October 10, 2014 A Call for Peace in Our Community Archbishop Robert J. Carlson Encourages Prayer as a Path to Calm in the Turmoil ST. LOUIS — Most Reverend Robert J. Carlson, Archbishop of St. Louis, today renewed his call for peace in the St. Louis community with the following statement: By now we should all realize that there is no going back to the status quo following the tragic shooting of Michael Brown. Rightly so! The status quo was not good enough. This tragedy has left a community struggling to cope with anger and frus-tration that it had repressed for many years. Now is our moment of truth. We can let the anger and frustration spill over in violence, and then be repressed again. Or we can take the opportunity to break the cycle and address the underlying issues that cause the anger and frustration. But we need to keep in mind the issues here are bigger than Ferguson. They are as deep as the hold of sin on the human heart and as broad as the solidarity of the en-tire human race. That means we will not be able to fix things quickly. But we have to move forward. And it is not just Ferguson or the greater St. Louis metropolitan com-munity, but the entire country and the whole Church that needs to look at these issues. Is it not a sad reality that we integrated professional baseball and schools a long time ago, but we have not integrated everyone’s heart? The sin of racism in our cities and our nation must be dealt with, but never with vio-lence. There are small but vocal groups currently threatening violence. I urge any-one who feels the desire to violently lash out to first pause and consider the poten-tial consequences of their actions: Will violence make the situation right? Will it right the wrongs? Or will it only make things worse? The unrelenting desire for re-venge is a poison that seeps into our souls and can become contagious carrying with it a commitment to violence. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Returning violence for violence multiplies vio-lence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars…Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” archstl.org Archdiocese of St. Louis on Social Media
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 20:50:17 +0000
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