By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and it corrupts the souls of those who harbor racist or prejudicial thoughts. The persistence of the evil of racism is why we are writing this letter now.
The fight against racism in the Church, however, overlaps with an abuse of concerns about racial interrelations in society by means of malevolent political movements such as BLM. The color politics that do not promote equality and justice, but serve only to fan the flames of the injustices they claim to oppose, roil the Church and society as a distraction from, and an obstacle to, faith. For we of faith nothing replaces the Gospel.
Thank the Lord many people today are, as they should be, colorblind. Is it possible that some may harbor tendencies to discriminate based on appearances? Most likely more people than we may ever know struggle daily to overcome their unjust reactions to race, creed, sex, or other factors that make others different from themselves.
The reason for discrimination of any kind, however, is sin. Yes, racism is a sin. Discrimination of any kind is unjust because a violation of the dignity that belongs to every human person, simply because they are human and thus bear God’s image and likeness. It is a faith-informed truth that charity excludes no creature from its Godly embrace. To get to the root of racism or any form of discrimination we have to go to the source, which is sin. Politics cannot help us. Politics too often uses racism to increase division. Only God’s love has the power to combat injustices.
Faith is the practice of God’s love. The conversion to the ways of faith is the means of rooting out any and all injustice or discrimination. Pastors who focus on God’s love first, seeking first the Kingdom, can effectively combat all forms of injustice to include racism.
Why do some pastors and religious leaders focus on racism, however? Why do they headline it with banners on church grounds and regular comments about it in homilies and writings? And when they do, why don’t we hear any disparaging comments about the fact that it is inappropriate to focus continuously on one sin, potentially making any group which is being addressed feel, perhaps unfairly, that they are being unjustly accused? If it were any other moral issue I believe that would be the reaction as experience has shown.
Let’s try a thought experiment. Certain subjects have been labeled as “culture wars” issues by the left, to include abortion. I believe that the reason for this is to signal that such persons are willing to negotiate these moral issues away for what they believe are more important matters.
Let’s say a priest has a habit of working abortion, or contraception which can be abortifacient, into his homilies. Every time. Let’s also say that he works it into his comments to individuals, perhaps in the confessional as well. Would not the individuals to whom he is speaking feel justified in assuming that he is targeting them as suspected sinners? Would not such individuals reasonably conclude that the priest is pretending to knowledge he couldn’t possibly possess or is probing into their conscience in an inappropriate manner? Certainly.
Why isn’t the continual drumbeat on the issue of racism treated in the same way?
The “culture wars” issues, such as abortion, which divide the bishops today, were long ago relegated by many of their number to the status of negotiable by the rolling up of all life issues together into the so-called “consistent ethic of life” or “seamless garment.” No doubt this was not directly intended by some of those bishops. Cardinal Bernardin, for example, while a principal architect of the “consistent ethic,” was firm and steadfast in proclaiming the Church’s absolute rejection of abortion as the intentional taking of an innocent human life.
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