Proud Boys Stand By/Fratelli Tutti
29 October 2020/By: Lawrence S. DiCara
It’s not easy to write an article which discusses Donald Trump, Robert Kennedy and Pope Francis, but I believe it is appropriate to contrast their messages as we approach Election Day.
“Proud Boys - stand by.” That was the message from the Commander in Chief a few weeks ago at the Presidential Debate held in Cleveland. It was a perfect example of his ignorance of our nation’s history. Years ago, Boorstin warned of the power of celebrity; Hersh has recently referenced the same topic; we are now seeing the results!
Perhaps, a man who is in denial as to his own family history cannot be expected to understand the sad history of private violence in this country, which has often been encouraged by elected officials. It goes back centuries. It includes extraordinary violence by whites against Blacks in the South, but also includes other ugly incidents, many of which have been forgotten by history.
In 1891, eleven Sicilian immigrants recruited to be laborers in Louisiana were lynched by a mob who believed they were responsible for the death of a local police chief.
More recently, we have seen young people crossing state lines, including a 17-year-old vigilante with an assault rifle, probably purchased on the Internet. A number of men were indicted in Michigan who had “agreed to unite others in their cause and take violent action against multiple state governments.”
We are a nation of laws and not of men and women. We are not some duchy in Central Europe where a prince might raise an army to defeat and pillage the adjacent principality. Our Constitution - well into its third century - has endured the test of time. When one takes the oath of office, whether it be as a lowly city councillor or as President of the United States, one takes the same oath. One pledges to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. Whoever takes that sacred oath is obliged to do so, rather than to play to some mob of uneducated and often unemployed young men [mobs are nearly always young and nearly always men] who he seeks to empower to engage in violent acts against their fellow citizens. “Hate begets hate. Violence begets violence” were words we were taught by Martin Luther King and so many others. It was true in the 1960s. It was true well before then. It is true today.
Contrast this to the message delivered on the day after Martin Luther King died by Robert F. Kennedy to the Cleveland City Club. His words were very clear: “No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled or uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness and not the voice of the people…When you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family...You will also learn how to confront others, not as fellow citizens but as enemies…alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community. We learn to share only a common fear.”
Contrast the message of the President not only to that speech from 1968, but also to the recent remarks of Pope Francis, out great visionary pontiff, speaking in Assisi on the feast day of the saint whose name he took for his Papacy, when he issued a new encyclical entitled “Fratelli Tutti.” [Loosely translated, we are all brothers and sisters.] Here are his direct words with respect to the lack of civility in modern times “Things that until a few years ago could not be said by anyone without risking the loss of universal respect can now be said with impunity, and in the crudest of terms, even by some political figures.”
Fratelli Tutti may be the most significant statement issued by a Pope with respect to human rights since Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum over 100 years ago. In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII declared that it is the responsibility of the Church to promote social principles that prevent class conflict. He stressed the plight of the urban poor and promoted dignity in the workplace and fair and safe working conditions for the laborers, and he advocated the formation of unions and the use of collective bargaining to ensure class harmony and prevent further abuse.
I doubt Donald Trump has ever read that RFK speech from 1968, or any of the Pope’s writings but, perhaps, if he did, he might be less inclined to tell The Proud Boys to “stand by” or to issue a call to arms to any white person who may feel a grievance against our nation.