

"Of the 117 cardinals, 114 were chosen by Pope John Paul II. And in a steady shift away from the European tradition, many of them are from South America and Africa." One of his last deeds as pope was to say that not only white people are capable of leading the church's 1.3 billion patrons," said Davis, who is from New Orleans. "In a subtle way, he's put the Catholic Church in a position to have its first pope of color."

Xavier, the only historically black Catholic university in the United States, took center stage in 1987 when John Paul visited and became one of the first popes to directly address minorities within the church. In 2000, the pope fulfilled a longtime dream of many Xavierites by canonizing the founder of the university, Philadelphia-born philanthropist Katharine Drexel.

"I was a student here when the pope visited, and as a member of the university chorus, I was able to perform for him," said the Rev. Jeffery M. Ott, university chaplain.

"After the event was over, he complimented us on our singing, came over and shook all of our hands, and we couldn't talk," Ott said. "I don't think it was planned for [him] to come over and greet us, [but] that was the kind of the man he was. He was a person who tried to reach out to people, and across religions and nationalities and ethnic groups."

Scholars and theologians have said that John Paul, who died April 2 at 84, developed a strong sense of humanity that was influenced by growing up in Nazi-held Poland during World War II. Karol Jozef Wojtyla became the first non-Italian archbishop of Rome in four centuries, and left a legacy of embracing the church's far-flung and culturally different believers, they said.

Norman C. Francis, president of Xavier for the past three decades, said the 1987 visit was "meaningful and symbolic."

"Pope John Paul II had a very special concern for black Catholics all over the world and in particular, the United States," said Francis, who served on the Vatican's Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, which studies racism and prejudice within the church. There are 2 million black Catholics in America, and 210 million worldwide.

A year after the pope's visit, that commission released "The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society," a report condemning racism and prejudice as "offending and degrading the human family," and "a sin against God."

"This was reemphasized by his choice to come to Xavier University to give his talk on Catholic colleges," said Francis.

New Orleans is a city of roughly a half-million, including an estimated 200,000 Catholics, half of whom are black. During the pope's three-day visit to the city, he spoke to Catholic educators and addressed a delegation of 1,800 black Catholics from across the country.

During that address, he said, "The black community suffers a disproportionate share of economic deprivation. Far too many of your young people receive less than an equal opportunity for a quality education and for gainful employment."

"Catholics must struggle to correct these imbalances because the Church can never remain silent in the face of injustice," John Paul said.

Sister Jamie T. Phelps, a professor of theology and director of Xavier's Institute for Black Catholic Studies, the only one in the nation, said the pope's straightforwardness on such issues helped repair chasms between African Americans and the church.

"The Catholic faith was once referred to as 'a racist white institution'," said Phelps, who has a doctorate in systematic theology. But "to have the pope come here and tell Catholics in America to take us [African Americans] more seriously affirmed the struggle that we had been waging for years."

"Part of Pope John Paul II's success was being attentive to the needs of Catholic minorities in a way that was significant to them culturally," said Phelps, noting some Catholic churches' use of Negro spirituals and more contemporary styles of praise.

Phelps, who has published more than 50 scholarly articles on Catholicism, also noted that while the pope's visit to Xavier was important, he had been working on behalf of minorities within the church long before that event.

"Of the 268 active bishops he appointed for the United States, 18 were of African American ancestry," said Phelps. "And while that may not seem like many, [it is] once you take into consideration that [in the centuries prior to] John Paul II's papacy, the U.S. Catholic church had only appointed 22 bishops of color."

Xavier's Institute was created to prepare lay people, the religious and clergy for more effective ministry among African Americans and to foster new leadership, especially among black Catholic lay people.

Leslie D. Chustz is a senior mass communications student at Xavier University. Shawn Chollette is a senior journalism major at Louisiana Tech University.

Posted April 8, 2005