The events that occurred at our nation’s capital on the morning of Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 holds mirror to everything that is wrong with Catholicism in contemporary America.
Students who attend and thus represent the Covington Catholic High School in Covington, Kentucky openly and deliberately participated in a series of demonstrations, chants and antics with the sole intention of disrupting protestors of color.
On that fateful day in front of the Lincoln Memorial, of all places, we as a nation witnessed young Catholic men harass, mock and intimidate members of the Black Hebrew Israelites as well as peaceful Native American demonstrators representing the interests of the Omaha nation.
I for one, as well as any Catholic who dares to call themselves such, find this to be a travesty.
As a Catholic, I am ashamed and enraged that these men even have the privilege to attend a private Catholic high school when in reality their actions in Washington, D.C. were anything but Catholic.
One of the main factors that forced my grandparents to leave their native Mexico was the state-sponsored persecution of Catholics that engulfed Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s.
It is certainly ironic considering that Mexico today is a predominantly Catholic country, however my grandparents as well as millions of other Catholics were forbidden from practicing our peaceful faith then.
It was none other than the same priest that baptized my grandmother from the secrecy of a cave who was later exposed to the national police by one of his friends and was subsequently executed.
Decades since this tragedy, we are still seeing the same inhumane practices forced upon Catholics now being exercised by Catholics themselves.
Just days prior the Washington, D.C. incident, Pope Francis stated during his tour of Central America that the fear and hostility resulting from the current caravan crisis is “making the world crazy.” The Pope later went on to denounce those who support the construction of a wall along the United States/Mexico border, calling such individuals “not Christian.”
While the history of the Catholic Church is one riddled with tragic chapters of church-sponsored genocide, imperialism and sexual abuse, the fact remains that these actions do not represent our peaceful faith as a whole.
Catholicism was built on the Judeo-Christian principles of tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness and inclusion – all the traits that the young men representing Covington did not show with their actions.
The diocese of Covington has a responsibility to investigate the Covington Catholic School’s longstanding history of rampant racism and intolerance.
The time has come for Pope Francis and other global Catholic leaders to fully address the actions of these bigots pretending to be devout Catholic pupils and to condemn such behavior.
Only when the belief that racism, sexual abuse and xenophobia within our faith is unacceptable, can we truly make Catholicism great again.
