Left: Mercy: What Every Catholic Should Know" by Fr. Daniel Moloney was published recently by Ignatius Press and Augustine Institute. Right: June 16 article in The Boston Globe about Fr. Moloney resigning from his position
as Catholic chaplain at MIT.
“Crucify him!”:
The will of the mob and Fr. Daniel Moloney
by Joseph Pearce
June 20, 2020
Fr. Daniel Moloney is one of the finest priests I know and one of the most erudite. I have been honored to work with him in my capacity as Director of Book Publishing at the Augustine Institute because he is the author of
Mercy: What Every Catholic Should Know,which is
a fine and orthodox exposition of the virtue of mercy, without which justice is impossible.
It was ironic, therefore, that Fr. Moloney was shown neither mercy nor justice when he was forced to resign from his position as Catholic chaplain at MIT
for daring to suggest that we should keep our heads in the wake of the death of George Floyd, allowing reason and love to make sense of what really happened during his tragic arrest in Minneapolis.
There is a further irony in the fact that the Gospel text on which Fr. Moloney was preaching, which caused him to be sacrificed as a scapegoat to assuage the demands of the mob, was “blessed are the peacemakers”.
Let’s look at the reasons given for Fr. Moloney’s forced resignation, and then let’s look at what he actually said. The abyss between the hysteria of the former and the charity and clarity of the latter is striking.
Suzy Nelson, dean of student life at MIT, sent an email to students calling Moloney’s comments “deeply disturbing”, adding that
“by devaluing and disparaging George Floyd’s character, Father Moloney’s message failed to acknowledge the dignity of each human being and the devastating impact of systemic racism.”
Much more deeply disturbing than anything Fr. Moloney actually wrote was the fact that this good priest was thrown to the dogs by his own archdiocese to assuage the blood lust of the mob.
A spokesman for the archdiocese described his comments as “wrong” and apparently so wrong that he was forced to resign.
Having given the case for the prosecution, which might perhaps more accurately be described as the justification for the persecution and the rationale for the witch-hunt, let’s look at what Fr. Moloney actually wrote.
- “The Gospel says one thing,” Fr. Moloney began, referring to the blessedness of the peacemakers, “and everyone else is saying partial truths, at most.”
- Having lamented the unjust and brutal killing of George Floyd, Fr. Moloney stated the uncontested facts, as “deeply disturbing” and “wrong” as they might be, that George Floyd “had not lived a virtuous life”.
- Having stated the obvious, he stated the uncontested fact that Mr. Floyd had been “convicted of several crimes, including armed robbery, which he seems to have committed to feed his drug habit”.
- Furthermore, and continuing to state uncontested facts, Fr. Moloney mentioned that Mr. Floyd was “high on drugs at the time of his arrest”.
- This statement of well-known and incontrovertible facts was then followed by what Fr. Moloney had to say about them:
He committed sins, but we root for sinners to change their lives and convert to the Gospel. Catholics want all life protected from conception until natural death.
The police officer who knelt on his neck until he died acted wrongly. Watching the video, I wondered, what he was thinking?! The charges filed against him allege dangerous negligence, but say nothing about his state of mind. He might have killed George Floyd intentionally, or not. He hasn’t told us.
But he showed disregard for his life, and we cannot accept that in our law enforcement officers. It is right that he has been arrested and will be prosecuted…. Criminals have human dignity, too. That’s why we Catholics are asked to work to abolish the death penalty in this country.
What exactly has Fr. Moloney said that could constitute the “devaluing and disparaging” of George Floyd’s character? Where, in these words about rooting for sinners and wanting all lives protected “from conception until natural death” did Fr. Moloney “fail to acknowledge the dignity of each human being”?
Although Fr. Moloney might have said something “deeply disturbing” and “wrong” in failing to bend the knee to the newly canonized saint, George Floyd,
one suspects that his greatest crime was his apparent failure to stress the “devastating impact of systemic racism”. It is in the uttering of the following words that he would have committed the greatest crime in the eyes of the ideological ethno-masochists:
In the wake of George Floyd’s death, most people in the country have framed this as an act of racism. I don’t think we know that. Many people have claimed that racism is a major problem in police forces. I don’t think we know that.
It is this statement which incited the lynch-mob to descend on Fr. Moloney.
In the eyes of the mob, such statements are not merely “deeply disturbing” and ”wrong”, they are deeply heretical. Anyone who utters such heresies must be made a scapegoat and must be sacrificed on the altar of the new “woke” religion.
Let’s exacerbate the so-called “heresy” and risk the ire of the mob by insisting on the known facts.
- Whether we like it or not, the fact is that we don’t know that the killing of George Floyd was an act of racism.
- We know and could see with our own eyes that it was an act of crass and probably sadistic brutality, but there is no evidence that Derek Chauvin was a racist. In his many years as a police officer, there’s not a single complaint alleging that he acted in a racist manner.
[But several about his undue use of force!]
And let’s make sure that we know exactly what Fr. Moloney was actually saying and, equally important, what he was not saying.
- He wasn’t saying, as some have alleged by misquoting him, that George Floyd’s death was not an act of racism.
- He was simply saying that we don’t know whether it was racist. It might be but there’s no actual evidence to suggest it. The only evidence is one of presumption.
- It is presumed that Derek Chauvin must be a racist because he is a white police officer.
Now this presumption is really “deeply disturbing” and “wrong” because it is accusing every police officer who happens to have been tainted with the wrong colored skin of being guilty as charged, merely because of his skin color, irrespective of the total lack of actual or factual evidence.
As for racism itself, Fr. Moloney condemns it in no uncertain terms.
“Racism is a sin,” he says. “So is rash judgment”. He then goes on to quote the
Catechism of the Catholic Church to illustrate the solidarity that is both needed and lacking in our current hate-filled and unforgiving times:
Solidarity with our fellow human beings is ‘a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood… sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity.” (#1939). Our solidarity with one another is deeply frayed now. Everything we say (or don’t say) is treated with suspicion, rather than charity…. Everyone’s mind is made up, everyone’s angry with each other — even though everyone says they’re opposed to injustices and sins.
Fr. Moloney concludes his “deeply disturbing” and “wrong” overview of the present calamitous situation by returning to the words of the Gospel which had animated everything he said.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, our Lord tells us. May we all be counted among them.”
- Can anyone in their right mind and heart really believe that anything Fr. Moloney said constitutes a reason for his being offered as a sacrifice to the mob?
- Can we really find anything in his words that are truly “wrong” as the archdiocesan spokesman claimed?
It is said that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. In this case the [supposedly] good men did much worse than merely nothing. They did the dirty work of the mob.
It is intriguing in this light to consider the words of the leader of another mob, a mob which was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people and a mob which is nonetheless admired, in spite of the death-count, by many of those in the current mobs besieging our nation.
It was Lenin who said that the mob should advance on all fronts, withdrawing when it encounters steel but advancing when it encounters mush. In this instance, the mob has encountered nothing but mush and has advanced over the bruised and bleeding priest who is its latest innocent victim.
As for Fr. Moloney, he shows us in his book
Mercy: What Every Catholic Should Know, the tyranny of a society that demands justice but not mercy.
- It is true, as the mob claims, proclaiming it as a violent threat, that where there’s no justice, there’s also no peace.
- It is also true, however, that where there is no love and mercy, there will be neither peace nor justice.
The mob knows nothing of love or mercy as its hatred against this good and holy priest demonstrates. He was shown no mercy by the mob, nor was he protected by the archdiocese, which showed no courage in throwing the lamb to the pack of ravenous wolves. This is the ugly truth which is really and truly “deeply disturbing” and “wrong”.
Canceling Father Moloney
By David Deavel
June 26, 2020
...I was made aware last week of a story involving an old friend who did not remain silent and who was indeed canceled.
Fr. Daniel Moloney, who had served as the Catholic chaplain at MIT since 2015, was forced to resign after writing a letter to the MIT community concerning George Floyd and the protests that offended the sensibilities of some members of MIT’s student life and diversity administration.
[And the Archdiocese of Boston, under Cardinal Sean O’Malley – whose blatant hypocrisies are probably sending, even if unremarked at his funeral urn in San Giovannin Rotondo, the mortal remains of his sainted fellow Capuchin Padre Pio into endless cartwheels of indignation – promptly threw its full weight against Moloney.]
Fr. Moloney’s June 7 email was about the deep divisions in society that are caused by sin and need to be healed.
- Fr. Moloney clearly condemned Officer Chauvin’s actions: “George Floyd was killed by a police officer, and shouldn’t have been.”
- But it dared to make the further point that George Floyd was himself not a saint and was indeed a person whose life was not conspicuous for virtue.
Fr. Moloney’s point in making this observation was that
such a situation did not mean that Floyd should have died, because George Floyd retained his human dignity. Indeed, our human dignity cannot be erased or ignored precisely because it is not rooted in our own virtue but instead in our human nature: We are beloved sons and daughters of God and made in His image. But, Moloney went on, [dim=12 pt]
We do not kill such people. He committed sins, but we root for sinners to change their lives and convert to the Gospel… Criminals have human dignity, too.”
One can’t be much clearer than this about George Floyd’s dignity, and yet MIT’s Dean of Student Life, Suzy Nelson, was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying,
“Those who wrote me and other senior leaders were outraged, and many felt abandoned and alienated by their faith. By devaluing and disparaging George Floyd’s character, Father Moloney’s message failed to acknowledge the dignity of each human being and the devastating impact of systemic racism.”
One can see by the combination of claims that Dean Nelson realized that accusing Fr. Moloney of denying “systemic racism” is a weak claim and likely had to put a little more egg in the pudding by charging him with something that is more serious—albeit patently false. But her statement was for public consumption.
No, the real “sin” against academic administrators and departments of diversity was to question the claims that Officer Chauvin was motivated by racism and that police departments are themselves “systemically racist.”
- He did not even deny the claims. Moloney simply said, “I do not think we know that.”
- It did not matter that Fr. Moloney acknowledged that police departments are themselves filled with individuals who sometimes become hardened, brutal, and even racist. (
“Some of them certainly develop attitudes towards the people they investigate and arrest that are unjust and sinful.”)
While Dean Nelson claimed Fr. Moloney had not lived up to the statement he signed as a chaplain, acknowledging that “actions or statements that diminish the value of individuals or groups of people are prohibited,” it is pretty clear that this statement is being interpreted as protecting some people and groups from criticism.
- While George Floyd was beyond criticism, Derek Chauvin is assumed to have acted out of racism and must be devalued.
- While protesters and even rioters must not be “diminished or devalued” (read: criticized), police departments as a whole must be considered as dangerous agents of destruction to minorities.
The real sin was to cite the inconvenient facts that 150 police officers were killed in the line of duty in 2019 and that 18 people, including one police officer, have been killed in the “riots.” Even to use that last term is to court controversy.
It really did not matter that Fr. Moloney’s letter, which acknowledged the human dignity of all people and condemned police brutality and any kind of racism, and which cited approvingly calls for abolition of the death penalty by Catholic bishops and by the pope, was a model of balance and a call for all people to seek mercy, justice, and reconciliation. What mattered was that he had not repeated the dogmatic utterances of a secular religion. He had to be canceled.
I am not surprised by the position of MIT’s administrators. Frankly, I would have been more shocked in today’s atmosphere if they had done otherwise. What I am shocked by is the craven attitude taken by the archbishop of Boston. In a statement quoted by the Globe, the
archdiocese said that though they should not be taken to represent Fr. Moloney’s entire ministry, his comments “nonetheless were wrong and by his resignation he accepts the hurt they have caused.”
They were “wrong”?
- What the diocese indicated was wrong was that they did not comport with Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s recent letter on the George Floyd killing.
- That letter invokes the language of “systemic and structural racism,” repeats the claim that the protests were mostly peaceful, and closes with the holy phrase of our times, “Black Lives Matter.” Black Lives Matter. Full stop.
But this use of the capitalized phrase is a drastic mistake as it gives a kind of imprimatur to a group whose official statements include some claims that cannot be reconciled with Catholic Christianity. Is such language now required in the Archdiocese of Boston? It appears so.
My guess is that what further motivated Dean Nelson and also the archbishop was Fr. Moloney’s even more blunt language written the day before on his personal blog, “Spiritual Directions,” in which he was more explicit about the context of our discussions:
Racism is a sin, and Jesus conquers sin. It’s a sad fact that most of our thinking about race takes place in a left-wing, Marxist, atheistic context, in which a desire for power and an awareness of otherness crowd out Christian reflections on meekness and solidarity It didn’t used to be this way.
The Civil Rights movement was once led by Christians, most notably the Protestant Pastor Martin Luther King. It appealed to the Gospel to unify people of all races. As in so much of our life, so too with regard to race, it’s a struggle to think in Christian terms.
- When people only talk about justice, it’s a struggle to cultivate mercy.
- It’s a struggle to forgive those who have trespassed against us, or people like us.
- It’s easy to forget what we said above, that mercy is commanded of us.
- The reminder that in a godless world, power ends up being the dominant — sometimes the only — category is too much for those for who pride themselves on “compassion.”
- The reminder that the oft-invoked Civil Rights movement was much different than the Marxist-influenced Black Lives Matter movement is too much for academics and activists claiming its mantle.
- The reminder that these views are mostly found on one end of the political spectrum is too much for clerics desperately afraid to be thought un-progressive.
To his credit, Fr. Moloney expressed sorrow for the way in which his letter was taken but
did not apologize for his letter. Though the Archdiocese of Boston may say so officially, Fr. Moloney did nothing wrong. I am sympathetic to what I take to be Cardinal O’Malley’s desire to keep a good relationship with MIT in order to have a priest chaplain on campus.
- If the Cardinal judged a full-throated defense of Fr. Moloney imprudent, an eventual reassignment of Fr. Moloney and the appointment of a new chaplain would not have been completely inappropriate after a bit of time for things to cool down and some efforts to smooth things over.
- He could have shown Dean Nelson and those in the MIT administration what kind of attitude to speech a university ought to have by sponsoring precisely the difficult but charitable conversation that they say they want, but Fr. Moloney actually had the courage to undertake.
But to give in to the mob and to say something false is a shameful betrayal of the truth. It also invites the silencing of every Catholic and indeed every other person out there who does not hold the requisite politically correct opinions.
One notes that one of the most prominent Black Lives Matter activists, Shaun King, recently tweeted that he believes that “statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down.”If depictions of Christ or Mary in your church are deemed “too white,” what will the Cardinal say?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s famous 1974 essay “Live Not by Lies” is appropriate here. His call was for a refusal to participate in lies or even the tyranny of partial truths either by repeating them or by allowing others to think we hold to them. He implored his readers:
The simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation (is) our personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything. But not with any help from me.”
Bishops, even Cardinals, need to read it now and read it often.
And Catholics and other Christians need to recall the words of Flannery O’Connor written in a letter to a friend disappointed in the Catholic Church: “It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it, but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.”