May 8, 2021 Column Father De Celles
ARE YOU A RACIST? According to many modern academics and leftist activists, if you are “white” you almost certainly are a racist. At least that’s what the leftist-Marxist thought police are trying to force us to believe nowadays. We see it all over the place, and now they’re trying to make it part of the laws and rules of our country.
We also see it in education in what is called “Critical Race Theory.” The foundational tenets of CRT are, first, “The centrality and intersectionality of racism.” That is, racism exists everywhere in American life–from our personal thoughts, to interpersonal relationships, to the workplace, to schools and the courts. CRT holds that racism isn’t just about the actions of individuals, but that it’s embedded in our institutions, systems, and culture. It is the American way of life.
Because of this, CRT holds that concepts like neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy are actually impossible in America, since racism is part of everyday life in America.
Of course, all of this is nonsense, lies and anti-historical.
And yet, last summer, in preparing to develop a new “anti-racism” curriculum, Fairfax County Public School teachers, principals and other school administrators, attended a one hour Zoom conference hosted by CRT promoter and author Ibram Kendi on anti-racism and “critical race theory.” Kendi was paid $20,000 and the school district spent another $24,000 on Kendi’s books, making them required reading for K-12 students.
CRT is rooted in Marxist principle of class warfare: setting groups to fight against each other, in part to achieve revolution and attain power to impose new governing and moral principles on society. This has been repeatedly condemned by the Church as being diametrically opposed to the fundamental rule of loving your neighbor (neither racism nor class warfare are consistent with love) and the dignity of every human being and his/her God-given inherent rights and liberties.
Every true Christian should find it despicable. And yet these are the ideology/morals/principles that your government controlled schools, funded by your tax dollars and to which YOU send your children, are indoctrinating our youth with.
This, along with the many perverted and nonsensical notions of sexuality and gender, as well as anti-life, anti-Christian and other anti-American ideas, that are being promoted by our government run local schools (i.e., Fairfax County Public Schools), causes me to wonder if it is immoral to send children to these schools.
Is it immoral—a grave sin? I’m afraid it just might be. At least, we need to consider this.
Think about this: we were all rightly outraged when we heard about the abuse of children by priests and bishops a few years back. I remember how, for a while, so many people treated all priests as suspect of these horrible deeds. And we still have all sorts of rules in place in the Church that are to protect our children from the possibility of this ever happening. I understood that.
But now I wonder, why do we not feel/think the same outrage and suspicion toward our government bureaucrats and elected officials who are also abusing our children by warping their minds with this filth and nonsense? If we teach racial-minority students to hate white students, and teach white children to hate themselves? All based on lies! If we teach our kids to hate and distrust our institutions—from the Church to the Courts to the Constitution itself? How can we corrupt our kids with this cow manure, and still say we love them, much less expect them and ourselves to remain in God’s favor? How can we do this to our little ones and not fear the fires of hell—for them and us?
And yet…What is the alternative? Many parents of government/public school children believe they simply can’t afford, financially or otherwise, the alternatives.
Many, recognizing the problem, dedicate themselves to offsetting the nonsense of the schools by aggressively countering these errors at home and in the parish. This seems to work for some parents. But I don’t think it will work for most parents—because they simply don’t work at it aggressively, but also because it’s just so hard to offset the indoctrination forced on them by their teachers and peers.
Something must be done. The best alternatives are to put your kids in Catholic schools or to homeschool—or perhaps have good Catholic homeschooling friends homeschool your kids for you. We need to be creative—we need to think outside the box. For the love of Christ, and the love of our kids.
The last few months I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to help you with this. One way is by offering scholarships to Catholic schools to parish families, as well as aid to homeschooling families. Every year we offer 10s of thousands of dollars in this aid. That’s why I’ve designated this week’s second collection for Parish Special Needs to pay for these scholarships—so I ask you all, especially those with older children and with more substantive means, to please give generously.
But maybe there’s something else I can do. So I’ll be working on that this summer. Please pray that the Lord may guide me.
ABUSE OF POLICE. The Critical Race Theory, or the idea that all whites and all American institutions are racist, is also seen in the degradation of our Police officers. You know what I mean. And cops are quitting in droves: no human being deserves such disrespect, especially when they are risking their lives every day for our safety.
Again, it reminds me of the priest abuse scandal. Almost all policemen are good and honorable men. There are some bad apples. There may even be better techniques to use in policing. But even when tragedy occurs, even when a cop goes bad—or simply makes a terrible mistake in the heat of the moment—we can’t treat them all like “pigs.”
It makes me sick to see how the leftist-Marxist inspired groups are pushing this anti-police agenda, at the heart of which is the intention to tear down our society (including the Church) and its moral norms, and rebuild it in a totalitarian state, imposing their ideas on all of us.
Catholics cannot stand for this. Yes, cops make mistakes, and some even are bad apples, but the same can be said for priests, for parents, and for leftist activists. Evil, and even mistakes, must be punished. But Jesus commands us, “Love one another.” We must reject the Marxist principle to “fight one another.”
FIRST HOLY COMMUNION. Congratulations to all the little ones who received Our Lord for the first time last weekend. I think it was very good for the parish to witness this at Sunday Mass, and I plan to continue this, in some form, as we go forward. Thanks to all the catechists for their hard work too. And please keep the children in your prayers.
READERS NEEDED! We are in need of new volunteers to read at Mass. If you can read and speak well, are a practicing Catholic in good standing, and have received the Sacrament of Confirmation, I invite you to contact our head Reader/Lector Phil Bettwy by phone 703-690-6379 or by email PBettwy@aol.com.
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles