Kentucky Bishops Complicit in the Covington Boys’ Lynch Mob

The very men that should have been the first to demonstrate the Catholic virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice in response to the Covington high school incident at the March for Life in Washington, D.C.  Instead, they immediately contributed to the public lynching of the Covington students by issuing statements of condemnation:

  • Bishop John Stowe: “I am ashamed that the actions of Kentucky Catholic high school students have become a contradiction of the very reverence for human life that the march is supposed to manifest.”
  • Bishop Roger Foy: “This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion. We know this incident also has tainted the entire witness of the March for Life and express our most sincere apologies to all those who attended the March and all those who support the pro-life movement.”
  • Archbishop Joseph Kurtz: “I join with Bishop Foys in condemning shameful actions of Covington Catholic students towards Mr. Nathan Phillips and the Native American community.”

An exacerbated media eagerly trumpeted the bishops’ condemnations, thereby contributing to the slanderous attacks of these young men.

The Covington students were subsequently proven to have acted heroically in the face of the Black Hebrew Israelites, a collective of notorious provocateurs who violated their private space and taunted the students with hateful slurs.

But the damage had been done, destroying the students’ reputations and putting them at risk of physical attacks.

TO BE CLEAR, a simple apology at this point is ‘too little, too late’; the damage had been done, destroying the students’ reputations and putting them at risk of physical attacks.  The bishops now to make reparation for their harmful statements by doing the following:

  1. Publicly apologize for the rash statements they made condemning the students before the facts of the incident where clearly confirmed;
  2. Publicly condemn the Black Hebrew Israelites for inciting the confrontation with the students by violating their space and yelling hateful slurs;
  3. Publicly praise the restraint the students showed in the face of the notorious provocateurs;
  4. Publicly reaffirm their commitment to ensuring that every Catholic has the right to publicly proclaim their religious and political views;
  5. Actively work to restore the good names of the students and the school which they helped to damage.

UPDATE:

Covington Bishop Foys Issues Partial Apology, but fails on points 2 through 5 above

 

 

Related Posts:

Share