It has been reported to me that during his homily celebrating the opening of Mission Week, Fr. Bryan Massingale, associate professor of theology, said that when you fight for justice, “People may write about you on blogs, or call you liberal or politically correct.”
Without conceding that Fr. Massingale is fighting for justice, I am writing about him on this blog today to call him liberal and politically correct. I have considered Fr. Massingale’s record before, but he gives us new occasion to do so with the publication of “Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to its Common Good” (PDF). The white paper (or purple paper, actually) was released on MLK Day by Catholic Charities, USA, and it identifies Fr. Massingale as the principal author.
The paper is, regrettably, a standard liberal essay reiterating all of the main points of modern critical race theory: structural racism, white privilege, etc. “Racial injustice,” we are told, “comes about to preserve and protect white privilege. … Racism, then, is much more complex than the typical understanding acknowledges. It is far more than deliberate acts of exclusion, bias, and bigotry. Racism is a way of understanding and interpreting skin color differences so that white Americans enjoy a privileged social status with access to advantages and benefits to the detriment, disadvantage, and burden of persons of color.”
On the subject of reparations, including “monetary compensation,” the paper calls for “a responsible national study and resolution of this complex question that respects the principle that ‘social harm calls for social relief.’”
Consider this nugget: “We are also concerned that anxieties about border security focus primarily on the border shared with Mexico, and not the one with Canada. This leads us to suspect that such discussions have a racial subtext, fueled by an anxiety over the number of darker-skinned immigrants in our country.” This is a straw man argument. Only a small percentage of those opposed to open borders do so out of nativist and racist feelings. Mainstream advocates of border security do so for reasons of national sovereignty and national security. They focus their attention on the Southern border not out of racist motives, but because the vast majority of the illegal immigrants come across the Southern border!
The paper’s public policy prescriptions are all big-government liberalism: More regulation of the mortgage and housing industries. More federal spending on housing programs. Increased regulation of pay-day lenders. More affirmative action. The section on education calls for more funding of public schools, but makes no mention of charter schools or school choice, even though the Catholic Church otherwise has been a primary proponent and beneficiary of choice. Tax-dollar funding for free or low-cost Internet access to poor communities. Comprehensive immigration reform and comprehensive criminal justice reform. More money spent on Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, and other welfare programs.
Given all this, however, “The Call to Individuals of Good Will” section was the most obnoxious, in my mind: “For white Americans especially, the challenge of accepting the reality of white privilege can be daunting. Some may honestly wonder, ‘Why should I give up a social status that benefits me?’ We answer: ‘Because the privileges of some are obtained at the expense of others. Because our nation cannot endure in peace and prosperity as long as so many are excluded from its wealth and advantages. Because the American Dream is an aspiration for all, not the possession of only a few. Because the Prophets and the Gospels remind us that we are given to each other’s care, and the measure of our response to the least among us is the measure of our response to God.’”
What a straw man – sermon! How many white people reject the concept of white privilege because they think, “Why should I give up a social status that benefits me?” Very few if any people approach the issue of race that way. To use a false premise to launch into a moralizing moment is just cheesy.
This line also annoyed me: “The reality of one’s white privilege does not make him or her an evil individual; what a person does with that privilege is the acid-test of his or her personal morality.” The acid test of personal morality is how you react to white privilege? Really? That’s the acid test of a person’s morality?
A few other notes on the paper. First, the citations to other sources are frustratingly liberal: Critical White Studies, White Racism, Racist America, Working Towards Whiteness, Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression, and Jonathan Kozol‘s Shame of the Nation.
Second, as you may know, Fr. Massingale is not a fan of the current Catholic Church. In a talk (word doc) to the priests of the Archdiocese of Detroit, he was particularly critical of the bishops: “There is among priests, and I sense among the people of God as well, a pervasive sense of frustration and a smoldering lack of trust in the Church’s leadership, in general, and with its bishops, in particular. I sense that, at best, we might like our bishop as a person, but we don’t trust him as a bishop. As one priest candidly confessed to his new bishop, ‘We need to know if you are in the boat rowing with us, or in another boat trying to sink ours.’ I know; I was that priest.”
Yet in the paper, Fr. Massingale cites four letters from the US Bishops – A Time for Remembering, 1992, Economic Justice for All, 1986, Brothers and Sisters to Us, 1979, and Discrimination and the Christian Conscience, 1958. So perhaps it is fair to ask – is it that Fr. Massingale does not like the hierarchical system with bishops on top, or is it that he does not like today’s bishops, i.e. the JPII/BXVI generation, but he does like the bishops who held power in the NCCB in the past, i.e. the Bernardin set.
Which brings me to a final thought. Fr. Massingale’s biography lists him as “a consultant to the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, providing theological assistance on issues such as criminal justice, capital punishment, environmental justice, and affirmative action.” Archbishop Dolan, for whom I have great respect, recently hosted Fr. Massingale on his weekly TV program. My suggestion is this: Don’t empower your critics. Liberals cannot be bought off with titles and access; they will only use such positions to push their agenda. Why would the bishops make someone who travels the country criticizing the bishops a consultant to the bishops? Why would you let him help write a pastoral letter on racism, particularly after reading this paper?
We should all fight against racism. Everyone should appreciate that God has created every person in His image. As social conservatives who see the inherent human dignity of every person as the fundamental principle for organizing society, we must particularly feel this call. But the purple paper from Fr. Massingale is not a recipe for a color blind society – it is the outline of a much more color conscious society. It is an outline that is liberal and politically correct. And I’m saying so on a blog.
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Welcome to the reason I haven’t been to a Marquette-sponsored Mass since the year 2006.
“Why would the bishops make someone who travels the country criticizing the bishops a consultant to the bishops? Why would you let him help write a pastoral letter on racism, particularly after reading this paper?”
Heaven forbid we actually consult people who disagree with us. Yeah, I guess surrounding ourselves with people who think just like us is the in the spirit of academic debate and growth.
And what do priests know about helping people through politics, anyway? Their role is to provide us with simple intepretation of scripture and doctrine that us non-priests can use to justify our positions, and that’s it, and it’s our job to even pick what we listen to. I don’t know where they get off, thinking they can be in politics, too.
“And what do priests know about helping people through politics, anyway?”
If Father Massingale’s goal is to leave the impression that Catholic Charities is a charitable front for political activity, then it looks like he’s succeeding.
As the word “then” indicates, Bryan Massingale’s statement that “Racism, then, is much more complex than the typical understanding acknowledges” is a conclusion. It follows a discussion of considerable length, one raising various points in support of that conclusion.
The extent of your rebuttal seems to be that this view is “liberal”.
This is intellectually risible; it makes you look like just one more dogmatic net-crank. Since I presume that you wish to be neither dogmatic nor a crank, I advise you to qualify this post as a test-run, and then write a new one — in which you actually quote and actually engage the points Massingale offers in support of his view.