``The achievement of the remedy . . . may be more complex than the causes of the disease [but] in spite of past failures, we must never despair. That would be the greatest sin,'' he wrote.
``Our Lord has given us a fundamental spiritual truth. How we treat one another cannot be separated from our relationship with God.''
Of course the concept of human equality is not quite new.
It's a tenet of faith for most believers, and although many nonbelievers might put it a different way - perhaps substituting the concept of personal integrity for God - their sentiments would be the same.
This is not even the first time Cardinal Bevilacqua has made a pastoral statement decrying racism.
Shortly after he came to Philadelphia, in September 1988, he issued a call ``for racial reconciliation.''
But last week's letter bears evidence of his experience as leader of a huge, changing archdiocese - an archdiocese, like those in most old cities, that was built from enclaves of immigrant Europeans and that had no tradition of active empathy for African Americans.
The cardinal's pastoral letter itself offers empathy to minorities, to the working class, and to individuals who may need support in their efforts against entrenched racism.
It comes 10 months after the infamous racial events in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia. In the first incident, a mob of white men leaving St. Gabriel's parish hall set upon and beat an African American woman, her teenage son and a nephew; in the second incident, only weeks later, a white teenager was shot to death during a robbery, further inflaming feelings in the neighborhood. Two African American men were arrested in the killing.
Cardinal Bevilacqua put the archdiocesan Office of Human Relations at the service of the neighborhood last spring.
