“And Who Is My Neighbor?”

“And Who Is My Neighbor?”

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

[I]f anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed! Am I now currying favor with human beings or God? Or am I seeking to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ.  Galatian 1:9B-10

But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds, and bandaged them. Then he lifted him on his animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’  Luke 10:33-35

Piety

From “Requiem for Black Children of God” 

The scars of systematic racism plague our nation,

 our communities and our churches.

For too long,

 too many of us stood silent or said too little

 as our Black brothers and sisters

 who are our neighbors

 succumbed by the brutal blows

 of racism’s cruel injustice.

Let us say their names,

 those who bled and died on this punishing cross

 and ask for forgiveness.

 

Rodney King       Forgive us, we pray.

Amadou Diallo     Forgive us, we pray.

Sean Bell            Forgive us, we pray.

Oscar Grant        Forgive us, we pray.

Malice Green       Forgive us, we pray.

Abner Louima     Forgive us, we pray.

Trayvon Martin    Forgive us, we pray.

Freddie Gray       Forgive us, we pray.

Nathaniel Edwards       Forgive us, we pray.

Rekia Boyd         Forgive us, we pray.

Rafael Cruz         Forgive us, we pray.

Harith Augustus   Forgive us, we pray.

Michael Brown     Forgive us, we pray.

Kajuan Raye       Forgive us, we pray.

Botham Jean       Forgive us, we pray.

Laquan McDonald        Forgive us, we pray.

Paul O’Neal         Forgive us, we pray.

Isiah Murrietta-Golding Forgive us, we pray.

Tamir Rice          Forgive us, we pray.

Alton Sterling      Forgive us, we pray.

Antwan Rose II   Forgive us, we pray.

Eric Garner         Forgive us, we pray.

Philando Castile   Forgive us, we pray.

O’Shae Terry      Forgive us, we pray.

Sandra Bland      Forgive us, we pray.

Terence Crutcher         Forgive us, we pray.

Devon Bailey      Forgive us, we pray.

Bettie Jones        Forgive us, we pray.

Devaris “Caine” Rogers         Forgive us, we pray.

Atatiana Jefferson        Forgive us, we pray.

Quintonio LeGrier         Forgive us, we pray.

Stephon Clark     Forgive us, we pray.

Kenneth French   Forgive us, we pray.

Walter Scott        Forgive us, we pray.

Juan Flores         Forgive us, we pray.

Michael Dean      Forgive us, we pray.

Eric Harris          Forgive us, we pray.

Marco Gomez      Forgive us, we pray.

Bruce Carter       Forgive us, we pray.

Tony Robinson    Forgive us, we pray.

Eddie Lee           Forgive us, we pray.

Patterson Genevive Dawes    Forgive us, we pray.

Rumain Brisbon   Forgive us, we pray.

Gus Tousis          Forgive us, we pray.

Ahmaud Arbery   Forgive us, we pray.

Breonna Taylor    Forgive us, we pray.

John Crawford     Forgive us, we pray.

Aiyana Jones       Forgive us, we pray.

George Floyd      Forgive us, we pray.

And all our neighbors.   Forgive us, we pray.

Study

“And Who Is My Neighbor?”

The question posed by the legal scholar today is a question on many minds this year.  We face COVID-19.  We repeatedly hear about the shootings or killing of black men at the hands of law enforcement officers vowed to protect and serve all lives.  And we are going through profound upheaval in society reacting to these and other cultural, social, medical, economic, and political aspects of experience in the year 2020. 

Bishop Ferdinand Cheri, auxiliary of New Orleans, recently addressed the superiors of communities of religious men and talked about his recent ministry in light of the Black Live Matter movement.

On June 5th, the Archdiocese of New Orleans (under his leadership) held a prayer rally from its Chancery Office to the front steps of Notre Dame Seminary and directly tackled the question in today’s Good News: “Who is my neighbor?”

The idea was suggested by chancery officials who wanted publicly to do something in response to the death of George Floyd. They wanted to more than a public rosary with 8 minutes, 46 seconds of silence (to commemorate the length of time that officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck).  So Bishop Cheri wrote a “Requiem for Black Children of God,” a confession and a moment of remembrance of 47 Black men and women from across the country killed in recent years by police violence. This powerful Catholic witness and call for justice touched and surprised people who participated in New Orleans and people worldwide who read and heard about it.   

With only two days of advertisements to spread the word on various social media channels, about 300 people attended. Bishop Cheri said at the time, “The church showed out; let the church roll on.”

Bishop Cheri said we require more Samaritan-like behavior.  “Our Catholic identity is so wedded to our American ideals and systemic racism that Catholics scratch the surface – do good things, but don’t get too deep into systemic issues. The system keeps protecting itself.”

Until we get out of our comfort zone and address the core issue, we might be in the same place 50 years from now as we were 50 years ago. To assess today’s situation, Bishop Cheri wrote:

We are comfortable with death, weapons of violence, and greed, but not the profound revolutionary life of Jesus Christ! The USA is the greatest producer of weapons in the world. We are the most violent society. We are a country that baptizes greed. These things put a heavy load on Black/Brown bodies. Churches, with our actions or our silence, sanction what is going on. Where is the church; how do we stop the killing of Black/Brown people? Racism promotes violence. Hence, the violence on Black bodies is okay. Some theological positions and traditions give permission to shoot Black bodies in the name of protecting a system that favors the privileges enjoyed by white people. Our church operates with a bias that forces Black people to question her Catholicity. A substantial conversion and subsequent conversation cannot happen until this local, American, and global Church reconciles with her God-given mission.

Action

Just like the religious leaders ignored the man beaten by robbers, perhaps it is high time to admit that the Catholic Church has a knee on the neck of Black people and people of color.  

As we think about the discrimination faced by the man in the ditch and his unlikely protector, perhaps more of Bishop Cheri’s’ words will shake us:

We have a responsibility as faith communities to lead the way to God. Therefore, we must TELL THE TRUTH – REPENTANT TRUTH. Not just mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, but the truth that then compels us to action, to do something different. Truth that leads to metanoia, truth that protects the human dignity from the human condition. Truth that reveals where we stand with God who appears when humanity is being denied. We need to tell the truth of the past and our complicity with what undergirds white supremacy, so we can understand all its complexities that strike out against Black/Brown bodies that don’t conform to Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism. This notion of what it means to be a faithful citizen fits the mold of what has been described as the default setting for American white male heterosexual – and this feeds white supremacy. Systemic racism is an immoral monster. The root problem is our incapacity to confront this brutal moral monster who violates Black people and people of color. The church must lead all to God, but when Church leaders speak of one body in Christ, they only support white male heterosexuality as the norm of true Catholicity.