Certain Outcomes

“It stands out to me that, although a girl passing by, Darnella Frazier, had the presence of mind to record a video of the entire encounter on her cell phone so we could all see what happened entirely too clearly, we were not certain of the outcome.” Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American gives me my hook as I look at several recent issues I’ve been following. How pleased are we that Frazier is recognized for her courage everywhere? And are we ever “certain of the outcome”?

First, of course, in the case of the conviction of a white policeman for the murder of George Floyd. Bryan Massingale in NCR describes a similar anxiety waiting for the verdict to be announced. He pulls in the news reports that whites were fleeing Minneapolis in that half hour, “a tacit acknowledgment on the part of white America that a mountain of overwhelming evidence is no guarantee of justice for Black people. That’s the measure of racism in America.” After detailing the inadequacy of many “easy solutions” to changing the culture of policing and so much else in this country, Massingale challenges:

the Catholic Church to address its complicity in the country’s racism. A complicity evidenced in February’s Pew Research study showing that less than one third of white congregations heard a sermon or homily about Black Lives Matter as a moral issue this past summer. A complicity manifested by priests who denounced Black Lives Matter protestors as “thugs” and “maggots and parasites.” A complicity demonstrated in the often-repeated assertion that the Black Lives Matter movement cannot be supported by Catholics because it “opposes the nuclear family” — overlooking the reality that Black Lives Matter calls for supporting ALL families, not only nuclear ones, for family life in America includes grandparents raising grandchildren and even gay uncles raising their sibling’s children. In sum, a complicity demonstrated by the tendency of too many Catholic leaders to privilege the comfort of its white members over the pain and terror of its brothers and sisters of color.

The USCCB statement is a superb example of the latter. It managed this odd pivot to link Floyd’s murder to abortion: “Whatever the stage of human life, it not only matters, it is sacred.” The bishops do invoke hearts, minds, prayers, and healing, all good, but then give way to a description of restorative justice that’s more like repair after riots than they do to recognizing the way racism harms “in ways that are hardly ever spoken, ways that never reach the headlines,” also good.

Maybe thinking again about Catholic school closures might address one of those less-emphasized harms to the Black community. Alexander Thompson in NCR highlights closure of a high school near St. Louis that’s in a Black neighborhood. It resonates with me because of the impending closure of two high schools in the Philadelphia area, one in an inner suburb with 70% Black enrollment and one a girls’ school in affluent Center City, with almost half its students of color. 

Even Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the first Black Archbishop of majority-Black Washington, DC (perhaps soon to be known as Washington, Douglass Commonwealth), sounds the tone identified by Massingale: “May we choose to respond with civility and respect for the dignity of all of our brothers and sisters, as we continue the work of rooting out all injustices and systemic racism in our society.”

America collected the responses of several other Catholic leaders. 

Lexington Bishop John Stowe, O.F.M. Conv., writes as bishop-president of Pax Christi USA that this verdict “marks the beginning of an era of accountability for the violation of human dignity and the taking of human life by those in power.” Other leaders of Pax Christi USA are similarly blunt, in contrast to some of the other quoted comments. 

Zach Davis, also in America, reminds me how important the response to the murder of George Floyd will be to the life experience of younger people. “What is this feeling?” he asks, and answers, “Relieved, shocked, saddened, tired, angry, elated, indifferent, moved, frustrated, impatient, anxious, joyful, sorrowful, tearful, pissed off, cynical, refreshed. Perhaps it felt like all of this. But does any of it feel like justice?” I hope a whole generation carries the uncertainty of this outcome to make at least part of their life’s work Black Lives Matter. 

Finally, in NCR, Shannen Dee Williams of Villanova also calls for a much more vigorous response from our church community: “while Catholics must first ‘continue to pray for the soul of George Floyd, his family and all victims of state violence, it would also be wonderful if all Catholics committed to becoming anti-racists and doing the hard work to actualize true racial justice, reparation.” The next hurdle, also with a less-than-certain outcome. 

I am still seeing reminiscences about Hans Küng, but I want to comment on two other issues I addressed recently. 

I must admit that if Father Louis Cameli had come down differently on communion for a lesbian woman in a same-sex union, I would not be so content with his meticulous examination of the issue in America. There is still much discussion of the controversy about the blessing of gay unions, and Cameli makes me aware that LGBTQ persons, not to mention the divorced and remarried and even Catholic politicians, confront uncertain outcomes whenever they approach the communion rail. How can we tolerate this? 

And I will confess again a major lapse in my blog last Saturday about the symposium on the priesthood. I was bamboozled by the first paragraph of the “Intervention” of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, in which he quotes Pope Francis and situates this grand event in the context of synodality and Vatican II. How was I to know that he is really being positioned to be the next pope by conservative clerics in Rome and in the world? That he looks like a centrist but adheres to a very traditional understanding of the priesthood and of the church? At least, that’s the argument that was advanced by Robert Mickens in La Croix International the day after I wrote. Mickens presents the kind of research on Ouellet that I did on three women panelists, and it’s not pretty. Consider this image: “they would try to market Ouellet as the candidate who will provide more theological structure to Francis’ reforms. But, in reality, they’d be endorsing a man who would actually bring back to port the ship that the Jesuit has pushed out into the deep.” Plenty of opportunity for Pink Smoke, and no certain outcome, for sure.