Bp. Seitz: It's All Raaaaaaaaayciss!!

At some point in time, the mature and discerning Catholic just stops reading and/or listening to these guys.

...9. How do we begin to understand the El Paso matanza? How should we think about racism and white supremacy? 

10. The never-ending mass shootings leave us feeling dazed, wounded, fearful and helpless. Causes and solutions seem evasive and our nation’s political life is broken. The Catholic Church in the United States supports the ban on assault weapons that lawmakers senselessly let expire in 2004 and our Church continues to advocate for reasonable regulations on firearms that Congress still won’t pass.2 The constant pressures on families and the embarrassing lack of access to mental healthcare in this country surely also play a role.

11. But the mystery of evil motivating attacks like the El Paso matanza goes deeper than these. It is something more complex than laws and policies alone can fix. What else explains the perversity of attacks on African Americans, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and other communities? 

12. This mystery of evil also includes the base belief that some of us are more important, deserving and worthy than others. It includes the ugly conviction that this country and its history and opportunities and resources as well as our economic and political life belong more properly to ‘white’ people than to people of color. This is a perverse way of thinking that divides people based on heritage and tone of skin into ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’, paving the way to dehumanization.

In other words, racism. 

13. Racism can make a home in our hearts, distort our imagination and will, and express itself in individual actions of hatred and discrimination. Racism is one’s failure to give others the respect they are due on account of being created in the image and likeness of God. And it is more than that. 

14. If we are honest, racism is really about advancing, shoring up, and failing to oppose a system of white privilege and advantage based on skin color. When this system begins to shape our public choices, structure our common life together and becomes a tool of class, this is rightly called institutionalized racism. Action to build this system of hate and inaction to oppose its dismantling are what we rightly call white supremacy. This is the evil one and the ‘father of lies’ (John 8, 44) incarnate in our everyday choices and lifestyles, and our laws and institutions. ...

Yup.  That's where I stopped.  Word-salad ending in "raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayciss!!" is not helpful, is not pastoral, and frankly, is offensive.  The 'systemic racist (homophobe, sexist) mantra is mindless, for sin is personal, not 'systemic,' and not 'corporate.'  

Have a gun?  Raaaaaaaaaaaaayciss!!  Want a border for your country?  Raaaaaaaaaaaayciss!!  Think Trump is good for the country?  Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayciss!!

But wait!!  There's more!!

You can be a "white supremacist" too!!  All you have to do is "build this system of hate"  or  "oppose its dismantling."  Which--if you're white--you're doing.  All day, every day.  Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaayciss!!

No, it doesn't make sense.  It's Episcopal Word-Salad.  It's not teaching, sanctifying, or ruling.  It's just more noise.