Anarchy in America

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

The demonstrations in America against the police brutal method in arresting an offender has deteriorated to a challenge against what America stands for. The protesters became a mob and anarchy rule the streets in some states.

It all started in Minneapolis–Saint Paul where George Floyd, a black, was arrested and killed by the police on May 20, 2020. The protests developed into a series of civil unrests and inspired a global protest movement about racism and police brutality and demand for the abolition of the police system.

Many protests in Minneapolis-Saint Paul were initially peaceful, but several nights of rioting resulted in one death, 614 arrests, and upwards of $500 million in property damage. When the rioters increased in numbers the police avoided fueling the anger in the streets and simply gave up even their headquarters and the entire eight blocks of the city to the control of the protesters.

The anti-racial rage had expanded not only in numbers but in targets that included the destruction of the statutes of the revered Presidents George Washington and Ulysses Grant that the protesters claimed were racists which is contrary to historical facts.

In Minnesota, the 10-foot, bronze statue of Christopher Columbus was also toppled down while the protesters were singing and drumming. The helmeted state troopers at the Capitol just stood there as public property was being destroyed and a national symbol vandalized. The police seemed paralyzed, unable to enforce the law.

The California rioters targeted the statues of St. Junipero Serra, the great evangelizer and founder of nine out of the twenty-one missions in California. His statue was pulled down by the protesters.

There is a danger that other statues not only of national heroes and saints would be destroyed but also Catholic churches because of the speeches and rantings of the leaders of the rioters led by the Black Lives Matter and the Antifa, an American version of the Intifada, a Palestinian sustained series of protests, and in some cases violent riots, against the Israeli occupation of the land they claimed their own.

Leftists have joined in with massive financial support while left-leaning media gave the rioters premium time and space and encouragement.

The protests directed at police brutality had become a political movement using the force of mob rule with implications on the coming US election.

Catholics had warned that Catholic bishops should not think that their diocese is off-limits to the type of scenes when protestors pulled down statues of St. Junipero Serra. In San Francisco, a video shows a toppled statue of St. Junipero being struck with objects and daubed with paint while the crowd cheers in the background.

In response to the toppling of Serra’s statue in San Francisco, Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Cordileone said in a press statement that a “renewed national movement to heal memories and correct the injustices of racism and police brutality in our country has been hijacked by some into a movement of violence, looting and vandalism.

“The memorialization of historic figures merit an honest and fair discussion as to how and to whom such honor should be given. But here, there was no such rational discussion; it was mob rule, a troubling phenomenon that seems to be repeating itself throughout the country,” Cordileone said.

Voices in favor of the destruction of Serra’s statue have accused the saint of having committed numerous crimes, including genocide and the enslavement and torture of indigenous peoples.

But Cordileone insisted that Serra was a champion and protector of indigenous people. He added, “St. Serra made heroic sacrifices to protect the indigenous people of California from their Spanish conquerors, especially the soldiers. Even with his infirmed leg which caused him such pain, he walked all the way to Mexico City to obtain special faculties of governance from the Viceroy of Spain in order to discipline the military who were abusing the Indians. And then he walked back to California.”

A petition in LifeSiteNews in the US urges the bishops to act. “If the bishops do not – as a body – voice their opposition to these latest incidents, no saint, no church will be immune from mob rule. If it comes to it, Catholics may be forced to defend their churches as well as their cultural, historical, and religious heritage.

That is ominous.

We will resume on Monday.