CNA Staff, Sep 22, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).-
A Black Catholic leader said Friday that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is the wrong organization to lead an important movement against racism in the U.S., because, he said, it asserts a relativistic agenda that will cause harm to Black families.
“While it is important to affirm the truth that black lives matter, unfortunately, the Black Lives Matter organization (BLM) itself is ill-equipped to lead,” Louis Brown wrote in an essay published Friday in First Things.
“Black lives do matter—the phrase is correct that all God’s people deserve love, dignity, truth, and freedom. Our brothers and sisters who peacefully protest for justice with signs of ‘black lives matter’ march justly. However, there is a difference between asserting ‘black lives matter’ and the BLM organization itself, which is seriously flawed.”
Brown, executive director of the Christ Medicus Foundation, is an attorney who worked for the Democratic National Committee, before his pro-life views led him to leave the position. Brown has worked for both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and in a senior position in the civil rights office of the federal department of Health and Human Services.
The phrase “#BlackLivesMatter” began to trend online following the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, and a movement grew amid protests and riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after a young black man, Michael Brown, was shot in an altercation with a police officer.
“Black Lives Matter” has become the rallying cry for a broad social movement. But there are also specific organizations which take the name “Black Lives Matter.” The largest and best-funded of those groups is the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which has a network of local chapters around the U.S. and in other countries.
Brown said that organization “asserts a worldview of moral relativism that recognizes no objective truth, ‘disrupts’ the natural family, and undermines the natural law foundation of civil rights. Its agenda divides people in an arbitrary manner that will, ironically, lead to greater strife especially for black families.”
“By advocating for gender ideology, BLM rejects the basic truths of human dignity in the natural law. Gender ideology replaces the scientific and biological reality of maleness and femaleness with the false belief that one’s sex can be changed. However, as both Pope Francis and the African Cardinal Robert Sarah have asserted, gender ideology is a false construct with no basis in scientific reality. Gender ideology is destructive because it rejects the truths of male and female existence. There can be no dignity or freedom without truth,” he added.
The website of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation recently altered a page outlining controversial beliefs of the organization on the family and sexuality.
As recently as Sept. 17, the organization’s “about” page said the group was a “a queer‐affirming network” that works toward “freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual,” to “dismantle cisgender privilege,” and to ‘disrupt’ the ‘nuclear family.’
New text on the group’s website reaffirms its positions on gender ideology, saying that “Black liberation movements in this country have created room, space, and leadership mostly for Black heterosexual, cisgender men — leaving women, queer and transgender people, and others either out of the movement or in the background to move the work forward with little or no recognition.”
Brown is not the only Black Catholic leader to criticize the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, and distinguish it from important calls for racial justice.
“It’s time to state honestly what BLM really stands for – destroying the traditional Family AND what it actually does – destroying property including religious building and objects!” tweeted Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban, South Africa, who himself is Black, on Aug. 28, in reference to the organization. Napier was a part of the Church in South Africa’s struggle against apartheid.
Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, a Black Catholic deacon of the Diocese of Portland, Oregon, author, and co-host of EWTN’s Morning Glory radio show told Catholic World Report in August that, like Brown, he draws a distinction between a movement and an organization.
“When you put those three words together—black lives matter—as a social movement, it’s a statement of truth, which is a good thing.”
“But the term ‘black lives matter’ has been conflated with the national organization, Black Lives Matter. In a lot of people’s minds, when you say ‘black lives matter,’ people automatically think of the national organization,” he lamented.
Noting that the organization’s values “raise some red flags” for him, he mentioned especially that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation does not address the importance of fatherhood.
“Look at all that, plus the violence that is being perpetrated, the rioting, the looting, the tearing down statues, all of these things,” the deacon said. “No Catholic in good conscience can have anything to do with a group like that. Period.”
Brown’s essay said that the U.S. needs to address “racial discrimination and unjust inequality,” but called for a Christian approach to those issues.
He pointed to “police misconduct and racial discrimination in our criminal justice system, and to the disproportionate suffering that COVID-19 has wrought in many communities of color.”
“As a black man, I am pained to learn of police officers killing unarmed black people.”
“As an attorney who has also worked as a staffer in Congress and the executive branch, I have seen that the majority of law enforcement officials are good people seeking to protect and serve,” Brown wrote, but “racial discrimination in the criminal justice system continues in the form of racial profiling, police misconduct, and discriminatory criminal sentencing.”
Pointing to healthcare inequality, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, Brown noted that “Even once this health crisis ends, many African American communities will still not have the medical care they deserve. Historical patterns of racial exclusion have exacerbated negative health care outcomes. Ensuring that the vulnerable have access to proper medical care is necessary to restoring a culture of life.”
Brown’s essay came as polling shows declining support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and after the destruction of police stations and other public buildings amid protests in some cities, and the shooting of two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies Sept. 12.
On that date, a gunman approached a parked police car near the light rail station in Compton, California, opening fire with a pistol at the two police officers inside. Both survived despite multiple gunshot wounds, and the shooter fled on foot.
The officers, a 31-year-old mother and a 24-year-old male, had been on the job less than a year, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said after the shooting.
The incident garnered additional attention because of a protest that took place later that evening outside St. Francis Medical Center, where the officers had been transported for surgery.
A video posted by a local journalist on the scene shows several men shouting at a group of police officers outside the hospital, and one can be heard shouting “I hope they [expletive] die.”
Police arrested two people in connection to the protest, including the journalist who filmed the scene; the journalist was released later that night with a citation for obstructing a police officer.
Protestors blocked the path of the ambulance carrying officers to the hospital, and the LA County Sheriff’s office said via Twitter: “DO NOT BLOCK EMERGENCY ENTRIES & EXITS TO THE HOSPITAL. People’s lives are at stake when ambulances can’t get through,”
News reports have not confirmed whether the protest at the hospital was an officially organized event convened by Black Lives Matter.
Protestors identifying themselves as being affiliated with Black Lives Matter have staged protests at police precincts across the country in recent months, with mobs destroying police precincts in Minneapolis and Portland in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in May.
Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, a local affiliate of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, did not respond to CNA’s request for comment.
Pentecostal minister Eugene Rivers, director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, told CNA he considers it “a moral disgrace that the BLM organization did not condemn the shooting of the police officers in Compton, California. Under no circumstances could the moral and political failure to speak up be justified.”
Rivers, who is Black, called the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation “a scam that exploits the suffering of Black people to promote gender ideology.”
The minister said the organization “is peddling morally, tactically, and intrinsically stupid ideas,” reminiscent of “the Black Panther Party, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and Revolutionary Action Movement and others who laid out an assortment of dystopian visions for the Black community and the country in general.”
Rivers said the group has “repudiate[d] Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy,” replacing it with “irrational ideas that have so quickly led to violence in its name rather than maintaining the non-violent high ground MLK staked out from his Christian perspective.”
Leaders of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles have said their efforts are more than a movement for racial justice, but are a “spiritual movement,” which have incorporated spiritual rituals into protests, drawing from animistic religions by calling forth deceased ancestors and pouring out libations for them.
Brown wrote last week that an authentic movement for racial justice needs to be rooted in love, and, ultimately, in Christ.
“Racial injustice is part of the culture of death. To build a culture of life in America, we need a revival of God’s love and a new era of civil rights,” he wrote.
“True justice is based on the foundational principle of civil rights: each person’s God-given natural rights as embodied in the natural law. Thanks to the natural law, abolitionists knew slavery was wrong even though civil law said it was right, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew segregation was wrong even though the voting majority in many states likely supported it.”
“A new era of authentic love and justice is needed and will begin with a Christian revival of love for God and neighbor. This love is the only force powerful enough to bring lasting healing.”
“The Christian faithful must rededicate themselves to love through spiritual and corporal works of mercy that serve communities of color and the vulnerable. We must give the best of the Church, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to those on the peripheries.”
“God calls us to do justice in bringing about the Kingdom of God and building up the culture of life,” Brown concluded.
“Agendas opposed to human dignity strengthen the culture of death, and can never lead us toward justice. As Christians, we must charge ahead in the love of Christ to lead a revival of God’s love and bring about a new era of Christian humanism in America.”
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I’m not sure what the fuss is.
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Many, many years back, the HEK 293 cell line (among others, see Children of God for LIfe website) came into existence and is currently used in a wide variety of pharmaceutical applications including vaccine production, notably the Covid vaccine, the use of which our very own Pope assures us is an “act of love.”
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https://www.axios.com/2021/08/18/pope-francis-video-ad-encourage-covid-vaccines
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Indeed, vaccines that were produced and or tested with fetal cells lines are often required for entrance into Catholic schools around the country, and I expect Catholic colleges and seminaries. Bishops around the globe (and in the Vatican) order priests, deacons, and employees to be vaccinated against certain diseases (notably Covid) with these vaccines.
Theologians (professional and armchair) assure us again and again and again that being vaccinated with any of these vaccines is acceptable (just be sure to protest!)
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So I am not entirely sure what the fuss is about IVF. In twenty or so years, I am quite confident that Theologians will assure everyone that whatever medical therapeutics invented with the destroyed left-over embryos (aka human beings) at IVF clinics is morally fine (just be sure to protest).
Along the same lines, anyone who is conceived through rape, or who has an ancestor conceived through rape, should be denied entrance to Catholic schools, right? Wait, that’s not enough — better make that anyone ever tainted with Original Sin. Sure, that leaves exactly two people eligible for the schools, Neither of Whom could possibly be educated by the tainted faculty, but I’m sure that is more than made up for by the absolute refusal to cooperate with evil.
Or we could take a page from the Apostle Paul instead. Obviously no one, and especially no Christian, should offer food to idols, nor should they encourage others to do so, but it was still permissable to buy such food in the market at a reduced price. We must not participate in evil ourselves, nor may we encourage others to participate in evil now or in the future, but evil so thoroughly permeates history that if we pretend we can avoid everything touched by it we are being dishonest hypocrites … which means we are participating in evil.
This isn’t just about the HEK 293 cell line. It’s also about slavery and the mistreatment of the American Indians. It’s about barons of industry oppressing their workers to create the modern world. It’s about pogroms and persecutions and purges. It’s about kings and presidents fighting wars and reshaping the map for money or prestige. Everyone you meet, every place you go, every tool you use is to some extent shaped by a sinful choice in the past.
Outis: Could you more clearly explain what your point is? Even though there was evil in the past, can we not oppose IVF now?
Who exactly is “pretending that we can avoid everything touched by “evil?
What does “slavery and mistreatment of American Indians” have to do with this article on IVF?
Please explain.
(I believe) He’s assimilating other “gains” made by society to their related pain to others and/or related sins – pretty much “nothing” is exempt/pure yet we have no problem with it in our daily lives? Do we subscribe to a cable network that also offers porn, so we can watch our news and TV shows?
One example may be, you do business with Amazon because it saves you money, is quick etc… yet they were one of the first to jump on the abortion travel to other states is reimbursed by their health plan bandwagon. They also have the postal service delivering non-emergency packages on Sundays (non optional for some employees – see recent court case) Based on just their revenues, how much real pushback is there on this company or any other in the U.S? If you mentioned this to someone on the street they would just shrug their shoulders, most likely, even if they raised their eyebrows when informed of any injustices. Is our own church even perfect?
I think his point is, it’s impossible to sort out/discard everything in our lives, past or present, that’s not pure – and just put ourselves in a pristine utopian situation. The fact that we kicked the Natives off their land/conquered or whatever you would like to deem it is an example. We still pay tribes billions in grants every year, but the fact of the historical related land matter still remains. We go about our lives every day with nary a thought to what took place in this matter; except maybe to remove the word “Chief” from the name of a sports team, as if that absolves us in present day (and is often being construed as an insult by the Tribes).
Will the Church baptize a baby from the surviving embryo? I imagine/hope the answer is yes, but I don’t know if this has been documented. I naively hope a soul is not yet attached to these embryos that are frozen or discarded, but Ceasar has said this is no different than using the morning after pill.
I consider that what is going on at Fordham University will eventually ruin what had been an unrivaled Law Department/Faculty and the unrivaled form of jurisprudence they had honed there. This should not be allowed to materialize; however, presently the other Departments are all caving to peculiar notions taught as normality. And that is done for the sake of having a peculiar enrollment and avoiding embarrassment, when in reality it is all abnormal. In which respect – Utter Fantasy.
In December 1983, the first babies were born using the IVF method. They happened to be twins. 41 years have passed and I don’t recall a mention of IVF until the Alabama ruling. As a result, state IVF clinics have shut down. Again, “conservative” courts have caused mayhem. The GOP is further conflicted as they try to repair internal damage that has been caused by duplicit Trump’s illegal dictations. Technology too sinful?
I am pro-life, ALL life. When I am conflicted by a topic that defies dogma, apparently today, I ask God for help. I am awaiting his answer.
I continue to ask WHY would an all loving, all omniscient God create an infertile couple? “Go forth and multiply”.
May he forgive me.
Consider Abraham’s aged and childless wife Sarah. She laughed when told by God or His angel that she would conceive by the following year.
Consider John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth, and how astonished she was to be pregnant after the Angel Gabriel appeared to her unbelieving husband, announcing her pregnancy, despite her old age.
How do these modern, supposedly infertile, couples know for certain that they are infertile? How do they know that God does not have a plan for them, as He did for Sarah and Elizabeth? They don’t know.
How do they know God does not have some other plan, in which celibacy would be required or preferred? They don’t know.
They need to ask God for supernatural faith, and not gravely offend Him by pursuing IVF.
I hope this helps answer your question. His ways are not our ways. And His thoughts are not our thoughts.
Genesis 18: 12-15
“…Can any task be too difficult for the Lord? At this time of year, the time I have appointed, I will come back to thee; live she till then, Sara shall have a son…
“…And when Sara, overcome with terror, denied the charge of laughing, Ah, he said, but thou didst laugh.”
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Luke 1: 5-25
“…And Zachary said to the angel, By what sign am I to be assured of this? I am an old man now, and my wife is far advanced in age …”
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Isaiah 55: 8-9
“…Not mine, the Lord says, to think as you think, deal as you deal.
“by the full height of heaven above earth, my dealings are higher than your dealings, my thoughts than your thoughts.”
— taken from Knox translation
God gives us freedom to love or not, do good or evil. I am not a scientist but I have heard that infertility is the result of human choices that pollute our environment, including the womb environment. When mothers or grandmothers take the pill, it influences the fertility of their offspring. God did not make the person infertile, pollution might have.Humans choose to pollute.
Republican politicians typically oppose abortion, but now appear to support IVF. Philosophically, these two positions would appear to be contradictory, but expect some interesting moral and intellectual gymnastics to justify this seemingly mutually exclusive position.
Perhaps that great moral philosopher and intellectual Marjorie Taylor Greene can enlighten us?
It would be naive to think any politician regardless of party affiliation would be able to align their platform with every Catholic moral principle. Informed voters should investigate the platform of each candidate and make a conscientious decision to vote for a person who most aligns with Catholic moral teaching. On the whole, the scale has always tipped toward the Republican candidates. It just has.
“Father Ezra Sullivan, OP, a professor of moral theology and psychology at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, told Robertson that the Church is ‘outspoken’ against the mass “production of children” through IVF.
I must understand a vastly different meaning of the word “outspoken.” I have never heard the Phrase IVF spoken at my home parish, or other parishes where I occasionally attend Mass. While we already have 10 states with legal Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS-Euthanasia), I have read that a number of additional states will have it on the ballot this November. I have not heard that word mentioned either. Also haven’t heard homosexuality, cohabitation, etc. mentioned. The Church being outspoken seems to mean today that a bishop who is head of a USCCB committee issues a statement on an issue – a statement which is not read by 99 out of a 100 Mass going Catholics.
If these moral issues are not addressed at the parish level, then the Church is not really being outspoken. But, thanks anyway to CWR for addressing them.
Embryo. An unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, in particular a human offspring during the period from approximately the second to the eighth week after fertilization [after which it is usually termed a fetus] (Oxford Dictionary).
Inhumane treatment is relative to an ‘offspring in process of development’. Human life begins at the moment of conception as insightfully taught by the Church. Life created in God’s own image, which is why the entire process from human intent in the conjugal act, until old age and death is a sacred process. Why motivation for sexual relations and the entire process of developing a relationship must be within the realization of this sacred end. Purity and impurity. Man and woman in sincere and lasting love for eachother exclusively in an act of mutual love open to life.
Any deviation violates the sacred process and offends the creator of life. A sin of impurity directly violates the author of life, who is true life, life to be experienced by the believing faithful in its fullness.
The reverence or lack given to this initial process of bringing life into the world affects most profoundly the entire spectrum of our relationship to others and to the dynamics related to world and nature. The balance of that relation is either excessive or negligent when the life process is itself devalued and abjured. That is why we currently perceive an imbalance in Church priority referring to abortion and the environment, to sexual sanctity and love of creation.
Dear Father. I appreciate your wisdom. But, with all due respect, being IVF “celibate”, I believe you speak from afar on conjugal relations. I am a nitpicker on dogmatic conclusions, especially with scientific offerings to relieve human suffering. Thoughts, infertile couples that seem forgotten….
God created man/women to his image and likeness.
God said “go forth and multiply and fill the earth”.
Our Lord Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”.
I am pro-life, ALL life. The IVF scientific process must improve. Embryos must not be discarded.
God bless.
Pope Francis recently said on X that loving neighbour and loving God are a single love.
The Commandments (of Moses) put limits, eg., eye for an eye means you can not kill for an eye. Jesus put further limits, in the Beatitudes, in some statements eg. about millstones and in the sins against the Spirit.
Like the situation with abortion, we are not to be co-opted into cryogenic infanticide by “becoming baptizers because the problem can’t be beaten”. Very serious. Abomination.
It seems that either the X statement is wrong or it fails to clarify faith teaching as it should -fully.
In fact “limit” is -and will be- an essential feature in the eschatological determination. Mercy is meant to begin justice; justice invites mercy.