Conversation with a devout, prolife, Catholic woman of color

Conversation with a devout, prolife, Catholic woman of color October 28, 2016

…whose faith has taken a beating at the hands of “Vote Trump or You Are a Baby-Killing Apostate!” Catholics. She writes:

And once again I’m at this impasse. If being Catholic means being white supremacist and misogynist then it’s clearly not the One True Faith. I can’t believe in a God that created the idea that some people are human and others are animals based on genetics. So many Catholics are perfectly ok with this and it’s making me feel like the Church is a scam. I can’t believe some obnoxious notion that I’m part of a “remnant”.

This is not “the Church” talking. This is a minority political subculture. Trump is down by 20% among Catholics. Don’t let the loud voices of fools be taken for the Voice of the Church. This is the battle for our generation. You aren’t being scammed by the Church and Christ is as alive as ever. You are joining him in his suffering to purify the Church. So is everybody fighting this crap.

God knoweth, dear, I share your feeling of betrayal. But we *have* to bear in mind the gospel truth that *all* have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and, under the wrong circumstances, it could well be you and me running after some demagogue who played on our fears. All the election has really done is bring out into the light the fact that all that stuff we learned in Sunday school about the capacity of the human heart for sin is really true and the desperate medicine of the cross was not hyperbole but sober reality. We are a species that crucifies God when we get the chance. That includes you and me. Racism is chump change in that reckoning. But the good news remains that God *has* taken our species down into the grave and brought it out again in the Resurrection and the “good infection” of divinization is spreading. This time in history too is part of the process of that and is as much a battle as Good Friday was. Don’t become discouraged. Lift up your head, sniff the scent of battle, and be glad that you have a chance to play a part in the fray for the good. You’ve been favored to carry a small part of his suffering.


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