Another kind of march through the streets of San Francisco Don’t do it, a friend whispered to me. Don’t write anything about Black Lives Matter. Anything and everything you write will be used against you. Well, that is true also of any homilist who speaks and writes on the full gospel throughout the year. All Christians, but especially bishops and priests, are called to a prophetic vocation. As one angry man shouted in a protest last week on a bridge, "Say. His. Name." And I will: "Jesus!"
Last Saturday an “angry crowd” shut down the Golden Gate Bridge. Two buddies and I happened to riding our bikes for some joyful companionship on that same bridge at the same time, and we got a bit stuck. But I have to say that most of the people carrying signs were not angry. They were actually kind and understanding, at least to the twenty or so cyclists who were threading their way through the bike lane. No one got mad at us. I said to one girl with a BLM sign, “all lives matter, including police lives,” but she didn’t hit me or shout at me.
All Lives Matter must be our prophetic utterance, not just in frenzied, media-driven moments like this, but in every time. Every human life is a gift from God, and we must advocate for every class and race and age that is persecuted. No rational person would not be torn up by the murder of George Floyd. But the citizens of an ordered and peaceful and just society must also apply their reason, rather than raw emotion, to correcting injustice. It’s hard to believe that a black archbishop of Washington is outraged by a president whom he considers not sufficiently aggressive in correcting injustice against blacks, while the same archbishop is not made ill by the abortion clinics set up strategically in the black and Latino sections of his city. Why does Archbishop Gregory not criticize Catholic universities that support Planned Parenthood, an organization established in 1916 specifically to eliminate black lives? Is he being rational or merely political? There is no question that many blacks, and Latinos, and other groups suffer degrees of institutionalized social oppression, and that whites enjoy social privilege. As my brother in law said, “I’m a white, educated American. I can get a job in any part of the world at any time I want.” The civil rights movements led by black pastors like Martin Luther King were effective in moving the needle toward respect and freedom for all. But that is not the goal of Black Lives Matter.
The vast majority of protesters are good people, well-intentioned, heartfelt advocates of the poor. But who is organizing the BLM protests? Have people of good will, who respect the natural law, read about the founders of BLM? “Unlike the Black Freedom Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s,” ‘Black Queer Feminist’ David Green writes, “BLM is inherently a movement sustained by a politics of blackness that is, Charlene Carruthers reminds us, unapologetically feminist, womanist, and queer." Who is funding and managing BLM, and what are its stated goals? The BLM website quotes ‘queer’ BLM founder Alicia Garcia: “In order to truly understand how devastating and widespread this type of violence is in Black America, we must view this epidemic through a lens of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” Of those four descriptors, three are about sex, and one is about race. So who and what is driving this movement after all? Let's say their name: Anarchists. Today's anarchists are playing on the emotions of a population that has largely lost its ability to think critically.
The true and the good will always prevail, because people are inherently good. The natural law will always prevail, despite the limitations of human goodness and capacity for truth. The vast majority of people in the current protests are good—in fact, all of them are good. Many, however, are badly mistaken and all of us have been systematically propagandized by our education system and media corporations. Today many Catholic priests will lead a much more time-honored and proven-effective parade through the streets. It's called the Corpus Christi procession. Few will attend, and we will receive no media attention. But the Lord of all leads us, and we have been given the grace to follow Him. Blessed be He, the Father of Mercies and the God of all consolation!
Last Saturday an “angry crowd” shut down the Golden Gate Bridge. Two buddies and I happened to riding our bikes for some joyful companionship on that same bridge at the same time, and we got a bit stuck. But I have to say that most of the people carrying signs were not angry. They were actually kind and understanding, at least to the twenty or so cyclists who were threading their way through the bike lane. No one got mad at us. I said to one girl with a BLM sign, “all lives matter, including police lives,” but she didn’t hit me or shout at me.
All Lives Matter must be our prophetic utterance, not just in frenzied, media-driven moments like this, but in every time. Every human life is a gift from God, and we must advocate for every class and race and age that is persecuted. No rational person would not be torn up by the murder of George Floyd. But the citizens of an ordered and peaceful and just society must also apply their reason, rather than raw emotion, to correcting injustice. It’s hard to believe that a black archbishop of Washington is outraged by a president whom he considers not sufficiently aggressive in correcting injustice against blacks, while the same archbishop is not made ill by the abortion clinics set up strategically in the black and Latino sections of his city. Why does Archbishop Gregory not criticize Catholic universities that support Planned Parenthood, an organization established in 1916 specifically to eliminate black lives? Is he being rational or merely political? There is no question that many blacks, and Latinos, and other groups suffer degrees of institutionalized social oppression, and that whites enjoy social privilege. As my brother in law said, “I’m a white, educated American. I can get a job in any part of the world at any time I want.” The civil rights movements led by black pastors like Martin Luther King were effective in moving the needle toward respect and freedom for all. But that is not the goal of Black Lives Matter.
The vast majority of protesters are good people, well-intentioned, heartfelt advocates of the poor. But who is organizing the BLM protests? Have people of good will, who respect the natural law, read about the founders of BLM? “Unlike the Black Freedom Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s,” ‘Black Queer Feminist’ David Green writes, “BLM is inherently a movement sustained by a politics of blackness that is, Charlene Carruthers reminds us, unapologetically feminist, womanist, and queer." Who is funding and managing BLM, and what are its stated goals? The BLM website quotes ‘queer’ BLM founder Alicia Garcia: “In order to truly understand how devastating and widespread this type of violence is in Black America, we must view this epidemic through a lens of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” Of those four descriptors, three are about sex, and one is about race. So who and what is driving this movement after all? Let's say their name: Anarchists. Today's anarchists are playing on the emotions of a population that has largely lost its ability to think critically.
The true and the good will always prevail, because people are inherently good. The natural law will always prevail, despite the limitations of human goodness and capacity for truth. The vast majority of people in the current protests are good—in fact, all of them are good. Many, however, are badly mistaken and all of us have been systematically propagandized by our education system and media corporations. Today many Catholic priests will lead a much more time-honored and proven-effective parade through the streets. It's called the Corpus Christi procession. Few will attend, and we will receive no media attention. But the Lord of all leads us, and we have been given the grace to follow Him. Blessed be He, the Father of Mercies and the God of all consolation!
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