Dear St. Theresa Parish,
The news has been exhausting. I’m sure you have said to yourself, “what’s next?” It appears the COVID situation has added fuel to the fire of our existing sociological problems. The riots we witnessed in the media are shoots from deep roots. The flashpoint was yet another incident of police brutality of a black man.The worldwide scope of this reaction is indicative of a frustration that has been seething for generations. With the pandemic the unemployment rate has escalated anxiety to the boiling-point.
This outburst of violence is the culmination of a gradual crescendo. It did not come from nowhere since you cannot have a revolt without revolting conditions. We saw in the media people who are at their wits end suffering what seems to be a pandemic of official brutality. We saw people take advantage of chaos committing criminal acts as if such behavior was justified.
I believe the herd mentality dominates us today, and for this reason: we have allowed agreement to become the basis of our unity instead of mutual concern. And when agreement becomes the basis of unity, we start agreeing our way through life, then crucifixions take place. For then “Play it safe,” “Don’t rock the boat,” become the Commandment on which are “hanged” all the law and prophets. For this is the Commandment that drops a mask of dissimulation over the face of truth turning our backs on screams in the night; make us turn the other cheek in order not to see the evil that makes us hide behind our specialties, claiming lack of knowledge of the things that make us collaborators with the forces of evil we condemn.
Solutions are not going to be found quickly or without significant sacrifice. Violence and destruction are not the solution. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood the difference between defiance and freedom. Confrontation to him did not mean the ruin and humiliation of opponents. Nonviolence to him represented conquest without the humiliation of the conquered. Nonviolence to him represented an effort to give visibility not to our own poor powers but to God’s everlasting joy. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but unto your name be all power and glory.” Psalm 115.
Nonviolence represented a chance for all parties to rise above their present condition. Moral behavior cannot be legislated, only the conditions conducive to morality. Dr. King once said: “You can’t make them love us, but you can stop them from lynching us.”
Is there an effective course of action? Micah 6 states: “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice…” To do justice as God does justice is to intervene in the social order as did Moses in Pharaoh’s court when he insisted on freedom for the Hebrew slaves; as did Nathan in David’s court when he protested the kings unconscionable action against Uriah the Hittite; or as did Elijah when he thundered against Ahab and Jezebel for having Naboth killed in order to take his land.
True justice overcomes powerlessness which produces lives dreary with self-hatred and stingy with hope. What is so often forgotten is that moral outrage is a wonderful motivator but no formula for a solution. While Christianity gives no specific answers to specific social problems, it does shed light on them. A friend of mine once said: “Truth is above harmony. Those who fear disorder more than injustice invariably produce more of both.”
God bless you all and pray for justice and peace.
Fr. Larry