Addressing the Sin of Racism

CMN hosts the yearly National Catholic Ministry Leaders Experience in Montgomery and Selma, AL, to reflect on the racist roots of the capital punishment and mass incarceration systems, and reflect on how the Church can advance truth-telling and healing.

Join the National Catholic Ministry Leaders Experiences in Montgomery and Selma, AL on November 5-7, 2025.

Why we do it

Since 2022, CMN has hosted 8 delegations of national Catholic ministry leaders in Montgomery and Selma, AL, including. During three days, participants witness landmarks of racial violence and resilience in Montgomery and Selma—the cradle of the domestic slave trade, of the Confederacy, and of the Civil Rights movement.

They unpack how the legacy of our nation’s history of slavery, lynching, and segregation is manifest in contemporary injustices, such as mass incarceration, capital punishment, and the racial disparities embedded in them. Through encounter, prayer, and dialogue, participants discern how Catholic leaders are called to answer those questions:

  • What is the relationship between the nation’s past and modern-day systems of oppression, particularly related to the criminal legal system?
  • What is required of the Church, its leadership, and its faithful in order to be ministers of reconciliation?
  • How can the Church and its members play a more active role in truth-telling and meaningful efforts that move our ministries, communities, Church and country forward?

Read: Why CMN invited 33 national ministry leaders to Montgomery, AL

On this trip you will…

Sites of the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott

  • Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church and Dexter Parsonage | Young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Congregation from 1954 to 1960

Sites of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Marches for Voting Rights

  • Crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma
  • The Catholic City of St Jude
  • Meet with a life-long Civil Rights activist who participated in the March

Understand the connection between the history of slavery and racial terror, and the modern-day systems of mass incarceration and capital punishment.

  • The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration
  • The National Memorial for Peace and Justice: A sacred space for truth telling and reflection about lynching and its legacy
  • The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park: Honoring the legacy of emancipated people
  • Meet with an attorney from Equal Justice Initiative

Pray and discern how Catholics can play a more active role in truth-telling to move our nation towards justice and healing.

  • Encounters with Catholic ministries: Resurrection Catholic Missions of the South & the Edmundite Missions in Selma
  • Mass, group prayer and meditation times
  • In-depth sharing times with fellow national Catholic ministers

“Racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart.
These encounters will help open our minds and hearts more fully and continue the healing needed in our communities and our nation.”

—U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love – A Pastoral Letter Against Racism (2018)

CMN hosts your group

Since 2024, CMN has led 5 groups of sponsored Catholic network leaders including a diocese, a parish, and religious communities. In March 2023, CMN organized a delegation for U.S. bishops, in collaboration with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee against Racism.

Please fill in the interest form if your diocese, Catholic organization or ministry network is interested in convening a delegation. We will be in touch with you.

Read: “Infinite Dignity” in Selma, Alabama, by Bishop Joensen from Des Moines, IA

Individual Participation

Dates

Program begins: Wednesday, November 5, 2025 at 12 p.m. CT in Montgomery, AL
Program ends: Friday, November 7, 2025 at 12 p.m. CT in Montgomery, AL

Registration Fee

Tentative: $650
Includes: all meals, ground transportation, museum entrances, speaker honorarium.
Does not include: air travel to Montgomery, Atlanta, or Birmingham airports, transportation from and to the airport, lodging.

Lodging

All participants stay at a hotel in downtown Montgomery where the group meetings also take place.

Travel

Participants are responsible for arranging their flights and transportation to and from downtown Montgomery. Taxis and ridesharing services are readily available at the Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM).
It is also possible to fly to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) or Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) and rent a car from there. Please be aware that the Atlanta airport is in the Eastern Time zone and Montgomery, AL is in the Central Time zone.