“Chains Shall He Break”: Justice in the Music of the Christmas Narrative
Holiday carols, properly heard, can rightly be counted among the “resistance literature” that is our Christmas narrative.
Michael Iafrate is Co-Coordinator of the Catholic Committee of Appalachia (CCA) and served as the lead author of CCA's "People's Pastoral," The Telling Takes Us Home: Taking Our Place in the Stories that Shape Us. He is a West Virginia native, a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University ('99 and '03), and is completing a dissertation in theology for the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. His writing has appeared in National Catholic Reporter and Religion Dispatches and in the collections Secular Music and Sacred Theology, edited by Tom Beaudoin (Liturgical Press, 2013) and the forthcoming Music, Theology, and Justice, edited by Michael O’Connor, Christina Labriola, and Hyun-Ah Kim (Lexington Books, 2017). He is also a singer-songwriter and old time musician.
Holiday carols, properly heard, can rightly be counted among the “resistance literature” that is our Christmas narrative.
I’m going back as a response to a call from the elders and maybe a call from God. My intention is to be an ally, to go and to listen to what the indigenous people are asking for and then to fulfill those requests.
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