Catholic leaders in places affected by last year’s rioting fear trial-related reprise

Just before 8 a.m. March 22, nine men and women gathered outside St. Olaf in Minneapolis in a garden dedicated to St. Francis to pray that saint’s famous prayer: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. …”

A small, ever-changing group has been gathering for the short and simple prayer on weekdays since March 8, the day before jury selection began for the trial of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with murder in last year’s death of George Floyd.

St. Olaf’s 8 a.m. prayer meeting — and a 3 p.m. Divine Mercy Chaplet also offered every weekday — are small but significant ways the parish is responding to the trial-related tension in Minneapolis and St. Paul, said St. Olaf’s pastor, Father Kevin Kenney. In late February, he asked parishioners to pray a daily rosary for the city, “just to keep the calm,” but as jury selection got underway, he wanted to offer something more, even at a time when parish events are minimal, due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re here in the heart of it,” he said, noting that the parish is just blocks from the Hennepin County Government Center, where the trial’s opening statements are scheduled for March 29. The church is open but prepared to board its windows if necessary. Throughout downtown Minneapolis, other buildings are protected with barricades and boards. The city just passed an ordinance allowing property owners to install retractable metal shutters and roll-up gates in anticipation of trial-related violence.

Amid fear of the unknown, Father Kenney has found praying the Prayer of St. Francis slowly and deliberately has been powerful, especially the opening line.

“Just ‘make me an instrument of your peace,’ because the anxiety and the tension are just so strong that it’s like, OK, how can I be an instrument of peace?’” he said.

Twin Cities rioting

Last summer, riots broke out in sections of Minneapolis and St. Paul — and around the United States — in the days following Floyd’s May 25 death, which was captured on Facebook Live livestream and shared widely on social media. The video showed 46-year-old Floyd — a black man who had been arrested for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store — handcuffed and lying face-down on the ground next to a police car, with Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on his neck. Floyd repeatedly said, “Please, I can’t breathe” before losing consciousness.

Protests around Floyd’s death began immediately, focused on the incident as an act of racism and police brutality. In the Twin Cities, two people were killed and rioters burned nearly 150 buildings — including a police building on Lake Street about 3 miles from where Floyd was arrested. Rioters damaged more than 1,500 buildings total in St. Paul and Minneapolis, according to a Star Tribune analysis.

On May 28, Gov. Tim Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard in what would be its largest deployment in its history, largely quelling the rioting. Protests continued throughout the summer.

Chauvin and three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest were fired from the police department and arrested. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other former officers have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter and are expected to be tried in August.

Twin Cities residents and leaders have voiced concerns that Chauvin’s trial — whatever the outcome — could stoke a repeat of last year’s violence. On March 7, Archbishop Bernard Hebda joined other Twin Cities faith leaders in Minneapolis to pray for justice and peace outside of the Hennepin County Government Center, which was barricaded ahead of the trial.

Prayers, yet plywood

St. Peter Claver, St. Paul’s historically African American parish, sits along the edge of St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood, which was badly damaged last year by vandalism and fire. Its pastor, Father Erich Rutten, said when it comes to fears of rioting, the parish is praying for the best outcome but prepared for the worst: Members saved the sheets of plywood the parish used to protect windows from last year’s looting and arson.

As the trial gets underway, the parish is calling for prayers for peace and justice. It is also turning attention to larger issues of historic police brutality against African Americans and other forms of racism. The parish is holding a special meditation on the Stations of the Cross and racism March 26. It was not planned as a response to Chauvin’s trial, Father Rutten noted, but rather to the broad problem of racism undermining human dignity.

One of the ways Father Rutten has encouraged parishioners to respond is by stopping for quiet prayer across Interstate 94 at nearby St. Thomas More. That St. Paul parish is offering a silent, prayerful vigil to promote peace and nonviolence from 3-5 p.m. on weekdays, at least through March 31.

Peace cannot come soon enough for Father Leo Schneider, pastor of Holy Name and nearby St. Leonard of Port Maurice in south Minneapolis. Holy Name is located five blocks from where Floyd died on the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, and Father Schneider has watched as the site transitioned from a “shrine” to the center of what has been described as an “autonomous zone,” rife with criminal activity yet no longer patrolled by police.

The area has been blocked off to traffic since Floyd’s death, but neighbors now fear carjackings or walking through the area. Gunshots are commonplace, and a 30-year-old man was killed in the area March 6. “It’s really become not the memorial it was. It’s more of a crime scene,” Father Schneider said.

“I think we can say there has been a lot of darkness around us living so close to where George Floyd died,” he said in a homily March 14. “There continues to be many homicides, shootings, carjackings, robberies and destruction of property. These are all acts of darkness being hidden under the darkness of a no-go-zone. Violence begets violence, forgiveness begets forgiveness and opens the door to love. Love replaces the fist with handshakes, divisions become unity and war turns into peace.”

A matter of human dignity

Next door to Holy Name is Risen Christ Catholic School, a Spanish-English immersion school. Michael Rogers, the school’s president, said increased crime in the neighborhood has caused the school to take a few extra precautions, but that he has no new concerns about student safety. But, he and other leaders at the kindergarten-to-grade-eight school are attuned to the school community’s trial-related anxiety. About 99% of its 322 students are students of color, and most of its families are Latino, he said. Many live and work along Lake Street and were directly affected by last year’s riots, he said.

On March 9, Rogers and Principal Joelynn Sartell sent a letter to school families letting them know the school is working with other churches, schools and law enforcement to monitor “anything which might disturb the learning environment at Risen Christ,” and emphasizing existing mental health resources.

“What we are really focused on right now is being aware that our students may be feeling tension and anxiety and fear because they’re thinking back to what happened” last summer, Rogers told The Catholic Spirit. “It was a scary time for them.”

The nearby memorial — known as George Floyd Square — is “a constant reminder of the tragedy that occurred right here in our neighborhood” that has sparked a worldwide reaction, he said. Even Pope Francis addressed the incident and related social unrest at the time, saying on June 3, 2020, that he joined the “Church in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and in the entire United States, in praying for the repose of the soul of George Floyd and of all those others who have lost their lives as a result of the sin of racism.”

Whether race played a role in Chauvin’s actions May 25 is in dispute, but the prosecution is expected to frame Floyd’s death in the context of historic incidents of police brutality against Black men, while the defense is expected to point to Floyd’s drug use as a contributing cause of death. On March 12, the City of Minneapolis announced it had reached a $27 million civil settlement with Floyd’s family.

As a Catholic school, Risen Christ’s leaders can address Floyd’s death, and related concerns around racism and other injustices, with the Catholic understanding of human dignity, “plain and simple,” Rogers said.

And while it’s impossible to know an individual’s heart and intention, he said, “there’s no denying that certain injustices continue to this day” toward people of color.

“In the situation that occurred here on Memorial Day, George Floyd did not deserve to die like that, or to die at all. That is a tragedy,” he said. “It should not have happened. It should not have happened. And he should be alive today.”

Responding to chaos

Ryan Hamilton, a 40-year-old African American and lawyer, said that he’s watching police near his home in north Minneapolis fortify their building, and he’s wondering if he should be preparing his own home for rioting. Last year, he and his wife took their young children to stay with grandparents away from the city during riots in their neighborhood following Floyd’s death.

A parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes in Minneapolis, Hamilton said last year’s incidents were “surreal,” noting he witnessed a police squad car blown up in a parking lot.

“We live in a fallen world and fallen humanity, so there are individuals among us and groups that just thrive on chaos,” he said. “So, there is going to be a group that, regardless of what happens in terms of verdict, … they’re going to flip it and spin it into an opportunity to create some chaos.”

As he mulls over the trial from a legal standpoint, he’s pondered the difference between what is morally reprehensible but not criminally punishable, and wonders if Chauvin’s actions may be found legal, although immoral. He sees the moral question to be one where Catholics can respond by speaking out against police brutality and showing solidarity with people of color who have experienced racism.

He also sees a role for the Church to offer calm in the chaos and create spaces where people can be heard in their grief, fear, anger and frustration, without agenda.

“Our duty is to think of this … as Catholics first and reaffirm our identity as Catholics,” he said regarding people’s responses to the social issues at play. “And then pray, so we root ourselves in our faith principles. Make an intentional effort to approach this as a Catholic first and pray, ‘Lord, what do I do?’ … This is beyond us as individuals.”

Rita Commodore, an African American and lifelong member of St. Peter Claver, said friends and family, especially those who live near the parish, are concerned about the potential for trial-related violence.

And while she’s convinced that racism played a role in Chauvin’s treatment of Floyd, she said the parish’s efforts to pray for peace and an end to racism are bigger than the impending trial. She wants fellow Catholics to move beyond being “Minnesota Nice” to “Minnesota real,” to take a hard look at how people of color are treated and recognize racism as evil.

“There’s a disparity in treatment,” said Commodore, 66, “so hopefully this will give people some way to look around and prayerfully examine where you stand. … It’s more than a Sunday service of saying, ‘Let’s pray for peace in our world.’ Let’s pray for a change of heart. Let’s all pray individually and change our hearts in the way we act and treat people who don’t look like us.”