‘Black Catholics’ course reveals great need for discourse

Time is running out for African-American Catholicism, a popular course in the department of sociology, taught by Tia Pratt, Ph.D., a visiting instructor in her third year at Saint Joseph’s University.

Visiting instructor positions at St. Joe’s are temporary and generally end after three years. Pratt is expected to leave at the end of this semester, but she is allowed to continue for just one more year.

That means one more year for one of the few courses at the university that delves specifically into the intersection between African Americans and Catholicism and the only sociology course that focuses on both race and religion.

“There are not many people in sociology that bring race and religion together the way that I do, so there’s that aspect of it,” Pratt said. “Also, there’s still this myth that ‘there aren’t many Black Catholics, so why bother?’ My work tries to challenge that.”

Covering topics from Jesuit slaveholding to African American women, Pratt’s course, which she created, has been taught every spring semester for the past three years. It’s taken by Catholic and non-Catholic students alike and attracts students from across the university.

“It’s been very, very successful,” said Kim Logio, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the sociology department. “It’s been helpful to all of our students, not just our students of color, but all of them.”

Logio said that the course’s importance cannot be overstated, especially in light of the fact that the class is touching on issues that many students either don’t know enough about or have never been made aware.

Prior to Pratt’s first African-American Catholicism course in the spring 2015 semester, the sociology department once offered a far broader course on the sociological aspects of religion, Logio said.

“Years ago, we used to have a generic sociology of religion course, which talked much more about religion as a social institution,” Logio said. “It talked about how religion is yet another socializing agent, how we learn about ourselves and our identity in our interaction with society through religion, but it was much more broad. There was nothing like what Dr. Pratt’s teaching.”

In African-American Catholicism, Pratt focuses specifically on how topics like slavery and racism connect to the history of St. Joe’s as well.

“That history needs to be addressed, needs to be acknowledged,” Pratt said. “We need to look at our own history. We need to look at the people who our buildings are named for and why. It’s important that we, as an institution, know this, and that our students know it, because it is part of our heritage.”

Pratt was part of a panel on Jesuit slaveholding that the university hosted in October 2016. For her, it is important for the university to take responsibility for its history and acknowledge the fact that there may, indeed, be connections to institutions such as slavery.

While Paul Aspan, Ph.D. associate provost for academic and faculty support, acknowledged in a Feb. 6 interview for The Hawk that there have been conversations about taking further steps toward exploring any possible connections between St. Joe’s and the institution of slavery, the university has taken no further public action at this time. Pratt sees a direct connection between university action and her course.

“Action on this kind of issue happens when students push for it,” Pratt said. “And students push for it when they know that it’s important, and students know that it’s important when it’s being brought to their attention. My class brings these issues to 25 students in the spring semester. That’s not a lot, but it’s something. And if I wasn’t here teaching this class, the university wouldn’t have a class focused on these issues in the same way. And that would be a major loss.”

Kayla Lane, ’17, took the African-American Catholicism course in the spring 2015 semester and spoke alongside Pratt at the panel in October 2016.

“I was especially grateful when Dr. Pratt asked me to be a part of the panel,” Lane said. “I felt proud to stand in my truth as an African American woman thriving in and educated by predominantly white and parochial institutions. As an institution located in West Philadelphia, with a disparaging number of minority students and faculty, the panel marked a start to a long road of recovery.”

Lane said that she also believes while St. Joe’s has significant work to do, offering a course such as Pratt’s is a step in the right direction.

“Before taking Dr. Pratt’s African-American Catholicism course, I had no clue of the dark history surrounding most Jesuit and Catholic institutions,” she said. “I was forced to both process and reconcile the reality that the very institutions responsible for my own spiritual and academic growth were once active participants in the oppression of my ancestors. I can’t imagine how I would’ve felt to have graduated without knowing the truth about the university I attended.”

Jay Nichols, ’17, one of the students taking Pratt’s course this semester, registered for the class to learn about Catholicism, something he didn’t previously have much knowledge of.

“I have a Catholic grandmother, so I thought it would be cool to learn about some of her practices and history,” Nichols said. “Going into it, I had perceived Catholicism as a mainly white religion because I personally only know two black Catholics to this day. But I learned there are a lot out there and there is also systemic oppression within that religion that is deeply rooted in slavery. Since I never really studied the religion and don’t know many people that are Catholic, I would have never known the history of this denomination without this class.”

Logio said that when Pratt leaves, it is possible that another faculty member in sociology could teach the course, but not likely.

“Right now, knowing who is on our faculty and knowing who we have available to us to teach, I can’t envision anyone other than Dr. Pratt teaching it,” Logio said.

For Pratt, that leaves a major hole in many of her students’ education.

“What I have learned over the course of these last three springs semesters that I taught the class is not just how valuable it is, but how needed it is,” Pratt said. “We have students that have been in Catholic schools since they were five years old, but they never heard of these things that we’re talking about.”