FoC 168: A Hopeful Way Forward for Racial Reconciliation with Chenele Shaw

What can we do as Catholic laypeople to end racism and support our Catholic brothers and sisters of color? Chenele Shaw asked just that questioned and started her own non profit, The Before Gethsemane Initiative, which seeks to educate on difficult topics with an authentically Catholic understanding of the inherent dignity of the human person. We’re so thrilled to be talking with Chenele in this episode!

Chenele is a former youth minister and theology teacher and a current young adult trying to live her life for Christ, frequent her therapist, and eat all the cheese! She desires to be her authentic self and help others to as well. Chenele has written for many Catholic publications including The Grotto Network and The Catholic Woman. She is a member of the board for The Human Condition Community which focuses on the integration of faith and mental health. Chenele is also working towards beginning her Masters education for clinical mental health counseling. In her free time you can find her watching reality tv, going to confession, and updating her Spotify playlists.

In this episode Chenele shares about the exciting new initiative she helped to form. She is so full of hope and passion for loving the Church by pursuing truth, justice, and unity in the Body of Christ and after listening we think you’ll have more hope, too.

Things we talked about in this episode:

The Pillar article about Before Gethsemane

Sponsor: The Little Catholic Box

The Little Catholic Box is a quarterly subscription box for Catholic women.  Each quarter, the owner Erica curates a bunch of fun, unique Catholic items around a spiritual theme.  It’s a delight for subscribers, and a blessing to the artists, creators and small businesses whose items get featured.

Their fourth quarter boxes are shipping to subscribers this month, and they have a limited number of single boxes available for purchase!

If you’d like to take a look, visit thelittlecatholicbox.com. You can order a single box directly from their home page.

While single boxes are currently available, new subscription signups are closed until December.

If you need a fabulous Christmas gift idea for a Catholic woman in your life, you can hop on their waitlist now so that you have early access when subscriptions are available in December.

New subscribers signing up in December will get their first box in February, but if you purchase as a gift, Erica will send a personalized Christmas card to either you or the gift recipient with a bonus gift, so that there’s something tangible to stick under the tree.

Get on the waitlist at thelittlecatholicbox.com/FOC to get access to the bonus gift when subscription signups are opened back up in December.

This episode is also sponsored by Happy Nest Home Goods. 

Happy Nest Home Goods celebrates doing small things with great love with their modern Catholic embroidery art, patterns,