The Ressourcement of Black Catholicism in Cyprian Davis, OSB

Abstract

AbstractFr. Cyprian Davis, OSB (1930–2015) was a Benedictine monk and the preeminent historian of black Catholicism in the United States. Although he began his scholarly career in the study of medieval monasticism, he brought cultural history methods of the Annales school to bear on black Catholicism. While he is known for his archival work on black Catholicism and spirituality, Davis's work should be understood as ressourcement, a theological retrieval of lost sources of black Catholicism. Cyprian Davis offers an iteration of ressourcement that takes seriously the often‐violent rupture that black Catholics experienced. The theological vision that arises out of his historical recovery is one attentive to the experience of division, fragmentation, loss of traditional moorings, alienation from a wider tradition, and rejection by the church.