[One-Pager] Racism and the Criminal Justice System (USCCB)

In November 2018, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released its long anticipated pastoral letter against racism: Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love. In conjunction, the USCCB also released a shorter letter highlighting the racial disparities systemically upheld within our country’s criminal justice system: Open Wide Our Hearts: Racism and the Criminal Justice System.

The letter exposes how the most egregious example of our broken criminal justice system – the death penalty – reflects the racial discrimination and bias we are called as Catholics to dismantle.

“Racism can only end if we contend with the policies and institutional barriers that perpetuate and preserve the inequality—economic and social—that we still see all around us. With renewed vigor, we call on members of the Body of Christ to join others in advocating and promoting policies at all levels that will combat racism and its effects in our civic and social institutions.”
– U.S. bishops, Open Wide Our Hearts

Click here to read the letter: