Journal
of Catholic Social Thought
Volume 3
Number 1
Winter - 2006
Affirming
Imago Dei: Implications of the Black Catholic Congress Movement’s
Reception of Rerum Novarum no. 32 for Moral Reasoning in
Suffering
Laurie
Cassidy
Trinity College
This paper addresses the moral
problem of simplistic attribution in suffering. In not accounting for multiple
causality this reasoning is individualistic and a substitute for critical
reflection, thus obfuscating issues of moral responsibility. Cassidy argues
that Black Catholics of the United States have utilized Catholic social teaching
in a way that not only contests simplistic attribution, but also offers a
constructive resource to critically investigate suffering. Documenting the
Black Catholic congress movement, this paper demonstrates how Rerum novarum
no. 32 became a guiding principle to judge and respond to the suffering of
racist oppression. This reception of Catholic social teaching highlights the
moral responsibility of realizing the telos of our radical sociality as
imago Dei in suffering. The experience of Black Catholics implies that
all Catholics must interrogate the cause and character of suffering or risk
subverting God’s image and likeness through cooperating in oppression.
