A Study in Truth-Telling and Transformative Inclusion: Cultivating a ‘Culture of Encounter’ in Development Organisations

Introduction

Activists, scholars and practitioners have long condemned the existence of systemic racism in the international development sector. ¹ In 2021, Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development, produced a report which exposed how inequitable power dynamics continue to affect the sector's praxis. ² The report concludes that people in the sector who are racialised as non-white are ‘othered’ and marginalised because of an entrenchment of the white gaze in organisational cultures. In this report, Bond condemns the existence of a ‘pervasive antiblackness’ ³ in the UK which creates barriers for people racialised as non-white, particularly those racialised as Black. As the report contends: ‘Racism is embedded and reproduced in the organisational cultures of many international development organisations’. ⁴ Activists have thus called on organisations in the sector to commit to initiatives of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). This has prompted many Catholic organisations to evaluate their norms and praxis through an anti-racist lens.

Between 2024 and 2025, I conducted research focus groups with practitioners in the sector who are engaged in EDI and anti-racist initiatives within Catholic organisations. ⁵ This research is predicated on the premise that the lived experiences of practitioners involved in anti-racism work within the sector can constructively help to develop Catholic social thought. Their praxis can help the Church to better understand what social conditions are needed to bring about the common good, that is, the sets of conditions needed for all humans and each individual to flourish according to the divine will. Moreover, as these focus group conversations made evident, themes from Catholic social teaching (CST) such as the culture of encounter and the option for ‘the poor’ are being creatively reimagined and articulated by these practitioners through their work that seeks to address inequitable power dynamics in the sector. There is, therefore, a theology operational within the praxis and organising of these Catholic organisations. In the focus group discussions, participants discussed the work that they had been undertaking in their organisations around anti-racism and EDI. They also shared their thoughts regarding how this work relates to the faith-basis of their organisation. This article presents some of my theological reflections on the focus group conversations. In the course of doing so, it will bring the lived experiences of these practitioners into dialogue with CST and liberation theologies to develop a theological narrative around anti-racism work in the sector.

In the focus group discussions, participants identified the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 as a key turning point for their organisations regarding work on EDI and anti-racism. As one participant, Veronica, stated, ‘George Floyd in 2020 […] that was the … the starting point for [the organisation] and other agencies to really dig deep’. ⁶ Similarly, another participant, Ciara, explained that for their organisation, ‘during the Black Lives Matter movement, I do know that in terms of HR they started looking at, kind of, policies, internal, kind of, recruitment, staff, um, policies and procedures […] the HR policies very much stemmed from the Black Lives Matter movement’. These participants saw that a central part of their organisation's journey towards becoming anti-racist involved listening to the prophetic voices and condemnations arising from the grassroots movement of Black Lives Matter. In the focus groups, participants also spoke about the importance of work which seeks to ensure that diverse voices have influence in the organisation, for example by consulting with diaspora communities in the UK on their organisations’ fundraising and communications strategies or by ensuring that their work is led by their organisational partners. ⁷ Another participant, Theresa, spoke about the importance of attending to the lived experiences of staff to ensure that organisational policies are fit for purpose. Moreover, some participants spoke about the necessity of work which had been done by staff within their organisation to cultivate spaces for colleagues to speak openly about the realities of racism in staff networks or open-staff discussions. Within these organisations, therefore, it seems that attention to lived experiences of racism and to the perspectives of those who are on the underside of inequitable power dynamics in the sector has begun to facilitate change and enable greater knowledge of the good around anti-racism.

Within these focus groups, practitioners also engaged in creative theological work to interpret their work on anti-racism in light of their organisation's Catholic values and faith-basis. A CST theme that was identified by some participants as being a fruitful basis to begin theological thinking around work on anti-racism was the idea of ‘the culture of encounter’. This theme was heavily promoted in Pope Francis’s papacy, particularly in the encyclical Fratelli Tutti. ⁸ In this article, therefore, I will consider how the theological theme of the culture of encounter can potentially be used as a conceptual lens to interpret the work which these practitioners are engaging in within their organizations from a Catholic theological perspective. This article will also explore how the lived experiences of these practitioners can constructively help to develop a theological understanding of the culture of encounter and, crucially, what attitudes, structures and habits obstruct the cultivation of a culture of encounter within Christian organizations. The structure of the article will be as follows: First, we will explore Pope Francis’s approach to the culture of encounter. The Pope's particular construal of this theme will then be deepened and expanded through dialogue with the liberationist theology of Jon Sobrino and the womanist theology of Kelly Brown Douglas. In the final section, the article will set out how one might begin to think about the theological theme of the culture of encounter in relation to anti-racism work in the sector.

The Culture of Encounter

Throughout his papacy and in various addresses and social encyclicals, Pope Francis repeatedly advocated for both the Church and wider society to cultivate what he termed a ‘culture of encounter’. For the Pope, it seems that ‘the culture of encounter’ is one where people with different lived experiences can engage in healthy dialogue, knowledge sharing and gift-exchange for the common good. It is a culture of deep listening where people are encouraged to build social friendships by attending to the dreams, ‘joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties’ ⁹ of others, particularly those whose experiences are so different from one's own. It is a culture where those who live and think differently are not seen primarily as a source of division and conflict, but rather as a gift and a challenge to the dominant culture of a society. Crucially, however, for Francis, cultivating an authentic culture of encounter requires those with power and privilege to have a preferential option for those who he describes as being on the ‘peripheries’ of Church and society. ¹⁰ For Francis, this preferential option is necessary because, as he argues in Fratelli Tutti, ‘true wisdom demands an encounter with reality’. ¹¹ It seems, however, that for the Pope, an encounter with reality can only be fully achieved through attention to, and inclusion of, the lived experiences of those on the margins of Church and society as, in the Pope's own words, ‘they see aspects of reality that are invisible to the centres of power where weighty decisions are made’. ¹²

What does the Pope mean when he writes that there are some aspects of reality that are invisible to those with power? And how do people on the margins enable those of us with privilege to see reality more fully? Perhaps the liberationist theology of Jon Sobrino can deepen and expand Francis’s account here. Liberation theology is a theological movement which emerged in Latin America from the 1950s, but really came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s after the Catholic Bishops of Latin America met in Medellín in 1968 and Puebla in 1979 to interpret the Church's mission in light of the signs of the times. Liberation theology asserts that the Church is called to have a ‘preferential option for the poor’ and declares that Christians have a duty to support people living in poverty in liberating themselves from unjust social, economic and political oppression. The liberation theology of Jon Sobrino provides a language to explain why attention to the lived experiences of those on the ‘peripheries of life’ ¹³ enables those with power and privilege to develop a more truthful understanding of reality. ¹⁴ To understand how Sobrino believes that one can come to a greater understanding of reality, however, we first have to understand his theology of social sin and the Christology that underlies it. For Sobrino, social structures, systems and situations can be considered ‘sin’ when they are contrary to the divine will by obstructing the realisation of the Reign of God on earth and causing violence, poverty or death to human persons. ¹⁵ As I have argued elsewhere, this means that ‘any social structures or situations which perpetuate inequality or injustice must be regarded as contrary to the divine will for human flourishing’. ¹⁶ Drawing on the biblical association between sin, lies and concealment, Sobrino argues that sin can become embedded in cultures and socio-economic structures so that the people formed within them can become blinded to the truth of its presence, that is, they become unable to recognise the situation as sin, nor do they recognise how their personal actions may contribute to its presence. ¹⁷ He argues that ‘sin tends to justify itself and even to present itself cynically as its opposite’. ¹⁸ Kristin Heyer explains that, within the writings of Sobrino, ‘the unjust act or situation is always accompanied by the lie, collective or individual, that seeks to offer its own self-serving logic and so obscure its reality as sin’. ¹⁹ For Sobrino, we can only overcome this ‘concealment of the truth’, ²⁰ and therefore come to truly recognise reality, through the contributions of those communities and individuals who survive and resist structural sin. ²¹ So, for example, within Sobrino's own context of extreme socio-economic poverty in El Salvador in the twentieth century, he argued that Christians must centre the lived experiences of the poorest. ²² In this theological framework, therefore, it is through an encounter with someone who has been marginalised by the prevailing system of injustice that recognition and, in turn, transformation of the sinfulness of the situation becomes possible. ²³

For Sobrino, there is a fundamentally Christological reason for this: it is Christ's presence amongst those who have been marginalised which enables them to heal the powerful of their sinful ignorance. ²⁴ As I have explained elsewhere, ‘predicated on the historical Jesus as revealed in scripture and ecclesial tradition—the historical Jesus who identified Himself with the poor and oppressed of the world—Sobrino regards the poor in Latin America as the continuation of Christ's presence in history’. ²⁵ Indeed, the gospel accounts reveal Jesus as a person who was violently crucified by the religious and political powers of his day and who, in the parable of the sheep and goats, identified himself with all those who are oppressed or marginalised. ²⁶ Sobrino argues, therefore, that we can find Jesus today among those who are made to live in poverty, as well as among all those who are marginalised or oppressed. ²⁷ Drawing on the theological language of his fellow liberation theologian Ignacio Ellacuría, Sobrino identifies these people as the contemporary ‘crucified peoples’. ²⁸ He writes, therefore, that ‘in the poor one glimpses God’. ²⁹ Because of this divine presence amongst them, they are able to mediate Christ's salvific and healing grace to others. Hence, Sobrino concludes that ‘the option for the poor is not just a matter of giving to them, but of receiving from them’. ³⁰ So, the perspectives and lived experiences of those who are marginalised enable greater recognition of that which is sinful. In Sobrino's words, they are the ‘bearers of truth’ who ‘make possible true prophetic condemnation’. ³¹ They also make possible transformation of this situation for the good through their mediation of Christ's salvific grace: ‘In the poor there will always be something of Christ’. ³² This is why Sobrino famously concludes ‘extra pauperes nulla salus’, that is, ‘outside the poor there is no salvation’. ³³ The experience of the marginalised is, therefore, the hermeneutical lens through which Christians should interpret both sin and the good. ³⁴ In this framework, then, the option for the poor is not primarily a charitable outlook, but rather a Christological, hermeneutic and epistemological option. The option for the poor must guide our ways of knowing, that is, how we undertake ‘knowledge production’, as well as our interpretive lenses, namely, how we come to interpret reality and what actions must be taken as a consequence. As Anna Rowlands writes, for liberation theologians, ‘an “option for the poor” is not just about paternalistic assistance but in fact about how we can know the truth of our social reality and of God's action in history’. ³⁵ Sobrino himself concludes that ‘reality is made present with radical ultimacy in the negativity of the crucified people’. ³⁶

This liberationist theological perspective aligns with Pope Francis’s own conclusion that ‘no authentic, profound and enduring change is possible unless it starts from the different cultures, particularly those of the poor’. ³⁷ Indeed, using the words of Sister Jean Hughes, in every encounter with those on the peripheries of life, ‘something sacred is at stake’, that is, our knowledge of the good life that God calls us to, as well as our understanding of that which obstructs this divine will for flourishing. ³⁸ Perhaps this is also why Francis can argue that truth is an ‘inseparable companion of justice’. ³⁹ Indeed, from this theological perspective, the cultivation of a culture of encounter requires truth-telling, that is, the sharing of lived experience from the peripheries—the truth of reality that is revealed through attending to the perspectives of those communities and individuals who are on the margins, as well as those who are in solidarity with them. If we go by the theological conclusions of Sobrino, it is only through an authentic encounter with those who are on the underside of inequitable power dynamics that those of us who are privileged are enabled to see reality as it really is. For those of us who are racialised as white—and who therefore have relative levels of privilege and power in the sector and society—the task of realising the common good and creating an authentic culture of encounter can only be achieved by centring the agency, perspectives and lived experiences of people who challenge sinful structures, actions, and habits of thinking. ⁴⁰

The Theological Importance of Attending to Grassroots Movements for Justice

Some of the practitioners from one of the research focus groups that I conducted spoke about how the impetus for some of their organisation's work on anti-racism, particularly its work on recruitment, HR policies, and encouraging diverse representation on its Board of trustees and in its staff body, seemed to come from outside of their organisation, particularly from the Black Lives Matter movement. Some of the focus group participants commented, therefore, that this type of work did not seem to come directly from the Catholic faith-basis of the organisation. As one participant, Esther, stated regarding the impetus for this work: ‘I think it's coming from outside. There is a big vibe in the sector right now. […] So, I definitely think […] it's a much-needed trend within our, you know, sector and I think that's what we’re responding to’. Another participant, Theresa, additionally explained that ‘sometimes there's a need for a policy change that is identified and then the faith-based influence is sort of retro fitted to that policy change’. As we have seen, however, Pope Francis’s idea of the culture of encounter brought into dialogue with the liberationist theology of Jon Sobrino provides a theological underpinning to the idea that attention to grassroots movements for justice, especially those that are led by people with lived experiences of injustice, should be considered an integral part of what it means to be faithful to the Catholic faith-basis of an organisation. The womanist theologian Kelly Brown Douglas can further supplement this theology.

Kelly Brown Douglas is a womanist theologian who, in her book Resurrection Hope, interprets the Black Lives Matter movement in the light of the Christian faith. ⁴¹ The Black Lives Matter movement is a ‘Black-centered political-movement-building project’ co-founded by three ‘radical Black organizers’—Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi—as a response to the injustices they saw in the American legal system, as well as their own lived experiences of racism. ⁴² After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 it spread into a global movement with protests taking place across the world to prophetically denounce the death-dealing and life-limiting violence of systemic and interpersonal forms of racism. Douglas argues that the movement, and particularly the protests of 2020, were a ‘signal of transcendence’ which prophetically pointed toward and embodied what she calls ‘God's just future’. ⁴³ For Douglas, ‘God's just future’ is that future of justice and peace which God wills for humanity and which God is working to bring about for us in history and in the eschaton. So, for Douglas, not only was the grassroots movement of Black Lives Matter a grace-filled movement which drew the world's attention to and protested ‘the crucifying realities of the present’ injustice of racism, but it also signalled towards and began to bring about in the here and now the justice and peace of God's just future. ⁴⁴ Douglas writes that the Black Lives Matters protests were like a ‘resurrecting contagion’ which ‘demanded conditions within each particular locality that would foster Black life’. ⁴⁵

Perhaps, therefore, by bringing Douglas’s theological reflections into dialogue with Sobrino's liberationist thought, the grassroots movement for justice that is Black Lives Matter can be interpreted through a theological lens as constituting part of Christ's salvific grace at work in the world. Because the movement centres the lived experiences of those who experience, survive and resist the crucifying violence of racism in history, it continues to enable a true recognition of reality and facilitates a radical reorientation of society and individuals away from sin and towards life and wholeness. As Douglas herself concludes along with Delbert Burkett, ‘Christ is inside of black women and men as they fight for life and wholeness’. ⁴⁶ She further explains that, through the protests in 2020, ‘the resurrecting God was resurrecting communities around the globe from the despair of crucifying death into the resurrecting hope of new life’. ⁴⁷ For Douglas, Christ's grace works within this movement to advocate for new ways of being which prophetically signal towards and embody the ‘just future’ that God wills for the world; a future where, in her words, ‘all persons have equitable life-enhancing choices’. ⁴⁸ She concludes that grassroots movements such as Black Lives Matter cultivate resurrection hope and signal towards a world where all people ‘are to be respected as the sacred creations they are’. ⁴⁹

Practical and Epistemological Implications for the Sector

This theology has epistemological and practical implications for Catholic organisations in the sector. Within the context of the UK, people racialised as non-white are made more vulnerable in society due to systemic racism. Moreover, as noted at the beginning of this article, members of the Global Majority experience struggles and disadvantages in the sector that their more privileged peers do not. ⁵⁰ They are forced to navigate and resist systems which disadvantage them on the basis of their race, ethnicity or skin colour. Hence, it is necessary for Christian organisations in the international development sector to attend to the truth which is revealed through the lived experiences of those who resist the social sin of racism due to Christ's presence in their struggle for freedom from oppression. ⁵¹

Hence, Pope Francis’s understanding of encounter, read through the lens of liberationist and womanist theology, provides a language in which to interpret the experiences of the practitioners discussed at the beginning of this article. Perhaps it was this form of attention to truth-telling which facilitated organisational change for their organisations and enabled greater knowledge of the good around anti-racism. As I explained earlier, some practitioners in the focus groups spoke explicitly about how the grassroots movement of Black Lives Matter prompted their organisation to think more seriously about anti-racism. Moreover, an important part of many practitioners’ work on anti-racism is creating opportunities for individuals with lived experiences of racism and those who are in solidarity with them to speak truth to power within the organisation itself—whether that be through open-staff discussions, the facilitation of networks of peer support, the consultation of diaspora communities or the creation of racial justice reference groups. There is, I think, a theology implicit in this organising that is similar to the liberationist and womanist thinkers we have explored so far. Now, you do not need to commit to a specific faith belief to acknowledge that listening to other people's life experiences, especially those so different to one's own, can deepen one's knowledge of the world. The liberationist and womanist theologies we just explored, however, reveal why it is theologically important in particular for Christian organisations in the sector to attend to the truth-telling and lived experiences of those communities and individuals who have faced situations of exclusion, marginalisation and racism, as well as the creative movements for justice led by these communities. Moreover, these theologies have enabled us to see why Pope Francis can claim that the cultivation of an authentic culture of encounter requires those with power and privilege to have a preferential option for those who are on the ‘peripheries’.

Based on this theological vision an important question is raised for any Christian organisation involved in the international development sector, namely, what habits, structures and processes create the conditions for a culture of encounter and deep listening within an organisation? It invites practitioners to rethink what is understood as ‘expertise’ and who has it. It should lead practitioners in the sector to question whose voices should be considered authoritative in the discernment of the good within their organisation. Who has decision-making power and whose voices should be influential in shaping the mission, strategic direction and values of an organization?

This theology of encounter—which has been developed in conversation with the thought of Pope Francis, liberationist theologians, and practitioners in the sector—suggests that there is a need for a more inclusive approach to decision-making in Catholic organisations. As I have argued elsewhere, there is a need to centre the ‘perspectives and lived experiences’ of those who have previously been at the peripheries, that is, those ‘communities and individuals’ who are involved in ‘creative practices of survival and resistance against’ the ‘sinful structures’ of racism that obstruct human flourishing. ⁵² To use the words of the decolonial theologian Nicolás Panotto, then, organisations are called to undertake a continuous discernment of the good through attention to the ‘otherwise thoughts’ of ‘non-hegemonic voices’. ⁵³ This requires humility on the part of organisations and especially people with privilege and decision-making power, as cultivating a culture of encounter in this way requires a commitment to being continually open to challenge and change as a result of deep listening to truth-telling. Moreover, there is a specific understanding of inclusion being envisioned here. Within this framework, inclusion cannot merely be regarded as inviting more people to a seat at the table on social terms that have already been set. Instead, the type of inclusion being sought in a culture of encounter is transformative. Organisations need to be open to transformation as a result of deep listening to the truth-telling that occurs from giving people on the underside of inequitable power dynamics the time and space to share their perspective and contribute to organisational decision making. The writer Mim Skinner draws on the thought of the first Black president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Rev. Dr Sahr Yambasu, to understand the distinctive character of inclusion as distinguished from mere welcome. For Skinner, whilst welcome as an attitude involves inviting someone into your home, inclusion as a praxis involves the recognition that other people belong there and therefore have a right to move the furniture around. ⁵⁴ Those of us who are privileged should constantly be open to change and transformation as a result of attending to the voices, prophetic condemnations, and creative practices of resistance of the most marginalised, that is, the mediators of Christ's grace in history who enable us to recognise those realities which obstruct the good. In other words, we should respect, support and facilitate their capacities to ‘move around the furniture’ for the sake of the common good.

We often think of the role of Christian organisations in the sector as speaking truth to power in terms of advocacy—truth-telling ad extra, as it were—but in this framework, organisations are also (and perhaps chiefly) called to listen and to facilitate prophetic truth-telling within itself to itself in its own structures and among its members—truth-telling ad intra. ⁵⁵ A continuous discernment of the good through deep listening to truth-telling could perhaps be facilitated within Catholic organisations through the cultivation of brave, accountable spaces. In contrast to safe spaces, ‘brave spaces’ were introduced by EDI practitioners as an acknowledgement that no-one can guarantee a comfortable space for everyone when discussions around racism and power involve holding people with power to account and challenging practices that uphold inequity. In theory, therefore, brave spaces provide a place for people with lived experiences of racism and those who are in solidarity with them (such as staff, diaspora communities, grassroots leaders or organisational partners) to share their experiences and perspectives (perhaps anonymously) within organisations without fear of reprisal. ⁵⁶ By necessity, therefore, privileged individuals who enter the space must accept that they may be confronted and challenged by these perspectives. Hence, individuals with privilege and power need to be willing to experience discomfort and be open to changing the way they view themselves, their organisation and their ways of working as a result.

There is a risk, however, that this will then lead to the burden of education being placed predominantly on people with personal experiences of racism and marginalization, resulting in fatigue. This was a barrier that some participants in one of the research focus groups identified. As one participant, Dominic, stated, there is a tension between wanting to cultivate a culture of encounter and not wanting people racialised as non-white to have to undertake any additional emotional labour: ‘Black people and people of ethnic minority identities are fatigued […] so it's that kind of deadlock isn’t it of how do you […] keep it within this “culture of encounter” … um … frame […] but without taking […] too much […] of the emotional sort of work from people’. As Gregory Ryan speaks about in relation to truth-telling in the Catholic Church, it is important to question who is forced to bear the costs and burdens of truth-telling. As Ryan writes, the ‘transaction’ of truth-telling ‘is much more costly for some than for others’. ⁵⁷ Organisations should discern how they might handle truth-tellers with dignity and care, particularly when truth-tellers with lived experiences of racism are navigating historically-oppressive institutional structures, so that truth-telling does not put people at risk of harm, reprisal, or the loss of goods. As Anthony, a participant in one of the focus groups, put it, a core concern with EDI work is ‘how safe [people] feel to express […] concerns’. Another participant, Veronica, explained that many people might not feel able to speak out about issues of anti-racism due to concerns regarding job security, particularly in a time of such insecurity in the sector:

When you’re looking at staff from different ethnic backgrounds, they will become more silent […] because the … the climate is that jobs are not secure. And they need to hold on to their jobs. […] I think people will put their heads down […] our BAME colleagues might not feel comfortable voicing … um … the microaggressions or the anti-racist nature of [the organisation]. […] I’m in a different place to other people … but I think people's voices will become quieter, as in, ethnic, Black, BAME colleagues.

Additionally, there are barriers to cultivating a culture of encounter that appear even in well-intentioned processes of listening, particularly when power dynamics are not critically analysed by organisations. It is therefore important for organisations to examine who holds interpretative and decision-making power over truth-telling and the sharing of lived experience. Which stories and opinions are viewed as important? Who decides what transformations or structural changes are needed as a result? If the people who are consulted have no say over what is done with their stories and lived experiences, and what actions are taken as a result, then there is the potential that this could turn into an extractive and colonial style of knowledge production even if done with good intentions. As Dominic, a participant in one of the focus groups, states: ‘To receive insight from people […] those people need to have some kind of ownership over the conversation’. There is a danger that the lived experiences of people on the underside of inequitable power dynamics will be instrumentalized by organisations for their own agenda. For example, even when trying to magnify the voices of partners or communities in the ‘Global South’ through communications work, there is a danger of catering to the white gaze when deciding on which voices or stories should be spotlighted. As one participant, Esther, put it:

If I’m looking for someone to speak at a workshop that I’m putting on, who am I gunna call on of our partners? Well, I’m gunna call on someone that I know will be quite, like, good at public speaking and who speaks maybe in English that is easy to understand for a [politician] if that's the aim, right? And that leads me, maybe, to … to invite certain partners to speak because we know … obviously if you’ve done it a few times you know who can do a great job, but I also wonder if …. if … if you actually look at that, there will also be some underrepresentation in what kind of partners we … we spotlight. […] Because it will often probably be the ones who have maybe studied abroad, right? So, they’re … that will form their … maybe their accent a little bit.

Hence, the ‘white gaze of development’ can hinder a culture of encounter within the organisation due to it shaping organisational decisions around which stories are told and whose perspectives are highlighted. Without explicitly using the language of ‘the white gaze’ or white saviourism, some of the participants in the focus groups reflected further on the restrictions and limitations this gaze places on their organisations’ communications and fundraising strategies. As one participant, Veronica, explained when reflecting on their organisation’s public-facing communications regarding its values: ‘[It has] this assumption that we as community here are bigger, better, stronger and so therefore we can deliver something in the Global South […] everything is geared towards our empathy for the Global South context’. This participant did not explicitly use the language of white saviourism or the white gaze here. Perhaps, however, underlying the participant’s comment, is an observation that the language used in their organisation’s public-facing communications has the potential to underscore attitudes of saviourism and perpetuate ‘the white gaze of development’. In a related but distinct way, participants in the other focus group discussed the importance of using vocabulary that would be familiar to their Catholic audience. While speaking primarily about the organisation's use of faith-filled language, one participant, Theresa, suggested that, in their communications work, the organisation was prioritizing the audiences’ comfort in order to increase engagement and their goal with communications was to ‘reflect’ the audience's ‘image of themselves’ back to them: ‘A lot of what we do, if we’re sending something outwardly, part of getting people to engage with us is to reflect their image of themselves back. Like, so we … we reflect to them who we … let me get this right … we try and speak in a way that they are comfortable with … to them about things … and so we do do that in a faith-filled way because that's where people encounter us’. Here again it seems that ‘the white gaze’ might be placing limitations on the organisation's communications work in a way that could potentially hinder a culture of encounter. This is because the organisation is limiting itself from being able to ‘open up the space for other voices, other experiences, others’ knowledge to be heard’ ⁶³ by making assumptions about who their audience is and what their audience would respond well to, thereby strategically using language that this perceived audience would feel comfortable with in order to increase engagement. Indeed, participants in the focus groups discussed how risks around fundraising, as well as risks around an organisation's public reputation, can limit or shape what an organisation says publicly. Theresa further explained that ‘I think that we maybe perceive ourselves as being more liberal than [our audience of Catholics], sometimes. And that has a massive effect I think on how we speak to people in terms of, like, anti-racism and EDI externally’. Another participant, Anthony, explained that

We have to constantly make the choices of what are we presenting out there. Because if we presenting in a …. not wrong way, but in a … in a way that is not going to be perceived … then … then we gunna have a really big problem financially […] but the question is obviously then […] what is more important […] Can you not speak about anti-racism because you going to lose right-wing … um … supporters?

Conclusion

In this article, the CST theme of the ‘culture of encounter’ has been used as a conceptual lens to interpret the experience of practitioners within Catholic organisations who have been undertaking work related to anti-racism and equity, diversity and inclusion in the international development sector. We have seen how the praxis of practitioners in the sector who are engaging in this type of work can help to develop theological thinking around what it means to cultivate a culture of encounter. Moreover, their lived experiences can help Catholic social theorists and practitioners to further develop thinking around the obstacles which can hinder an authentic culture of encounter being developed in Christian organisations and wider society. Indeed, the lived experiences of these practitioners help raise a critical question for any Christian organisation which is committed to anti-racism, that is, how can the corporate habits, structures and processes which are necessary for a culture of encounter be cultivated within Christian organisations in such a way that it becomes an enabling environment for deep listening, truth-telling and transformative inclusion?