Being black didn’t make me any more susceptible to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s more outrageous theories.

Being a lifelong Catholic, the fire-and-brimstone style of preaching was never my tradition. But the interpretations – too often through a racial prism, that have become as endless as the replays of his more fiery sermons – took me back to the 1970’s.

My Catholic church in working-class West Baltimore was as it had always been: The parishioners were black and the priests were white. Their sermons spoke of Jesus and commandments, and included occasional reminders to dig deeper when the collection basket was passed.

The outside world, the one in which the faithful faced frustrations and prejudice, didn’t intrude.

Until one day – over one night, in fact – it changed. The statues of the saints, the Jesus who hung on the crucifix in front of the altar, which had been as white as the voices of authority, woke up black.

It wasn’t some slapdash act of vandalism. Someone – probably more than one person – had carefully painted the statues’ faces. They now resembled the people who worshiped at this imposing church in the middle of a modest neighborhood.

The outside world came in.

And no one was upset. Not even the priests, who realized that the subtle change made St. Pius V more welcoming, spiritual and physically.

And isn’t that what church is supposed to be?

The controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s ex-pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, reminded me of St. Pius’ black Jesus.

As Wright’s words are dissected and interpreted, what’s missing is context. What’s missing is insight into the traditional role of the black church, historical home base of the civil-rights movement.

After slavery, when many white churches banished black members into balconies, and others barred them altogether, the black church was a refuge. Black churches prepared parishioners’ souls and bodies for salvation, and for a seven-day-a-week life spent overcoming unimaginable odds.The odds have improved but challenges remain.

I’m not condoning what Wright said. But cherry-picking emotional exhortations and stripping them of context is hardly the way to judge the whole of a man.

Is Wright anti-American? He’s a former Marine who has served his country in a way many of his critics have not. Now Wright is being vilified without an understanding of his audience or the history of this country.

And I remember the day my staid Catholic parish acknowledged that sometimes, prayer is not enough.