My graduation from high school was most memorable. For those who read my last column on my first Communion, my graduation was nothing like it. In January of 1973, my senior year, I was drafted for the war in Vietnam. Two weeks later, my mother died very suddenly.
It had been a decade of assassinations, violent protests and unrest on college campuses and on main streets throughout the nation. It was a time of civil rights, equal rights and human rights. In the next few months, the draft was ended, the voting age was lowered to 18 and, in Minnesota, the drinking age was lowered to 18. By the time of my graduation, my life and the world around me had changed dramatically.
Father Charles Lachowitzer
I began college with a list of adult choices, and it seemed that everything was a choice. In some ways, life is still the same today. For us older folks, the turbulence of this past year is reminiscent of the turbulence of a past era.
One lesson from the past is that when current events separate and divide us, falsely giving us the impression that we have to choose between, for example, being against the war in Vietnam and supporting our soldiers, it is really no choice. I remember when the television showed soldiers in an airport returning from Vietnam and people around them spat on them and shouted profanities. The soldiers didn’t start that war, they were serving a nation that sent them. Some of us both hated the war and thanked the soldiers.
This lesson compels us to both advocate for racial justice and support our law enforcement personnel. As a child of the 1960s, it is disheartening that our national progress on civil rights is a façade, behind which racism and discrimination are still active realities. The downward hand of mobility that keeps people in impoverished conditions and perpetuates poverty over generations has and will continue to create a deep anger that can explode in rage. Our law enforcement officers did not create these conditions. Our municipal, state and federal authorities sent them to serve and protect us.
At the time of Jesus, the choice was between Sadducees or Pharisees; Jews or Gentiles; Judeans or Samaritans; Greeks or Romans. For Jesus there was no choice. All who came to him in faith seeking mercy were welcomed by him.
Several years ago, a Palestinian Catholic and a business owner in Bethlehem told a group of pilgrims that the biggest obstacle to peace was that people took sides. He said it was not a matter of Palestinians or Israelis. It is not a choice between them, but a choice for both of them.
As disciples of Jesus Christ and as Catholics, we believe that no adjective in front of the words “human being” justify treating people as less than God created them. All God’s children, from the moment of conception, are created good and possess great value in the eyes of God.
Justice is not just a civil court matter. It is also a matter of the heart. The first steps are to treat people with dignity and respect as a practice of our faith. It is only then that we can collectively, as parishes and as a local Church, advocate against the sin of racism.
It is a cliché that being Catholic means “both-and.” We don’t choose between faith or reason, it is both; grace or works, it is both. In a world of choices, sometimes it is no choice. It is no choice between our oppressed sisters and brothers and those who enforce the law for our common good. We support and pray for people of color, both Black and blue.
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