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| Rev. Theodore Rothrock, "They are maggots and parasites" |
Were you under the impression that Christianity is about caring and compassion and regarding everyone as equally deserving of life and respect as children of God, and that Christians are people who would burn with indignation at the idea of a fellow human being treated as an inferior, lesser being?
Well, it seems it's not just the fundamentalist white evangelicals who disagree with you when it comes to black people, but an ordained Catholic Priest, the Rev. Theodore Rothrock, of St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel, disagrees with you too.
He has now been suspended by his bishop, Bishop Timothy Doherty, of the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana, for writing in his weekly bulletin:
The only lives that matter [to protestors] are their own and the only power they seek is their own. They are wolves in wolves clothing, masked thieves and bandits, seeking only to devour the life of the poor and profit from the fear of others. They are maggots and parasites at best, feeding off the isolation of addiction and broken families, and offering to replace any current frustration and anxiety with more misery and greater resentment. [My emphasis]
In other words, these are not people with a sense of injustice, incensed at the casual public murder of a black man by a white police officer, seeking to redress the very inequalities that Rothrock accuses them of feeding off at all, according to Rev. Rothrock. They are sub-human 'maggots'. And, you would never catch a Catholic priest, feeding off the poor and dispossessed, and the fear of others, as they sell salvation, consolation and uplift with an ingratiating smirk and ever-open hand, would you!
This is in marked contrast to the expressed support for the BLM campaign, from other Catholic Priests, such as Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, who 'took the knee' on June 4th for the 8 minutes and 46 seconds it took police officer Derek Chauvin to kill George Floyd. Bishop Seitz told the Pope he thought it was "very important at this time to show our solidarity to those who are suffering", when the Pope phoned him to thank him.
Rev. Rothrock's future is now under review and he will no longer be assigned as Pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel - a post he was due to be confirmed in next month.
In a grudging and disingenuous 'apology', Rothrock said:
It was not my intention to offend anyone, and I am sorry that my words have caused any hurt to anyone. [The church must condemn bigotry, which is] a part of the fabric of our society.
We must also be fully aware that there are those who would distort the Gospel for their own misguided purposes. People are afraid, as I pointed out, rather poorly I would admit, that there are those who feed on that fear to promote more fear and division.
Note the repeated 'feed[ing] on fear' that was part of Rothrock's 'parasite' smear. A group calling itself "Carmel Against Racial Injustice" has now set up a Facebook group and is demanding Rothrock's removal from a position of leadership.
At the time of writing, the offending article and the apology, both seem to have been taken off the St Elizabeth Catholic Church website, as has any reference to Rev. Rothrock.
Smearing George Floyd as a drug addicted ex porno star and would be rapist seems to be perfectly acceptable and in fact the default mode on sites like Unz these days. The most instructive result of Floyd's murder is how many people, like Paul Craig Roberts, have finally and unambiguously outed themselves as uncompromising racists and bigots. If nothing else, that has its own value.
ReplyDeleteWow. Reverend Rothrock just described official Catholic policy exactly.
ReplyDeleteI mean " devour the life of the poor and profit from the fear of others. They are maggots and parasites at best..."
My ancestors were Catholic for countless generations. This is why we left.