Emancipation Day Reflection: Church’s Role in Healing and Empowerment

On Emancipation Day 2025, Fr Stephan Alexander joined the Altos programme to share his reflections on the Church’s historical role during slavery and its continuing responsibility in addressing the legacy of this dark period. Known for his thoughtful insights on faith and social justice, Fr Alexander emphasised the importance of honest reflection, inclusion, and empowerment within both the Church and society.

Acknowledging the Past: The Church and Slavery

When asked how the Church reflects on its history during the era of slavery, Fr Alexander was candid. “Universally, and here as well, locally, the Church has in many ways admitted its activity—or if not activity, although we are clear that it has been activity—its complicity in regard to slavery etc,” he said. He stressed that the Church must not  shy away from this painful history but  confront it head-on as part of the healing process.

Fr Alexander sees the Church as a “beacon for empowerment” cultivating “a spirituality that affirms Black identity while calling for social renewal.” This, he believes, is how the Church can meaningfully  honour the historical reality of slavery and its own complicity in it.

Privilege and Empowerment: The Church’s Contemporary Challenge

Turning to the present, Fr Alexander reflected on how the Church must  address systems of privilege and inequality: “If the Church recognises and helps to educate, to elucidate that as a reality and help people to come to the understanding that there are different privileges at bay, and some people just don’t have the privileges that allow them to attain the levels of enlightenment or empowerment that others might easily come to, I think that’s a wonderful way for the Church to do that.”

But awareness, is not enough. Practical action is essential. “We need to do the things on the ground as well. We need to raise funds. We need to create programmes. But more than anything else, we need to catechise, to socialise, to empower people in their thinking so that they understand.”

This, he said, serves “the common good” by dismantling the misconception that everyone starts from the same place or has the same opportunities.

A Legacy That Persists

Reflecting on a line from one of his columns: “The sad truth is that slavery never really ended, it just changed clothes”, Fr Alexander  elaborated, “I’d like to take that in two parts because there is a reference to human trafficking in it. But I’m also speaking about slavery in and of itself.”

He drew on Caribbean history, noting that economics largely drove slavery and even emancipation. “It wasn’t as if every country had to fight for emancipation. It was given because it created a reality, a dynamic.”

Even today, many remain  enslaved mentally, he said, because “the realities of freedom just aren’t there for them.”

Human trafficking, he described, as a direct legacy of slavery’s objectification of human beings: “Chattel slavery, it legitimised the objectification and the commodification and the instrumentalisation of the human person… We’re supposed to love people and use things. We learned quite back then to love things and to use people.”

This inversion, he warns, continues in modern forms of  exploitation.

Embracing African Heritage in Worship

When asked about integrating African heritage more fully into  Church life, Fr Alexander expressed strong support, advocating for liturgical reform and enculturation.

He questioned the persistence of  European customs in local worship. “Why is it that we still believe white is the only colour that reflects purity? Why is it that another colour can’t reflect purity, but in a broader way as well?”

He also challenged longstanding depictions of the Holy Family, “Why must He look like a European with a six pack?”

While acknowledging progress, such as the acceptance of drumming at Mass, he recalled the initial resistance figures like Peter Telfer faced. “Peter Telfer was also vilified for it at the very beginning… Drumming is still seen as something that could be taboo, it invokes a spirit, etc.”

Fr Alexander stressed the need for ongoing education to shift these perceptions: “We need to continue to work to empower people to think differently. To understand that there are different categories than the ones that they are accustomed to…which would hopefully lead  the Church into a better way of honouring both local heritage and reality.