Dear Matthew, I don’t usually sign open letters or participate in public demonstrations. I tend to think they are ineffective or incomplete forms of political activism. One has only to notice the lack of attention given to pro-life demonstrations by the corporate media. So why, you might ask, did I sign the recent open letter to US bishops, asking them to join the “march against racism” in Washington DC on August 28? I can understand why some Catholics keep their distance from anti-racist demonstrations. For complicated historical reasons, the fight against racism has been co-opted by a progressive and often anti-Christian Left. Unlike the pro-life cause, opposition to racism is a common theme of left-wing media. Meanwhile, conservative Christians in Trump’s America have taken up the cause of nationalism combined with a stubborn attachment to the outworn structures of free-market capitalism, which continues to ravage marginalised and underprivileged communities. All this has led many conservative Catholics to dismiss the issue of structural racism, ceding it almost entirely to the concern of the Left – which has its own ulterior motives for taking up the anti-racist cause. But both progressives and conservatives are in need of a correction from the Catholic bishops. As Pope Pius XI made clear in Mit Brennender Sorge, the injustices of racism remain the concern of the Church and of all serious Christians. That’s why I hope the bishops will raise their voices in a public way, to the rebuke of progressives – and of the conservatives who collaborate in giving over the cause of anti-racism to un-Christian forces. Regardless of whether any direct malice towards Black, Hispanic and Native Am­erican communities remains today, these groups still suffer real injustice by their ex­clusion from participation in the comm­on good. Christians who remain com­plac­ent about the unjust exclusion of their breth­ren are accountable to God, and at risk of offending against both justice and charity. Sincerely, Jonathan Culbreath