Systemic Racism as Cultural and Structural Sin: Distinctive Contributions from Catholic Social Thought

Abstract

As Catholics, like all people of goodwill, work to confront the ongoing legacy of racism in the United States, they need additional resources to understand and challenge the suprapersonal aspects of racism at the social level. Building on existing Catholic analyses of racism as a form of cultural sin and incorporating recent refinements in the concept of structural sin, this paper argues that Catholic social thought can yield a more comprehensive account of systemic racism as a structural and cultural problem. This combined analysis provides the theological resources to help Catholics recognize a duty to confront racism and promote racial justice as a natural extension of their faith commitments.