An open letter, in this time of synod,
On the secular feast day of Martin Luther King Jr, 2022
The Most Reverend Archbishop Alexander King Sample
Metropolitan of Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon
Your Excellency:
Upon reading the preparatory documents for the synod, I see the church beginning to make a similar mistake that secular culture over the past 22 years in the United States has made.
In the church, we have a proud tradition of social justice going back to the writings of Pope Leo XIII, in Rerum Novarum. Our form of social justice is nearly unique in this world; we see each human being, no matter their station in life or socio-economic class as a Child of God, and thus our solutions to injustice are often open all, regardless of means, ability, or superficial identity judgements.
In the church, we have a proud tradition of social justice going back to the writings of Pope Leo XIII, in Rerum Novarum. Our form of social justice is nearly unique in this world; we see each human being, no matter their station in life or socio-economic class as a Child of God, and thus our solutions to injustice are often open all, regardless of means, ability, or superficial identity judgements.
Our social justice truly mirrors the concept that the Baptist Preacher, Martin Luther King Jr., espoused in his great Dream Speech, that we judge people not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.
In the last 20 years, on the secular side, we've seen the gradual abandonment of that dream; in favor of a much different form of social justice. I call this the social justice of war and revenge; the central concept seeming to consist of the following three steps:
In the last 20 years, on the secular side, we've seen the gradual abandonment of that dream; in favor of a much different form of social justice. I call this the social justice of war and revenge; the central concept seeming to consist of the following three steps:
- Observe an injustice exists.
- Find stereotypical or genetic identity based cause, in either the victim or the oppressor or both, to blame.
- Create a greater injustice out of revenge to attack the blamed oppressor group, without doing anything to actually change the injustice for the victim group.
Our own experience with COVID-19 and social injustice in Portland, OR has retreated to competing interest groups based on identity politics: Police vs Minority Communities (with extremists on both sides becoming so violent that more than 90 murders and 600 attempted murders happened in 2021), old vs young (with the extreme aged virtually locked into jails that were once assisted living centers and the young denied an education by the teacher's unions out of a fear of the "vectors of disease" they now see their students as representing), skin color identity groups encouraged to hate rather than help one another, and even a sense that urban Democrats want to exterminate rural Republicans and banish them forever from the public discourse.
One attempt at social justice in particular, critical race theory, seems to have created a culture of violence so deep in the name of anti-racism, that it threatens to erase more than 70 years worth of work of the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr and the people he left behind. In their attempt to defund the police, they have created a secular situation of lawlessness that will take decades, if not centuries, to recover from. The injustice they were trying to correct for (blaming all crime on a single race and reducing crime through quick, visual descriptions of perpetrators) is indeed a real problem; the way they went about fixing it (violent nightly protest for more than 600 nights and the removal of funding for various parts of the police department) was an utter disaster.
The sexual revolution has created identity groups that prey upon each other, and sometimes upon their own identity group, sometimes victimizing others, in anti-life sexual philosophies that seem more based in use and abuse than in the procreative family vision that we know creates the next generation- and the family too, is often attacked in favor of alternative pseudo-marital groupings that have no natural generative capability.
It is the very existence of identity groups that creates marginalization and oppression. When we separate human beings off from the human family, and claim they are not human, such as in the case of the unborn children, that's when the evils of marginalization and extermination begin to appear. It is when we see the other as *other*, and not as ourselves, based on superficial and frankly shallow judgements and stereotypical generalized superstitions, that real marginalization begins.
And so I would respectfully ask, as a part of the contribution of the Archdiocese of Portland In Oregon, that we begin our contribution to the Synodal Path with a statement of rejection of bias, a rejection of judgement, not just of the marginalized but the majority that may well one day become marginalized. That we begin to see people by the content of their character, and not merely in fulfillment of our own lust and greed, judging them by the superficiality of their identity group.
Only then, will we be able to fulfill our own promise in Catholic Social Teaching. Only by rejecting situations of rejection, and building situations of hospitality, encounter, assimilation and welcoming, can we build the universal belonging that is the ultimate promise of Catholicism.
One attempt at social justice in particular, critical race theory, seems to have created a culture of violence so deep in the name of anti-racism, that it threatens to erase more than 70 years worth of work of the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr and the people he left behind. In their attempt to defund the police, they have created a secular situation of lawlessness that will take decades, if not centuries, to recover from. The injustice they were trying to correct for (blaming all crime on a single race and reducing crime through quick, visual descriptions of perpetrators) is indeed a real problem; the way they went about fixing it (violent nightly protest for more than 600 nights and the removal of funding for various parts of the police department) was an utter disaster.
The sexual revolution has created identity groups that prey upon each other, and sometimes upon their own identity group, sometimes victimizing others, in anti-life sexual philosophies that seem more based in use and abuse than in the procreative family vision that we know creates the next generation- and the family too, is often attacked in favor of alternative pseudo-marital groupings that have no natural generative capability.
It is the very existence of identity groups that creates marginalization and oppression. When we separate human beings off from the human family, and claim they are not human, such as in the case of the unborn children, that's when the evils of marginalization and extermination begin to appear. It is when we see the other as *other*, and not as ourselves, based on superficial and frankly shallow judgements and stereotypical generalized superstitions, that real marginalization begins.
And so I would respectfully ask, as a part of the contribution of the Archdiocese of Portland In Oregon, that we begin our contribution to the Synodal Path with a statement of rejection of bias, a rejection of judgement, not just of the marginalized but the majority that may well one day become marginalized. That we begin to see people by the content of their character, and not merely in fulfillment of our own lust and greed, judging them by the superficiality of their identity group.
Only then, will we be able to fulfill our own promise in Catholic Social Teaching. Only by rejecting situations of rejection, and building situations of hospitality, encounter, assimilation and welcoming, can we build the universal belonging that is the ultimate promise of Catholicism.
I have the honor to be, Your Excellency,
Respectfully yours in Christ,
Theodore M. Seeber
Respectfully yours in Christ,
Theodore M. Seeber
5470 SW Erickson Ave,
Beaverton, OR 97005
Beaverton, OR 97005
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I am not the only person saying this. Here's an edify video on the subject.
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