I got my facts upside down in the post I wrote about Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s statement questioning Trump’s photo op at the St Pope John Paul II shrine in Washington, DC.
I didn’t understand that this event had actually been scheduled several weeks in advance. I also did not understand that the President was going to make a formal announcement of an executive order concerning religious freedom.
Once I learned that President Trump’s visit had been scheduled well in advance of the day, it put Archbishop Gregory’s statement in a whole new light. I can’t say for certain that Archbishop Gregory knew that the visit was scheduled in advance, but I think it’s a good assumption that he did.
A formal visit from the President of the United States for the purpose of announcing an executive order usually involves quite a bit of advance planning. That planning would almost certainly involve the Archbishop’s office. I can’t imagine a government agency that was coordinating this kind of thing not contacting the Archbishop’s office and coordinating it through them.
I doubt that Archbishop Gregory had not at least been notified of this event. He was probably expected to show up. So, as you can see, the scenario I thought I was writing about didn’t exist anywhere except in my own mistaken little brain. I thought Archbishop Gregory was surprised and outraged by this.
The truth of it is that this was a planned event that the Archbishop probably knew of well in advance.
I doubt if the death of George Floyd and the subsequent outrage from all right-thinking Americans was on the Archbishop’s calendar alongside this Trump event. I also doubt that the near unanimous and absolute outrage of the entire American black community was on his radar, either.
What to do?
It seems that what the archbishop decided to do was issue a statement that seems to condemn the event and let it go forward while the Archbishop absents himself. That’s a way for the Archbishop to be what everybody wants him to be and come out a winner.
The fact that Archbishop Gregory almost certainly knew of this event far in advance and then pretended he was “baffled” by it puts his statement in a new, unflattering, light. I had thought he was doing something brave. A lot of people thought that.
We’ve become so accustomed to our bishops bending over for Trump that it was electrifying to all of us. But, we were wrong. We were also wronged. But that is another story.
It appears now that what the Archbishop was probably doing was pandering to the outraged crowds with one face while he turned an accepting and appropriately obedient face toward the man with power. If he knew weeks in advance that President Trump was going to the shrine, it hardly seems likely that he was also “baffled” by the idea and found the event “reprehensible” when it happened.
It seems far more likely to me that the Archbishop was playing us.
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