Dismantle Racism and White Supremacy

The world exists for everyone, because all of us were born with the same dignity. Differences of color, religion, talent, place of birth or residence, and so many others, cannot be used to justify the privileges of some over the rights of all.

Fratelli Tutti, #118

On July 10, 2020, the national board of LCWR unanimously affirmed a call to place the conference on a five-year journey to address systemic racism and white privilege. The call emerged from an open and honest conversation held among leaders of LCWR and the National Black Sisters’ Conference. This work goes to the heart of remembering “who we are and whose we are,” as Servant of God Thea Bowman, FSPA, said, and to our integrity as a conference of religious leaders. It is spiritual in nature, raising existential questions about LCWR and our identity as US women religious, as followers of the way of Jesus who called us “to love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)

Together we pledge to identify the steps that beckon us on this journey – the profound truth-telling, reconciliation, repentance, and repair needed to effect transformative change. As members of a church deeply implicated in the origin and perpetuation of our nation’s perduring sin of racism, of congregations that have been complicit, and of a conference whose whiteness has been unexamined, we take our part in this national reckoning.

We seek a society free of systemic racism and are resolved to use a racial lens in the development of our ministry and to use our common voice to:

Call for the establishment of the first United States Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) to examine the effects of slavery, institutional racism, and discrimination against people of color, and how our history impacts laws and policies today;
Protect and extend the voting rights for which so many fought and died and which are threatened yet again;
Undertake efforts, local and national, to study and make recommendations concerning reparations including any form of apology and compensation to begin the long-delayed process of atonement for slavery;
Demand reform of our racialized law enforcement and justice systems including police reform and the abolition of the death penalty.

LCWR has spoken publically and consistently on the absolute necessity to dismantle racism and white supremacy.

Public Statements

May 18, 2022

Violence and White Supremacy Cannot Stand

Feb 3, 2022

LCWR Condemns Threats against HBCUs

May 5, 2021

The Sacred Right to Vote Must be Protected

Apr 22, 2021

National Black Sisters' Conference and LCWR Issue Statement on Conviction of Derek Chauvin for Murder of George Floyd

Assembly Resolutions

Creating Communion at the Intersection of Racism, Migration & Climate Crisis (LCWR Assembly 2019, LCWR Assembly 2020, LCWR Assembly 2021)

Reading the signs of the times from our desire to create communion, we, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, affirm the interrelatedness of the justice concerns addressed by the LCWR Call for 2015-2022. We are heartbroken by the myriad ways our one human family and Earth, our common home, suffer from disconnection, indifference, violence, and fear in the face of racism, migration, and climate crisis.

Systemic Causes of Injustice (LCWR Assembly 2016)

In 2016 the LCWR membership issued a call to recognize racism as a systemic, structural cause underlying and contributing to the multiple situations of injustice identified in the LCWR Call. At the 2016 LCWR assembly, the members amended the 2015 resolution to reflect this awareness. The amended resolution was passed and reads as follows.

Doctrine of Discovery (LCWR Assembly 2014)

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) calls upon His Holiness, Pope Francis, to consider deeply how the Church may embody in these times the Christian heart of justice and compassion toward indigenous peoples. We humbly and respectfully ask Pope Francis to lead us in formally repudiating the period of Christian history that used religion to justify political and personal violence against indigenous nations and peoples and their cultural, religious, and territorial identities....

Partner Organizations

Black Sisters’ Conference

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice

Pax Christi USA