Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Church Leaders Advocate Solidarity Amid Social, Political Turmoil

Catholics must find strength from unity in their religious community amid political polarization and the clerical abuse scandal, panelists said at event in the Intercultural Center Auditorium on Dec. 4.

Catholics need to organize around their common faith identity and not fracture based on political discord, Faith in Public Life Catholic Program Director John Gehring said.

“One of the dangers we face right now in terms of the infighting is that the credibility of the church in the public sphere is at its worst point,” Gehring said. “If you think the church has something important to say, now is not the time to hunker down on the left or right. We need to find to find a way to bond over differences.”

The panel, hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, also featured Elise Italiano, founding executive director of The GIVEN Institute, an organization that aims to promote the advancement of women within the church and worldwide. Hosffman Ospino, associate professor of Hispanic ministry and religious education at Boston College, and Gloria Purvis, editor of the “African American Catholic Youth Bible,” made up the remaining panel members.

DENNIS KIM FOR THE HOYA | The current political climate and recent clerical abuse scandals have discouraged civic engagement within the Catholic Church, panelists said at an event Tuesday.

The speakers were selected based on their varying perspectives within the church to discuss ways Catholics, in the wake of moral failings of the church, can come together and protect society’s marginalized members.

Former Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick resigned in July following multiple accusations of sexual abuse, which an Archdiocese of New York investigation found credible.

Less than a month after McCarrick’s resignation, a Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August detailed seven decades’ worth of sexual misconduct in Pennsylvania churches. The report implicated Former Archbishop of Washington, D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl in an effort to cover up the potential scandals. Pope Francis accepted Wuerl’s resignation as archbishop Oct. 12 after mounting pressure.

The political climate in recent years and the clerical abuse scandals have damaged and discouraged participation in public life, Italiano said.

“Civic engagement by my peers is down,” Italiano said. “We seem to be really apathetic and want to retreat to the indoors. People feel disaffiliated, and then turn towards ecclesiastical infighting. Young leaders don’t know who to turn to, and it hasn’t gotten much better. We need to find a common union.”

To restore the church, Catholics should identify what binds them together, Gehring said.

“In crisis there is opportunity, and now is the time to reclaim the best of Catholic social teaching,” Gehring said. “Things are pretty dire. We need to think about what brings us together.”

The Catholic Church in the United States needs to recognize and support the diversity of its members, Ospino said.

“Forty to 43 percent of Catholics in this country are Latino/Hispanic,” Ospino said. “We need to embrace that diversity is not an illness to be healed. It is a gift to the church in the United States. It will enrich our society and enrich the Catholic Church.”

The Catholic Church has not done enough to combat racism that many of its members face, Purvis said.

“Some Catholics make a mockery out of racism, saying it isn’t really real. People are making fun of oppression, but these are real experiences,” Purvis said. “Shame on us as Catholics.”

The Catholic Church in the United States have long acknowledged the existence of racism and its pernicious effects, but in August 2017, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops took the formal step of establishing the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism. The USCCB issued a sweeping condemnation of racism and called U.S. Catholics to oppose racism in its 1979 letter “Brothers and Sisters to Us”; however, a 2004 report found that only 18 percent of U.S. bishops had issued statements against racism, only 36 percent of Catholics had heard a sermon on racism, and that racial divisions within the church had increased in the past few decades.

The committee has hosted regional listening sessions since its creation in order to promote conversations around race and recently released a Nov. 14 letter sharply denouncing racism.

The church must confront the racism that permeates Catholic communities, especially given recent political attempts to stoke tensions and fears along racial and ethnic lines, Ospino said.

“Think about how the ‘caravan’ has been politicized. It’s been used to score political points in a war that seeks to villainize a particular group,” Ospino said. “There is an anti-Latino and anti-Hispanic dynamic in churches. We need to respond institutionally but also at the level of family lives.”

Although President Donald Trump has allied himself with the religious community on certain hot button issues, his divisive rhetoric is not compatible with core Catholic beliefs, Purvis said.

“We’ll give President Trump credit where it’s due. He has helped advance the Right to Life movement. But his constant attacks have not helped promote the dignity of the human person,” Purvis said.

Trump prohibited foreign aid to organizations that promote abortion, which has won him praise from religious organizations, according to Politico. However, the USCCB criticized Trump last June for his family separation policy, which saw migrant children detained separately from their parents upon crossing the border without documentation.

Though the obstacles facing the Catholic Church are great, Gehring said he believes the church has the resources to overcome them.

“We follow a social tradition that empowers us. Not many communities have those tools,” Gehring said. “There is now a new generation of Catholics who want to put some of the bitter past of Catholics behind.”

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