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As is often the case, few delve into the actual text and context of his sermon. Instead they condemn such remarks based only on the reports from a 20-second news clip cluttered with comments (often negative) toward the controversy. This situation has even put one of the candidates in question by using guilt by association.
Of greater concern to me is what the controversy says about the role of the clergy. Too often the media stereotype and dismiss clergy as slightly eccentric compliant wimps. They portray their message as blasé and always pleasing but really inducing either slumber or a cute, quickly dismissed pseudo-compliment. Then life goes on as usual for “the faithful.”
No, I do not advocate hate under any form, but clergy do play a key role in the moral life of our country. Without their message, people can drift into sin with no qualms of conscience. For some, when the rhetoric gets too close, they either call for the clergyperson’s resignation or proceed to join a “right church.”
Ted Koppel said it best: “Americans can’t take truth in its purest form. They have to water it down or dilute it so they can ignore it.”
Prejudice, discrimination and other social ills exist not like an army approaching a battle line but like a slow-growing cancer. I cannot dismiss the current controversy about immigration as free from having roots in prejudice. Some cry out for the removal of illegal immigrants from our country and demand the building of fences to keep them out. Yet they said nothing when buying vegetables at the grocery store for a reasonable price before these aliens requested some of the rights we enjoy.
They also thought nothing of these workers doing backbreaking work for long hours in hazardous working conditions for minimum — or sub-minimum — pay with no benefits, just to make these food items available for a cheap price. Before they asked for basic human rights to improve their lot, where were the critics then? Why are they condemned for simply wanting a share of the life we live?
Clergy must exercise their role as prophets toward social ills against race, creed, color, gender or nationality. With due regard for law, don’t they need, at times, to even use forceful words? Prophets have never been well liked, and sometimes their character was called into question (for example, Eliot Spitzer). However, their message is important, not them. We need to avoid the Harper Valley PTA ethics of the self-righteous who say: “You call me bad, look at you!”
Too often I had heard clergy express in frustration their desire to call their congregations to true repentance and conversion but cowl under the fear of reprimands or even firings. Though not unlimited, the right of clergy to call people to conversion even with strong and judgmental language should not be diluted. Yes, the preacher can be wrong, but each soul must examine his or her conscience to be open to the truth no matter how it will affect them or call for a change in their lives.
Whether Wright overstepped his bounds or not, I cannot say. However, when we are called to repentance, forceful language often moves people more than pretty niceties. May we look at the message carefully and not at the messenger!
Father William Kulas is a Roman Catholic priest.
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