Sources used in this document:

The second section, entitled "Theological and Ethical Reflection," is more specifically focused on the Catholic experience of African-Americans. This is where the book's title Uncommon Faithfulness is thrown into sharpest relief, given that it is often assumed that an African-American Christian will come from the Protestant evangelical tradition. The authors of this section attempt to offer a radically reconfigured view of this notion. For example, feminine-centered theology that is so central to the African-American tradition is also central to Catholicism. Essayist Diana Hayes links Womanism, Catholicism, and 'God-talk' all as critical building-blocks of African-American theology. Despised slave women in the Bible also strove to find dignity as mothers and worshippers. Black Catholic women, post-Vatican II have entered theological academies and finally now have the platform to articulate their own, unique vision in line with the tradition of the Church. Womanist theology turns subjects into "doers" of theology, and demand theology is no longer done 'to' women (Hayes 131).

Part Three of the book focuses on "Pastoral Concerns," and the practical needs of spiritual leaders in ministering to an African-American congregation. In the essay "African Catholics in the United States: Gifts and challenges," Paulinus I. Odozor frankly addresses such issues as the need for better communication between the laity and the clergy, the economic challenges of the African-American community, and the need to create a stronger family structure for African-Americans (Odozor 2000). The essay "Pan-Africanism: An emerging context for understanding the Black Catholic experience" allows Clarence Williams throw an even wider perspective upon the international Black Catholic community, and the common need for political and economic liberation.

Overall, the tenor of the essays is positive and helpful in nature. But certain aspects of the book leave the reader unsatisfied: there is relatively little attention devoted to hot-button political topics such as abortion, and how political liberals might feel uncomfortable in a community of Catholics opposed to abortion, although they might otherwise be politically sympathetic to Catholic social justice aims. Homosexuality within the Black community is not addressed, except in the context of the need to show sympathy for HIV / AIDS victims. Tensions between Black Protestants and Catholics are often only addressed as an aside. Only the first essay unpacks the tensions between Christians and non-Christians at length in its examination of how appropriations of the Bible were used to condemn slavery even while masters attempted to use it as a means of social control. "The church knows no race," proclaims one Catholic -- but this sentiment might be one reason some African-Americans struggle to articulate their identity simultaneously as Catholics and as Black men and women (Raboteau 17)