Washington D.C., Aug 14, 2017 / 10:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With deadly violence following a rally of white supremacists this past weekend in Charlottesville, Va., bishops throughout the nation denounced racism and racist ideologies.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and domestic justice chairman Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Fla., issued a statement on Sunday condemning “the evil of racism, white supremacy and neo-nazism.”
They also prayed for peaceful counter-protesters, saying that “our prayer turns today, on the Lord’s Day, to the people of Charlottesville who offered a counter example to the hate marching in the streets.”
“Let us especially remember those who lost their lives. Let us join their witness and stand against every form of oppression,” they said.
This past weekend, a planned “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the city’s removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee drew white supremacists including neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members. A counter-protest, including a diverse coalition of religious leaders and members of the Antifa and Black Lives Matter movements, was formed.
On Saturday, a man drove a car into the counter-protest, injuring 19 and killing one, 32 year-old Heather Heyer of Charlottesville, the AP reported. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the incident “does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute,” and promised to “protect the right of people, like Heather Heyer, to protest against racism and bigotry.”
Two Virginia State troopers also lost their lives near Charlottesville as they responded to the situation there, when their helicopter crashed in Albemarle County.
Catholic bishops denounced the violence but also explicitly condemned the racist ideology amidst the “Unite the Right” gathering.
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia stated on Sunday that “the wave of public anger about white nationalist events in Charlottesville this weekend is well warranted.”
“Racism is a poison of the soul. It’s the ugly, original sin of our country, an illness that has never fully healed. Blending it with the Nazi salute, the relic of a regime that murdered millions, compounds the obscenity,” he said.
Bishop Martin Holley of Memphis called the racist rallies and the violence “appalling.”
“May this shocking incident and display of evil ignite a commitment among all people to end the racism, violence, bigotry and hatred that we have seen too often in our nation and throughout the world,” he said.
Other bishops on Twitter explicitly condemned racism over the weekend as well, in response to the unrest.
“Racism is a grave sin rooted in pride, envy and hatred. It suffocates the soul by means of expelling from it the charity of Christ,” Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas tweeted on Saturday night.
“Pray for an end to the evil of racism. And pray, especially today, for its victims. Pray for justice and mercy in our nation,” Bishop James Conley of Lincoln tweeted on Saturday afternoon.
However, Americans cannot only condemn racism in statements, but must also pray and work for a collective conversion of heart, Archbishop Chaput said.
“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 said.
“Charlottesville matters. It’s a snapshot of our public unraveling into real hatreds brutally expressed; a collapse of restraint and mutual respect now taking place across the country.”
“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,” he said. “That may sound simple. But the history of our nation and its tortured attitudes toward race proves exactly the opposite.”
Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. also called for “soul searching” in the wake of the unrest.
“We must always identify hate for what it is, but the inevitable pointing of fingers of blame after the fact only entrenches division,” he said on his blog.
“We as a nation must also engage in soul searching about how it is that there is so much social unrest and violence in our communities. After years of seeing the flames of resentment and division fanned by incitement to bitterness and distrust, should we not now be actively seeking reconciliation and a return to civility?” he asked.
“At this time, as Christians, as disciples of Jesus, we must redouble our efforts to bear a witness for peace and the common good,” he said.
President Donald Trump condemned the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides – on many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country.”
Vice President Mike Pence, in a joint press conference on Sunday with Colombia University President Juan Manuel Santos, expressed condolences to the families of Hyer and the two state troopers.
“We have no tolerance for hate and violence, from white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or the KKK. These dangerous fringe groups have no place in American public life and in the American debate, and we condemn them in the strongest possible terms,” he said.
“Our administration is bringing the full resources of the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the violence that ensued yesterday in Charlottesville. And we will hold them to account, under the law,” he said.
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Build the wall on the north side of the church’s property. Let it deal with Mexico directly.
CCC
1909 Finally, the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order. It presupposes that authority should ensure by morally acceptable means the security of society and its members. It is the basis of the right to legitimate personal and collective defense.
It seems to me that while the Church ignores LGBT degeneracy and abortion laws, including public officials and politicians who are Catholic, and support ‘worldly’ licentiousness it has now allied itself with socialists within the Democratic Party who have us destroy our American Culture and Catholic Culture to accommodate the will of the far left. If they Church cared for our security they would support the government in securing our borders and protecting our society from cultural genocide. But then again, since Vatican II, the Church seems hell bent on committing Catholic Cultural suicide so this comes as no big surprise. And the USCCB thinks that we should send them money and support our dioceses as we pay off victims of clerical sex abuse and work in league with the most radical of the leftists at home and in the UN. They might want to just be quiet and teach the Catechism: the WHOLE Catechism.
I wonder if Trump will ever acknowledge what a bad idea it was to campaign for the border wall and promising that Mexico would pay for it, an estimated $30 billion? Mexican President Pena Nieto and former president Fox vehemently opposed Trump’s wild idea. Currently, Trump has placed the financial burden on the American taxpayer. Yet, even with all his lies and failed promises he got elected.
After Trump insulted the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau at the G7 meeting Trump might consider building a northern wall separating Canada and the US that is much longer and much more expensive.
The US has the most generous immigration policy on the planet: https://www.immigroup.com/news/top-10-immigration-friendly-countries
Along with our generous (legal) immigration policy we are also the most generous country with foreign aid and disaster response around the globe.
So in addition to this, people like you seem to think that open borders and illegal immigration is some kind of right without looking at what that means for the future of US going forward. Are we to take in as many immigrants as there are in the world since we have the most to offer? We give welfare, housing subsidies, health care, tuition and child care services all at the expense of the working stiff who is being displaced by a literal flood of illegal immigration. If it is controlled then we can monitor and know who is coming into our country which is the right of any nation and we can also monitor their health and other problems which may put the people of this country at risk. I wonder how many billions of dollars that works out to be . . . and it is ongoing? I also wonder why Spanish speaking South Americans march right past all their neighbors claiming that the seek asylum when they could find asylum in other Spanish speaking neighbors and not undertake such a long a treacherous journey. It is obvious that they are receiving help and are being encouraged to march across a number of countries to reach the Mexican border and we know that George Soros and his groups are funding this along with MasterCard. http://whatisupwiththesynod.com/index.php/2018/11/08/raped-a-man-attacked-police-demanded-the-state-give-him-a-wife-pakistani-judged-a-psychopath/
So is it such a bad idea to try to stop what may turn into cultural genocide? You may not care a wit about the future but some of us do and some of us would rather help these people in their struggle against their own totalitarian governments. You don’t appreciate your liberty unless you fight for it and win it yourself. You can’t steal somebody elses freedom. We paid with our blood and we should be able to protect what we gained with our blood as well even though it would be much nicer if we simply build a wall and prevent illegal trafficking. Do you feel comfortable with the mules who smuggle drugs and humans over the border as well? Just wondering. That is why we have a legal way to immigrate and why it needs to be enforced.