In 2000, Cardinal William H. Keller of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore declared that white Catholics “have been guilty of attitudes of rejection and exclusion, consenting to acts of discrimination and even enslavement on the basis of racial difference.” Keller prayed for God’s forgiveness for “this grave injustice,” and vowed to maintain the inner city’s Catholic schools, whose enrolment overwhelming comprised non-Catholic African Americans as a consequence of middle-class relocation to the suburbs.
Desegregation of the archdiocese’s institutions, begun in the 1950s and 1960s, was severely undermined by lack of enforcement, white lay Catholic opposition, and white flight that resulted in token desegregation. Catholics were a significant presence in Baltimore and suburban counties that comprised the archdiocese, accounting for nearly a fifth of the population. In 1964, the archdiocese’s Catholic population of 480,653 included 26,463 African Americans.
The paper focuses on the period between the aftermath of World War Two, when segregation was firmly embedded in Catholic churches, schools and parish organizations and societies, through the episcopacies of Archbishops Francis Patrick Keough (1947- 1961) and Lawrence Joseph Shehan (1961-1974), who initiated desegregation of Catholic institutions with limited impact, especially under Keough. Although Shehan ordered desegregation of all Catholic institutions, issued a strong pastoral letter on racial justice, and braved booing at a City Council meeting to support a fair housing ordinance, accelerating white flight undermined his efforts. Sources include African American and white laity, clergy, sisters and bishops; Catholic and secular newspapers; and the Catholic Interracial Council of Baltimore records.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore and Desegregation, 1947-1974