Black Bishops Ignoring Racism in Church, Dissident Priest Says

In his first formal response to the Roman Catholic hierarchy since he was suspended, renegade black priest George A. Stallings Jr. issued a letter Friday to the nation’s 13 black bishops denying that he is separating from the church and castigating them for ignoring its “long and depressing history of racism, discrimination and prejudice.”

“I did not depart from the church nor its mission or mandates,” Stallings wrote in the eight-page letter, a copy of which was given to The Times. “Rather, the church abandoned its zeal and energies in pursuit of justice and the transformation of our society.”

Stallings, 41, has attracted national attention since he defied the orders of Washington’s Cardinal James Hickey and the wishes of the black bishops by launching his independent Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation here on July 2. The next day, Hickey suspended Stallings’ right to serve as a priest.

The revolt has since broadened into a debate over racism in the church and Stallings--who has been drawing crowds of several thousand to his Sunday services at a suburban Washington high school auditorium--appears eager to use the clash to confront the largely white church leadership.

Comparing himself to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s when the black leader was criticized by white clergymen, Stallings recited a litany of civil-rights concerns.

“What we want,” Stallings said in the letter, “is the right . . . to determine who we are and what we are. No persons, institutions or structures will determine that for us.”

Stallings also criticized Hickey, who is chancellor of the Catholic University of America here, for “blatant exclusion” of blacks at the school. Fewer than 20 African-American students will be in the freshman class of 1,000 this fall, Stallings said, and only 10 of the 350 faculty members are black.

Few black priests so far have been willing to publicly support Stallings’ decision to form the new congregation, where the rhythm of African drums, foot-stomping Gospel music, black-style “power preaching” and prayers invoking departed ancestors are the rule on Sunday mornings.

And the black bishops, although applauding Stallings’ attack on racism, had denounced his unauthorized liturgy and temple as being “precipitous” and “ill-advised.”

But in his response Friday, Stallings declared: “You know as well as I do that African-American Catholics have waited far too long for the church to take seriously our demands for full inclusion in its work, witness, spirituality and strength.”

Auxiliary Bishop John H. Ricard of Baltimore, to whom Stallings addressed the letter to the black bishops, could not be immediately reached for comment.