Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois - please apologize publicly for your anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bigotry

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki is teaching Catholics that discriminating against Arabs and against Muslims is acceptable.  He believes that Arabs and Muslims can and should be singled out in airports.  He said so very clearly in his Christmas midnight mass homily on December 25, 2010 (click here for the full text).

I would like to send a personal message to Bishop Paprocki - sir, it is not decent, it is not legal and it is not effective (as a law enforcement/public safety tactic) to single out as potential terror suspects my family and those who look like us or who share our faith. This bigotry cloaked as a public security concern is finding its way into discourses that once eschewed bigotry.  Seeing such anti-Muslim bigotry in the halls of Congress, in the columns in newspapers and all over the internet is troubling enough without now having to worry that its being preached in church too.

This is what Bishop Paprocki said in last year's Christmas midnight mass homily:

It doesn’t help when our country plays politically correct games such as the security operations at our nation’s airports. You can’t fight a war if you can’t identify the enemy, and if 83-year old great-grandmothers have to be treated the same way as Muslim Arabs from the Middle East with body scans and “enhanced pat-downs,” then we’re wasting a lot of time and money for nothing.

If this is the message that Bishop Paprocki is sharing with his parishioners, then I am fearful of the ways in which those men and women may carry forward that message in their homes, to their children and to their neighbors.  This kind of bigotry will lead to other, more serious acts of ignorance sooner or later.

Bishop Paprocki's comments are not just misguided opinions of a priest dabbling in matters far beyond his expertise.  His words are dangerous and inflammatory.  His homily did not just throw out a bad policy prescription in the middle of an otherwise benign sermon.  It was much worse. 

In his homily Bishop Paprocki raised a serious issue of religious intolerance against Christians in Muslim majority countries. That is a real issue and he is absolutely right to raise it.  The egregiousness of the intolerance abroad, however, is no excuse for demonizing fellow Americans of the Islamic faith.

Frankly, had Bishop Paprocki done a scintilla of research he would have learned that individual Muslims, mosques and Illinois' largest Muslim institution - the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago - recognize this injustice abroad and that they stand with Christians everywhere against religious oppression. American Muslims understand, from first hand experience at home, the sting of intolerance and we do not wish it upon others.

Instead of being thoughtful, Bishop Paprocki used the Catholic Church and the religious imprimatur his position provides his words to foment the worst kind of fear-mongering.  His homily was littered with baseless conspiracy theories of Muslims taking over America.  He lowered himself in the gutter with the worst Islamophobes when he spoke of the myth of sharia taking over America.  He even went so far as to invoke the Crusades and medieval conflicts between Christians and Muslims and intimated that this struggle continues today.

The juxtaposition of the current oppression of Christians abroad, the conspiracy theories of Muslims trying to take over America, the idea that Christians and Muslims worldwide and in America are at war with one another, and a call for discriminating against Muslims and Arabs leaves no doubt over Bishop Paprocki's dubious agenda.  

And then, almost as an afterthought, Bishop Paprocki noted in his homily that not all Muslims are terrorists.  Finally, a glimmer of rational thinking?  No.  Even that small bit of reasonableness did not last because in the same breath he added that most terrorists, however, are Muslims.  That this latter point is empirically inaccurate is of little consequence, since Bishop Paprocki does not appear to be a man who troubles himself with facts.

What hurts most about Bishop Paprocki's bigotry is that he's from Illinois and in Illinois Catholics and Muslims have enjoyed an enormous amount of dialogue and have established many meaningful and genuinely deep friendships.  That he could pepper his homily with such invective claims when surely he is aware of the sentiments and the character of American Muslims with whom he's lived in Illinois is a source of great dismay.

As I look at this situation, I cannot help but wish for and pray that I am not alone in decrying Bishop Paprocki's bigotry.  I'm certain that American Muslim community leaders - the men and women who lead our mosques and our service institutions - will take issue with the Catholic leaders with whom they have relationships.  But what about regular people - you and me?

When Muslims commit acts of violence all Muslims are asked to speak up and against it. Some Muslims bristle at this call.  They rightly say that those Muslims who act hatefully, criminally or violently do not speak for all Muslims.  Still, I'm of a different mind.  I say that we as Muslims should speak out because it is a way to help our friends and neighbors of other faiths to be re-assured that hate and wanton violence are an aberration and are not what Islam actually teaches us.  But after more than a decade of speaking out, I'm now looking for my friends to take a more active role in helping me in my time of need.

Anti-Muslim bigotry - Islamophobia - is growing everyday in America.  Muslims speak out against it all the time.  But in the end we'll never be able to match the numbers of hate-mongers and the fear-peddlers who spin lies about Muslims and Islam without the help and support of our friends who are of different faiths.

So this is my request to all of my friends who are of a faith other than Islam: please speak up for what you know to be the real Islam based on your relationship with me and my family.  I sincerely appreciate the kind words you share with me in private, but that is not enough anymore.  

Islamophobia is a big-money industry and it needs to be met by the forces of good in large numbers.  American Muslims alone are not enough.  We really need our friends in the interfaith community - fraternity brothers, co-workers, high school buddies and neighbors - to stand up to hate.

We can and must strive to do what's right.  That's all I'm asking for.  The results are a separate matter. The results I leave to God with a firm belief that with Him all things are possible.

 

 

Comments

[Junaid M. Afeef]

I was very pleased to read this very thoughtful essay in the State Journal-Register newspaper (in Springfield, IL) by Rev. Corey Brost of Arlington Heights. His essay can be found at the following link: http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x684401112/In-My-View-We-must-respect-work-with-Muslims . I'm grateful for Rev. Brost for taking the time to write.

[Fr. Corey Brost, C.S.V.]

As a Catholic priest I am ashamed by the bishop's remarks. I have spoken out and will continue to speak out. I pray that other Catholic leaders speak out publicly and renounce them. In the meantime, I renew my pledge to work with my Muslim brothers and sisters for a more peaceful world where religious bigotry finds no home.

[Steve]

Junaid, thank you for bringing me to your blog (via the note you left on my blog). You're spot on in your post, particularly in the question you raise about the likely trickle-down or ripple-out effects of the bishop endorsing anti-Muslim prejudice in his homily: a Christmas homily at that, when the church is inevitably packed with both regular, week-in-and-week-out parishioners as well as those who attend (as a way to appease family) only on Christmas and Easter. I can't help wonder how many folks went back to their homes and workplaces with the belief that one can be a good Catholic while detesting (and fearing) people of other faiths. (I like to believe that if I had been present that evening, I would have walked out. Of course, it would have been painful to explain to my young son--on Christmas Eve, no less--that the bishop just sinned in front of everyone, instead of spreading God's love.)

I'm bookmarking your blog and will return to read further -- looks like great stuff!

[Junaid M. Afeef]

Thanks for the feedback Steve!

Regarding your last point about what you'd do if you were there with your young son - I understand the conflict.

I'm a father too, and there have been times when I felt the message from the Imam at Friday prayers or at some other religious gathering didn't comport with what I believed was Islam. These are the only times I've thanked God that the Imam was delivering his sermon in Urdu instead of English!

It's a tough situation. My wife and I have actually withdrawn from a mosque (the one my father helped establish during my childhood and which I attended as a child all the way through adulthood) because we were not comfortable with the messages about gender roles.

We're now trying to create our own religious space with other like-minded American Muslim families. It's not easy. We don't have a religious leader who has the level of Islamic knowledge that one would expect in a religious community, but we'll find a work-around solution to the absence of a "resident imam".

I hope to visit your blog regularly too. Thanks a lot for connecting with me. Take care.

Junaid

[jbm]

Dear Junaid,

http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/02/iranian-leader-ayatollah-khamenei-blasts-mubaraks-treasons-to-the-people/

I'm wondering if you have seen this? I'm wondering, as an American, what your thoughts are about it? Does it worry you? From an American Muslim perspective, is there cause for alarm? It seems to me, that that voice sees you as the enemy as well. Am I correct about this? I must admit, I am not very informed about the world of Islam as I probably should be.

So I write because my heart has not rested.

I didn't go to the midnight Mass, but I came across the angst that the homily created, read it and the homily, and saw beyond bigotry. If interested, you may read my reactions, reflections, and prayers at http://ct.dio.org/.

On 2/9/11 while writing my final post, I was inspired to pick up from my desk a book of quotes, DREAM, by Martin Luther King, Jr. (one of my heroes), and after I had finished writing, I came across these words from the man with a dream:

Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you... But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory." {Extract from a "Christmas Sermon on Peace," December 1967}

AND:

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
{A "Time to Break Silence" -- extract from the historic address delivered at the Riverside Church in New York City exactly a year before King was assassinated, April 1967}

May the peace, love, wisdom, mercy and strength of God be with us all.

A sister of the heart...

[Junaid M. Afeef]

Dear JBM:

Hello. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

1. With regard to the comments of the Iranian cleric - I'm not sure what he might think of me. He and I both agree that Mubarak is a tyrant. But the Iranian clerics are leading a repressive regime too so that sounds like the pot calling the kettle black. Beyond that it sounds like a bunch of rhetoric so that he (the Iranian cleric) can capitalize on the popular sentiments of people in his country who might look with envy at the success of the Egyptians' protest.

2. I could not find your comments at the cite you referenced because the link goes directly to the dio.org website. I'd like to better understand your sentiments. Perhaps you can re-post them here.

3. Dr. King was a great leader. I like his speeches too. What I think is lost on some people (I'm not saying you - although I don't know) is that Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi's doctrine of nonviolence did not call for subservience or abdication to the oppressor. Their work was militant and I'm on board with their approach of forcing the oppressor to either concede that he is malevolent or else relent from his oppression.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

God Bless.

Junaid

[jbm]

Thank you Junaid for your response.

I would like to reply in more depth, but time and duties won't allow me to indulge right now. However, I will take a moment to share another article that I just came across that I feel is relevent and prudent to this topic.

We, the faithful Children of God, who know His peace, love and mercy can not deny what is transpiring...the violence exists:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=111479

I found it interesting that the second speech I found and first that I posted by the King of Dreams was given on Christmas...

Anyway, may your day be blessed. And enjoy the snow!

Peace,

Janine