US Bishops’ Alabama Pilgrimage: A Lenten Journey Into Modernist Social Gospel
VaticanNews portal reports (April 30, 2026) on a “Lenten Experience” undertaken by six US bishops and staff from the USCCB Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. Framed as a response to their 2018 pastoral letter *Open Wide Our Hearts*, the trip aimed to explore connections between historical racism and the current criminal justice system, featuring meetings with Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, visits to civil rights landmarks, and prayer at sites of racial violence. The initiative exemplifies the post-conciliar Church’s capitulation to secular activism, reducing the supernatural mission of the Church to a program of social justice advocacy rooted in modernist principles.