New commission invites personal encounter in work of racial healing
After prayer for healing and kneeling in silence for George Floyd at an event in Philadelphia June 9, 2020, Tori Reid from Christlike Church is the first young person of the group to offer hugs to Philadelphia police officers. (Photo by Sarah Webb)
By Matthew Gambino • Posted January 22, 2021
Last year as marches for racial justice proliferated across the United States in the wake of the killing of Black people – especially of George Floyd – by police, Catholics joined many other people of good will to address the injustice and seek racial healing.
The ongoing work “to build a beloved community,” in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., took a new step this week in the form of the Commission on Racial Healing in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which Archbishop Nelson Perez announced Jan. 18, King’s birthday.