The Paradox of Racism

 Racism is, at first glance, a modern ideology. It is spoken of as a plague born in the Enlightenment and refined by 19th-century positivism. But its root is much older: it is the heresy of flesh without soul, of instinct without reason, of man turned into a beast who worships his own skin as an idol. It is, in the words of Saint Augustine, the pride of the City of Man that seeks to abolish the City of God (De Civitate Dei, XV, 1). And, like all heresies, it presents itself disguised as a great truth distorted into something grotesque.

THE ERROR: WHEN MAN SEES HIMSELF AS A BEAST

The Church has never denied differences between men. On the contrary: it has affirmed them

THE PARADOX OF RACISM

Racism is, at first glance, a modern ideology. It is spoken of as a plague born in the Enlightenment and refined by 19th-century positivism. But its root is much older: it is the heresy of flesh without soul, of instinct without reason, of man turned into a beast who worships his own skin as an idol. It is, in the words of Saint Augustine, the pride of the City of Man that seeks to abolish the City of God (De Civitate Dei, XV, 1). And, like all heresies, it presents itself disguised as a great truth distorted into something grotesque.

THE ERROR: WHEN MAN SEES HIMSELF AS A BEAST

The Church has never denied differences between men. On the contrary: it has affirmed them as a sign of the richness of Creation. Saint Thomas Aquinas, with the meticulousness of a celestial architect, explains that variety in nature is part of divine order and that the universe’s harmony does not lie in uniformity but in an ordered diversity (Summa Theologiae I, q. 47, a. 2). What racism does is take this diversity and pervert it, turning it into an absolute criterion, an idol to be worshiped at the expense of human dignity.

Racism is paganism in its most degenerate form. Saint John Chrysostom, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, states that Christ’s work is to destroy the enmity between peoples (Homily on Ephesians, 5). There is neither Greek nor Jew, neither barbarian nor Scythian (Col 3:11), because what makes us human is not our blood but our immortal soul. Yet racism denies this: it reshapes the world according to the brutal logic of the tribe, of instinct, of blind biology. It is a return to the idolatrous paganism of old, except this time, the idol is one’s own race.

Saint Gregory the Great, in his letters to missionaries in England, demonstrates the Catholic response to this worldview. He does not command them to convert only pure-blooded Anglo-Saxons but rather all men who walk under God’s sun (Epistolae, XI, 4). The Church is not a nation, a race, or a culture: it is the assembly of those who seek the Truth.

HISTORY: HOW CHRISTENDOM LIVED WITHOUT RACISM

Elías de Tejada, with his relentless historical precision, dismantles the fallacy that racism is a natural phenomenon. He reminds us that in medieval Christendom, there was no modern racial obsession. In Visigothic Spain, a Goth and a Hispano-Roman could belong to the same nobility without anyone distinguishing them by blood. During the Reconquista, a converted Muslim could be noble and a soldier without being seen as foreign.

Saint Martin de Porres, son of a Spaniard and a black slave, did not see his mixed heritage as an obstacle to sanctity. More than that, in his humility and service, he made it clear that true nobility lies not in lineage but in virtue. The same can be said of Saint Peter Claver, who spent his life baptizing and serving enslaved Africans in America, reminding them that they were children of God, not human merchandise.

This was Christendom’s vision. The concept of Christendom is crucial here because it was not an egalitarian utopia without hierarchies but an order in which each people found their place, not based on skin color but on their participation in Tradition. Ethiopian black knights, Mongol soldiers in Orthodox Russia, and mixed-race saints of the New World—all were part of the same spiritual edifice, built not on the clay of biology but on the stone of faith.

THE MODERN HERESY: HOW RACISM WAS BORN FROM MATERIALISM

Modern racism is the offspring of two monsters: Enlightenment rationalism and materialist positivism. With the Enlightenment, the Christian notion of personhood was replaced by that of the “individual,” and with positivism, an attempt was made to reduce the individual to a series of biological determinants. Saint Augustine had already warned against this mindset when he condemned those who believed man’s fate was written in the stars (Confessions, VII, 6), and positivism, at its core, did nothing but replace astrology with genetics.

The French Revolution destroyed the traditional order of Christian nations and replaced it with a new myth: that of the homogeneous nation-state. It was in this context that modern nationalisms emerged, and with them, the idea that a people’s identity was not in their faith or culture but in their race. In the 19th century, this was combined with poorly digested Darwinism to produce the racist doctrines that inspired European colonialism, segregation laws in the United States, and, ultimately, the racial delirium of Nazism.

Saint Pius X saw clearly the dangers of this materialism, vehemently condemning any attempt to reduce society to purely biological criteria (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907). The Church never accepted the modern obsession with classifying men like livestock because it always knew that human dignity comes from God, not from blood.

THE TRUTH: THE ONLY HIERARCHY THAT MATTERS

Against modern error, the Catholic position is clear: the only real hierarchy is that of virtue and grace. Not all men are equal in talents, intelligence, or strength, but all share the same eternal destiny. As Saint Thomas states, inequalities in this world only make sense if they are ordered toward the common good and salvation (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 96, a. 4).

Saint Francis of Assisi embraced lepers without asking which nation they belonged to. Saint Thomas More defended the dignity of the common man against the tyranny of a king who saw himself above the law. Saint Joseph of Cupertino, with his simple mind but heart of fire, achieved a sanctity higher than that of many scholars. Because in Christianity, the only legitimate superiority is that of holiness.

Racism, then, is a contradiction. It is a philosophical error, a theological heresy, and a monumental stupidity. It is the irrational insistence on imprisoning the spirit within the confines of biology. But the spirit is free. And Catholic truth is clear: in eternal life, we will not be asked what color our skin was, but whether our soul was in a state of grace.

OMO

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae.

• Saint Augustine, De Civitate Dei.

• Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians.

• Saint Gregory the Great, Epistolae.

• Saint Augustine, Confessions.

• Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis.

• Elías de Tejada, Racismo.