VIDEO | Second Bishops’ Lenten Experience in Selma and Montgomery

In March 2026, CMN staff traveled with six U.S. bishops — as well as staff and consultors from the USCCB’s Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation — to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. Together, the delegation explored the legacy of racism in the U.S. and how that shapes the criminal legal system today.

In 2018, the USCCB released a pastoral letter against racism, Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love, in which the bishops emphasized the need “to engage the world and encounter others—to see, maybe for the first time, those who are on the peripheries of our own limited view” in order to heal the wounds of racism. The bishops fulfilled that commitment on this trip by engaging with the 400-year history of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and encountering those most directly impacted.

Listen to the reflections of some of the bishops in the video below, produced by the USCCB.