Ignoring A Hate Crime?

CRISIS Magazine e-Letter

January 28, 2005

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Dear Friend,

I have several things to talk to you about today, so let me dive
right in.

First, I want to thank you again for helping me with the Crisis
e-Report, "23 Ways To Identify A Faithful Parish." The response to it
was overwhelmingly positive, and several readers offered some very
good additional items for the list.

I do need to make two important clarifications, so that there's no
confusion...

The list I offered applied only to parishes of the Latin Rite. The
liturgies of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church have different
-- and quite ancient -- norms, and a number of the 23 items wouldn't
apply to them. (For example, you won't be hearing Latin in a Chaldean
Rite Catholic Church.)

Second, remember that the list came in response to a reader who
asked if there were specific clues one might look for to identify a
faithful parish. This was NOT a list of all the qualities of a good
parish. Obviously, there's a lot more to a good, healthy parish than
what it has on its sign out front.

Before I get to my main reason for writing to you, I want to mention
one more thing. I'm frequently asked for permission to reprint the
e-Letters -- generally for use on Web sites and blogs. I always grant
it. So, to save you time and to get this information out to as many
people as possible, I give you full permission to post or print out
and distribute the e-Letter any way you like. I only ask that you
indicate that it came from the Crisis Magazine e-Letter and that you
not change the text without mentioning that you've done so
(obviously, I don't want to be held responsible for something I
didn't write).

The whole point of this e-Letter is to provide you with a free
service that keeps you up-to-date and informed on issues relevant to
Catholics (and anyone else interested).

Please consider this YOUR e-Letter, for you to use in any way you
think helpful. Hopefully, this will make it easier for you to do
that.

And now, onto the main story...

Apparently, the right to free speech doesn't apply to everyone.
Especially if you happen to be pro-life.

That's the lesson the Louisiana State University Students For Life
learned recently. You see, last weekend, in anticipation of the
anniversary of Roe v. Wade, they placed 4,000 crosses on the campus
parade grounds. (The 4,000 figure represents the average number of
unborn children killed per day by abortion.)

It was a nice, silent witness to the atrocity of abortion.

But even that is just too much for some people. Around midnight
Monday morning, a group of pro-abortion students vandalized the
display, destroying 3,000 of the crosses and using some of the others
to spell "pro-choice" on the grass. All told the vandals did over
$9,000 worth of damage.

Amazingly enough, one of the university police officers saw them
doing it and ordered them to leave. But he didn't arrest them. One
wonders if he would have acted similarly had he caught them
spray-painting graffiti on a dormitory wall.

The perpetrators were later arrested and charged with criminal
mischief -- a misdemeanor. But is that enough? Richard Mahoney,
president of the St. Mary and St. Joseph Memorial Foundation and
owner of the vandalized crosses certainly doesn't think so. The cross
is a religious symbol, he noted to The Daily Reveille (the student
newspaper of LSU), and "defacing a religious symbol is a hate
crime."

In an amusing exercise in rationalization, John Philip Morlier, one
of the perpetrators, wrote a letter to the Reveille, defending his
actions:

"I engaged in what I believe to be an act of free speech. The
crosses were planted in an effort to join a debate, conversation. By
removing from the ground and disassembling the crosses, I was voicing
a counter point. I know that my actions were rash; however, the
statement made by the crosses was rash, inappropriate, invasive and
hostile."

Where to begin? I wonder if Mr. Morlier would appreciate my own
"counter point" if I were to scratch the word "Idiot" into the side
of his car? Probably not. And yet, that's the kind of reasoning he's
using here with his vandalism-as-genuine-debate argument.

But it gets even better. He goes on to try to explain why he wasn't
guilty of a hate crime... only to shoot himself in the foot in the
attempt:

"The crosses are not an invitation to engage in a give and take
debate on the issue, rather the issue is evasively hidden behind the
most powerful symbol in our community. Those crosses were a black and
while framing of a very complex issue veiled behind the threat of
hell; a wood and glue manifestation of the self-righteous, mislabeled
'Christian' mentality that fuels itself off of the punishment it
threatens or administers to those that it persistently persecutes."

Did you catch his misstep?

When I first learned of the vandalism and the attempt to label it a
hate crime, I had my doubts. After all, the crosses were used in the
display to represent tombstones -- objects that have taken on a
secular value in our culture. Most likely, I thought, the vandals
were reacting to them as such.

But Mr. Morlier shows that this is not so, thereby surrendering his
single best defense. According to his own statement, he DID consider
the crosses religious symbols. In defacing them, he was acting
against the spiritual message he thought they communicated.

And that sounds like a hate crime to me.

I'll keep you updated on new developments in the story.

Have a great weekend,

Brian


P.S. As you know, Deal Hudson is no longer with Crisis Magazine. But
he did leave us with a parting gift. About a year ago, he gave a
series of talks on the concept of happiness to the Wyoming School of
Catholic Thought. The audience absolutely raved about them.
Unfortunately, while we've had tapes of the seminar in the office, I
never took the opportunity to listen to them. To be honest, I just
didn't think the subject would be that interesting to me.

After finally going through them, I can report that I was happily
wrong. They are absolutely riveting. I'm going to see if we can make
them available to you. I'll let you know as soon as I find out.



***** LEARN THE REAL CAUSE OF THE CRISIS IN THE CHURCH *****

Sex abuse scandals... irreverent liturgies... homosexuality in the
seminaries... liberal theology preached from the pulpit...

You know all about the crisis in the Church. But you've never heard
the full story. When did the collapse in the Church occur... and what
REALLY caused it?

Fr. Benedict Groeschel knows. He was there when it happened... 10
years BEFORE Vatican II.

What he saw will surprise you.

Click here to learn more:

http://www.crisismagazine.com/products.htm

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