The riots have exposed the depth of America’s civilizational crisis. Yet where are the supposed religious leaders of that civilization to decry it? They are difficult to find. To the extent that clergy have been visible at all in the crisis, they emerged not to stop the mob but to join it.
Their statements rest entirely upon the mob’s propaganda. America magazine, run by the Jesuits, provides a dismaying example of this in its editorial last week: “To fight racism, Catholics must hunger for justice like we do for the Eucharist.”
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso joined the protests this last week, holding up a “Black Lives Matter” sign. Seitz told the press that after his participation he received a phone call from the pope. “He said he wanted to congratulate me,” Seitz said.
It is an odd title for the editorial, given that the Jesuits preside over increasingly empty pews. In falling Mass attendance at Jesuit parishes, one doesn’t see much hunger “for the Eucharist.”
Undeniable data indicates that racist police brutality is decreasing, not increasing. Yet America’s editorial begins by saying, “The murder of yet another black American at the hands of a police officer haunts the hearts and minds of the country. The protests across the nation make clear the injustice of George Floyd’s killing and its roots in a long national history of racism, including contemporary patterns of police brutality.”
The editorial endorses the reverse racist view that all white people, by virtue of their skin color, bear responsibility for this state of affairs and must undergo “conversion”: “At this moment, when the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the depth of our need for the sacraments and for community, this national outcry should lead Catholics, white Catholics especially, to conversion, repentance and reconciliation.”
Read the rest at the American Spectator