Finding Grace During the Age of Suffering

San Diego Catholic Bishop Robert McElroy issued the following statement June 1 in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and protests that have erupted across the country, including in this county:

“A deep and paralyzing sadness envelops this nation we love so much. The danger and burden of a pandemic has worn us down. We have been forced to isolate ourselves, to separate ourselves from the many joys that give meaning to our lives, and in many cases even from the blessing of family. Ordinarily this trauma for our society would have created a sense of unity and solidarity, however, at this moment it has created division and alienation. Our economy has suffered a cardiac arrest, and the fear of the free fall of the economy in duel with the danger of a pandemic has blurred the path forward. We are worn down.

“And along with the exhaustion of all people, the seismic fault line that is the great shame of our nation’s past and present — our legacy of racial prejudice, violence, and silence — has erupted again, tearing at the fabric of our society. The murder of one man — George Floyd — expresses the evil of 400 years of racial oppression. His words — “I can’t breathe” — capture the pervasive and insidious power of racial prejudice embedded within the structure of American public life and its legal, political, and economic systems.

“Where is the grace in times like this?”

“It lies in the understanding that genuine healing for our nation can only be found in a radical effort to stand with the African American community in the sadness, anger, hope and despair that have been formed and deformed on the anvil of racism. Ours cannot be an episodic response that seeks to calm the waters of racial unrest and then return to normalcy. The only authentic moral response to this moment in our nation’s history is a true conversion of heart and soul to genuinely understand the overwhelming evil of racism in our society, and to refuse to rest until we have rooted out the problem.”

“Where is the grace in times like this?”

“It lies in the words of Terrence Floyd, brother of George Floyd, who in the midst of overwhelming pain pointed the way forward for our nation when he called for peaceful unity to replace the destructive unity of looting, violence, divisive nationalism, and partisanship. tribalism. We are in a moment that calls for an unstoppable commitment to forge a new solidarity in our nation, finding in the very suffering of these past months foundations of compassion and unity, friendship and peace.

“Where is the grace in times like this?”

“It lies in the knowledge that the presence of God surrounds us in these days of sadness and loss, and calls us to moral and spiritual conversion, so that the soul of our nation may be renewed and our eyes may truly see the Glory of the “coming of the Lord once again among us.”