Christian Bentley is a dynamic Catholic leader rooted in the Church’s mission of evangelization, justice, and accompaniment. He brings together ministry, mental health advocacy, and community organizing in a way that embodies Catholic Social Teaching. In his work with the Josephites (the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart), Christian serves in Mission Outreach, Development, and Evangelization, helping parishes grow in their commitment to Black Catholic spirituality, discipleship, and pastoral care.

His leadership strengthens the Catholic organizing ecosystem by aligning theological vision with action, building community among organizers, strategizing for shared power, and growing the spiritual and leadership capacity of justice-focused Catholics.

Black History Month calls us to remember truthfully and to live faithfully. As a foundational Black American whose family has lived in the same town since the 1700s, I carry the long memory of this nation in a very personal way. I worship in the same soil my ancestors worked, prayed on, and survived upon. Their endurance is not abstract to me; it is inheritance.

That inheritance includes the painful repetition of history: Native peoples labeled “savages,” Irish and Italian Catholics treated as suspect, Asians excluded and interned, and the enduring anti-Blackness woven through slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and mass incarceration. Today we see fear spread through immigrant communities and dignity denied in our criminal legal system and in the treatment of the poor and mentally ill. The rhetoric shifts. The targets change. The dehumanization repeats.

My own faith has been shaped not only by history, but by struggle. I have battled mental illness that went unnamed for years, experiencing how easily suffering can be misunderstood or criminalized. Yet even there, Christ met me. In therapy, in community, in prayer, in Eucharist; God transformed confusion into calling. My story, like Black history itself, is a testimony that suffering does not have the final word.

 And so, my message this Black History Month is simple: Hope and Joy.

Hope and Joy that we will live our faith publicly and courageously. Hope and Joy that change is coming. Hope and Joy that, together, we can help shape our nation’s morality toward justice, mercy, and love. It’s the Josephite way. It’s my ancestors’ way. It’s the Catholic way.