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| November 21, 2008 |
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Counting soulsOffice of Black Catholics is conducting a census of African–Americans in every parish. Those who are too busy to participate after Mass, or who might have missed the census-takers at church, may do so by telephone. MIAMI | Coming soon to your parish — if they haven’t already been there — census-takers from the Archdiocese of Miami. But their mission is not merely to count numbers. It is also to count souls. “We want to help the pastors minister to their flock,” said Maria Jerkins, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Black Catholic Affairs. Her office’s 50th anniversary gift to the archdiocese is a census of those who identify themselves as black or African-American Catholics in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties. “We’ve been talking about it for five or six years. Now we’re ready to do it,” said Jerkins, who is working with a team of 70 black Catholics from south Florida who attended the10th National Black Catholic Congress last July in Buffalo, N.Y. This team, divided into five committees, is charged with implementing the goals of the congress, specifically its commitment to evangelizing African-Americans, in particular the unchurched, and improving their “spiritual, mental and physical conditions.” Jerkins and members of the implementation team have been visiting south Florida parishes since January and will continue doing so through the end of August. “Things are going very slowly,” said Prince Smith, who along with Wilhemina King leads the implementation team’s research and education committee. Help NeededThe Office of Black Catholic Affairs is recruiting young Catholics of all ethnic groups and races, ages 16 and older, to help with the census. They will be paid a stipend of $25 per weekend or receive community service hours. The team especially needs young people who speak Spanish and Creole. To volunteer or find out more, call 305-762-1120 or e-mail mjerkins@theadom.org. “We have to schedule the church (visit) two weeks in advance and most of them tell you they don’t want you to come at Easter or the weekend when they’re having their carnival — which is the best weekend for us because that’s when the people are there,” Smith said. He emphasized that the census imposes no additional burdens on priests. “All they need to do is to announce it,” said Smith, a member of Visitation Parish in North Miami and retired University of Miami psychiatry professor. King is a retired education professor from Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. Some pastors also tell team members not to bother coming because their church has no black parishioners. But Smith said Archbishop John C. Favalora “requested that we go to every church, every mission, every nursing home in the archdiocese. Even if we go there and there’s no black Catholic there, we have to have a record that we went to every parish.” The census form asks those who identify themselves as black — be that African-American, black African, black Hispanic, black West Indian or just plain black — to fill out a one-page information sheet that basically asks for a spiritual history. Among the questions: Do you consider yourself a Roman Catholic? And were you, along with your spouse and children, baptized, confirmed or married in the church, and have you received your first Communion? “We’re only after spiritual church stuff,” said Jerkins, seeking to allay the fears of those who may be undocumented. In addition to filling out the form, census team members take an actual head count of the black Catholics they see in each parish. “We’re also doing a full story about (the history of) black Catholics in the state of Florida,” said Smith, whose goal is to have both the history and the census report ready by Advent 2008. The last time black Catholics were counted in the archdiocese was in 1986, in preparation for the archdiocesan synod. That was not really a census, but a scientific survey based on a telephone poll. It found that less than 4 percent of Catholics in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties were black. But as with everything in south Florida, being “black” is more complicated than it seems. Many Haitians are black and Catholic but they do not identify as African-Americans, and their primary language is not English. The same is true of blacks who come from Cuba, Brazil or other parts of Latin America. People from Jamaica, Trinidad and the Bahamas also may not identify as African-Americans. For purposes of the census, black Catholics are defined as “individuals of African descent, regardless of place of birth or origin, who believe and practice the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.” Currently, the archdiocese has four historically and predominantly African-American parishes: Holy Redeemer in Liberty City, St. Francis Xavier in Overtown, St. George in Fort Lauderdale and St. Philip in Opa-Locka. It also has three Haitian missions — Notre Dame d’Haiti in Miami, Divine Mercy in Fort Lauderdale and St. Joseph in Pompano Beach — but Masses in Creole are celebrated in six other south Florida parishes, including St. Mary Cathedral. “The Archdiocese of Miami has the distinction of being one of the most diverse dioceses in the United States,” wrote Archbishop John C. Favalora in a letter announcing the census to pastors. “In keeping with the evangelical mission of the church, it is important we assess the pastoral needs of those whom we serve.” The information acquired through the census “will be available for use by the archdiocese and priests of individual parishes,” the archbishop said, noting that this type of census might prove useful with other cultural groups in the future.
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