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| White nationalists carry torches on the grounds
of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 11 over a plan to remove the statue of a Confederate general from a city park |
I left both the Republican Party and the Roman Catholic Church years ago because of the former's subversion of the U.S. Constitution and the mortal bankruptcy of the latter as exemplified by the worldwide sex abuse scandal. Yet in recent years, far right Catholics and evangelical Christians have bonded over their mutual opposition to abortion and a mutual hatred of LGBT individuals. One of the examples of this poisonous alliance is the fact that Donald Trump currently occupies the White House thanks to the support these two groups (especially by evangelicals). Now, in the wake of the white supremacists terror in Charlottesville, Virginia, some are conjecturing that this unholy alliance may become strained or even collapse. Whether this is nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of Catholics who want to give Neo-Nazism a wide berth - especially given the Catholic Church's failure to adequately oppose the rise of Hitler and his agenda that included genocide - remains to be seen A piece in the Jesuit publication America looks at this hopefully fraying alliance. Here are excerpts:
The first photos from the Charlottesville white supremacist rally began to appear on social media late on Friday night, surreal images of young white men marching by torchlight to kick off what became a violent weekend of hate culminating in the death of a counterprotester allegedly at the hands of a Nazi sympathizer.
Responses from Catholic leaders began to appear late Saturday afternoon, with many of them initially calling for unity, peace and for both sides to come together. But by Sunday evening, the statements were unequivocal in denouncing white supremacy and neo-Nazism, the ideologies that drove the events in Charlottesville.
Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of the Diocese of Richmond, which includes Charlottesville, wrote in a statement on Saturday afternoon: “I pray that those men and women on both sides can talk and seek solutions to their differences respectfully.”
As for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, it released its first statement on Saturday afternoon.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the conference, said he condemned the “violence and hatred” on display in Charlottesville, which he called “an attack on the unity of our nation” and urged “fervent prayer and peaceful action.”
Sentiments like that led to some backlash on social media, with some people pointing out that such statements failed to condemn racism and white supremacy, both considered sins by the Catholic Church. Some Catholics pointed to a 1979 document written by U.S. bishops that begins, “Racism is an evil which endures in our society and in our Church.”
By Saturday night, messages from some church leaders became more pointed. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, for example, tweeted, “When it comes to racism, there is only one side: to stand against it,” seemingly a reference to President Trump’s initial comments on the violence, which have been widely criticized.
On Sunday morning, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia released a statement, which began, “Racism is a poison of the soul.”
“It’s the ugly, original sin of our country, an illness that has never fully healed,” he continued. “Blending it with the Nazi salute, the relic of a regime that murdered millions, compounds the obscenity. Thus the wave of public anger about white nationalist events in Charlottesville this weekend is well warranted. We especially need to pray for those injured in the violence.”
But he also said “we need more than pious public statements.”
“If our anger today is just another mental virus displaced tomorrow by the next distraction or outrage we find in the media, nothing will change,” he continued. “We need to keep the images of Charlottesville alive in our memories. If we want a different kind of country in the future, we need to start today with a conversion in our own hearts, and an insistence on the same in others.”
The following day, Sunday, U.S. bishops took the unusual step of releasing a second statement about the same event.
Whereas the first statement did not name the ideology driving the protests in Charlottesville, the second statement was more direct: “We stand against the evil of racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazism.” . . . the statement continued, “At Mass, let us offer a special prayer of gratitude for the brave souls who sought to protect us from the violent ideology displayed yesterday,” in reference to local clergy and people of faith who demonstrated against the white supremacists.
Audrey Gyolai, a student at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind., told America that the priest where she attended Mass preached about Charlottesville during a homily about institutional sin. In addition to the rally, the priest also talked about deportations, highlighting a local case where a woman had been deported by federal agents.
If we are lucky, the unholy alliance of right wing Catholics and evangelical Christians/white supremacists will collapse.
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