Gary B Agee

Transcending divisions and healing the broken Body of Christ. Disunity is a reality within churches today. Left unaddressed, political disagreements and racial inequities can fester into misunderstanding, resentment, and anger. But often the act of addressing this discord prompts further animosity, widening fissures into gaping fault lines between fellow members of the same community. Gary Agee, a pastor well-versed in leading diverse congregations, reflects here on the roots of division within the church and the virtues and practices that can promote the restoration of unity. With disarming honesty and humility, Agee offers sage advice gleaned from Scripture and years of practical experience to show how we might fulfill Jesus's prayer on behalf of the church: "That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. . . . That they may be one as we are one." At the end of each chapter, Agee includes exercises, discussion questions, and suggested practices, providing a concrete path to unity through dialogue and action.

Daniel A. Rudd, born a slave in Bardstown, Kentucky, grew up to achieve much in the years following the Civil War. His Catholic faith, passion for activism, and talent for writing led him to increasingly influential positions in many places. One of his important early accomplishments was the publication of the American Catholic Tribune, which Rudd referred to as ""the only Catholic journal owned and published by colored men."" At its zenith, the Tribune, run out of Detroit and Cincinnati, where Rudd lived, had ten thousand subscribers, making it one of the most successful black newspapers in the country. Rudd was also active in the leadership of the Afro-American Press Association, and he was a founding member of the Catholic Press Association. By 1889, Rudd was one of the nation's best-known black Catholics. His work was endorsed by a number of high-ranking church officials in Europe as well as in the United States, and he was one of the founders of the Lay Catholic Congress movement. Later, his travels took him to Bolivar County, Mississippi, and eventually on to Forrest City, Arkansas, where he worked for the well-known black farmer and businessperson, Scott Bond, and eventually co-wrote Bond's biography.

In May of 1890, The Christian Solider, an African American newspaper, identified the Catholic journalist and activist Daniel Arthur Rudd as the “greatest negro Catholic in America.” Yet many Catholics today are unaware of Rudd's efforts to bring about positive social change during the early decades of the Jim Crow era. In Daniel Rudd: Calling a Church to Justice, Gary Agee offers a compelling look at the life and work of this visionary who found inspiration in his Catholic faith to fight for the principles of liberty and justice. Born into slavery, Rudd achieved success early on as the publisher of the American Catholic Tribune, one of the most successful black newspapers of its era, and as the founder of the National Black Catholic Congress.Even as Rudd urged his fellow black Catholics to maintain their spiritual home within the fold of the Catholic Church, he called on that same church to live up what he believed to be her cardinal teaching, "the Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man." Rudd’s hopeful spirit lives on today in the important work of the National Black Catholic Congress, as it carries forward his pursuit of social justice.