Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 4, 2020 / 15:00 pm
The bishops of the United States are calling for an examination of why the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted African-American communities.
"Our hearts are wounded for the many souls mourned as African American communities across the nation are being disproportionately infected with and dying from the virus that causes COVID-19," said a statement released by the USCCB on May 4.
"We raise our voices to urge state and national leaders to examine the generational and systemic structural conditions that make the new coronavirus especially deadly to African American communities," said the statement, which was signed by Bishop Shelton Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, Archbishop Nelson Perez of Philadelphia, and Bishop Joseph Perry, an auxiliary bishop of Chicago.
Fabre leads the USCCB's ad hoc committee against racism; Coakley is the chairman of the conference's domestic justice and human development committee; Perez heads the cultural diversity committee, and Perry is the chairman of the subcommittee on African-American affairs.