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June 22, 2020, Adrian, Michigan – The General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters General Council supports the following statement of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) on the Supreme Court’s DACA ruling and the renewed commitment to the work of dismantling systems that oppress people of color.
The LCWR’s statement is as follows:
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious is grateful that the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's attempt to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The Court's ruling safeguards the right of 700,000 DACA recipients to live and work in the country that is their home. This is an enormous victory for the immigrant youth who have led the challenge to the Trump administration's attempt to end the program that has protected our colleagues, students, neighbors, and friends from the threat of deportation.
DACA recipients have long contributed to our communities and our economy. They are teachers and engineers, specialist and essential workers of every kind. Nearly 30,000 DACA recipients are among the healthcare workers combating the outbreak of COVID-19 working to prevent the spread of the virus and to save the lives of those infected.
While we welcome the Court's ruling, we recognize that this is not a permanent solution. We call on members of Congress to move expeditiously to pass legislation that will provide lasting stability for DACA recipients, those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and Dreamers, their families and our communities. It is long past time to enact a Dream Act that provides a path to citizenship without including funding for detention, deportation, or border militarization, or provisions that would limit opportunities for family reunification. The House of Representatives has already passed the bipartisan American Dream and Promise Act of 2019 (HR 6). It is time for the Senate to do the same.
Catholic sisters will continue to advocate for bipartisan legislation that addresses the injustices in our current immigration system. We will continue to stand in solidarity with our black and brown neighbors who seek the justice and dignity that is their right.
We note that this decision comes as Black people and their allies have courageously organized to demand an end to police brutality, systemic racism, and white supremacy. Our commitment to the gospel mandate to uphold the dignity of all people requires that we recommit ourselves to the work of dismantling all those systems that oppress people of color and to advocate for Black lives and the protection of immigrants.
(LCWR is an association of leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States. The conference has approximately 1350 members, who represent about 80 percent of the women religious in the United States. Founded in 1956, LCWR assists its members to collaboratively carry out their service of leadership to further the mission of the Gospel in today's world.)
Members of the Adrian Dominican Sisters General Council are Sisters Patricia Siemen, OP, Prioress; Frances Nadolny, OP, Administrator and General Councilor; Mary Margaret Pachucki, OP, Vicaress and General Councilor; and Patricia Harvat, OP, and Elise D. García, OP, General Councilors.
June 3, 2020, Adrian, Michigan – The Adrian Dominican Sisters stand in support of the following powerful “Red Record Statement” issued by the National Black Sisters’ Conference on “21st Century Lynchings in America.”
21st Century Lynchings in America: Our Red Record Statement Issued by the National Black Sisters’ Conference
In 1895 the activist and Civil Rights icon, Ida B. Wells, wrote a research pamphlet called The Red Record. In it Mrs. Wells tabulated the numbers of lynchings in the United States since the Emancipation of African slaves. The conclusion was that little had changed for the Negro in America by the end of the nineteenth century. The Emancipation Proclamation, and federal programs like the Freedmen’s Bureau, did not prevent the death of thousands of Negros by the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Ida B. Wells writes: “in slave times the Negro was kept subservient and submissive…but with freedom the Negro is whipped, scourged, he is killed.” Frederick Douglass, in a review of Mrs. Wells’ groundbreaking study, wrote: “If American moral sensitivity was not hardened by the persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame, and indignation would rise from heaven.” America’s sensibility is still hardened in the twenty-first century. Black Americans still scream in horror. We still cannot breathe. Black Lives still do not Matter.
One-hundred and twenty-four years later we are still writing the same story! African American men, women, and children are still being lynched, murdered, and executed for playing with a toy gun, watching television in one’s own home, and mistaken identity, driving or jogging while black, and being choked to death in cold blood by law enforcement officers, who have sworn to serve and protect.
We must speak and never forget their names.
Reason “Sean” Reed shot and killed in Indianapolis; Breonna Taylor, an emergency medical technician in Louisville, Ky., shot eight times in her bed; Ahmaud Aubrey killed while out jogging; and George Floyd dying from a police officer’s knee on his neck as Mr. Floyd screamed, “I can’t breathe!”
The National Black Sisters’ Conference (NBSC) condemns the viral disease of systemic racism that America has legitimized and practiced for over 400 years! We will not remain silent! There is more than one pandemic affecting our nation!
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound in the starless midnight of racism…”
If this country is to reclaim its moral stature, we must confess and atone for our original sin, or America will self-destruct as a nation. As Malcolm X once warned the white power structure, “The chickens have come home to roost.”
Without justice there can be no peace and justice demands that:
Finally, as black Catholic religious women, we call upon Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda, Archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and all bishops of good will to speak out on behalf of the church by denouncing these violent acts of hate and racism.
As Dr. King told us, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
If the most recent pastoral letter on racism, “Open Wide Our Hearts,” written by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is to have any moral legitimacy, then our episcopal leaders must give more than lip-service to addressing the sin of racism that is destroying communities of color in this nation.
As Christians, as Catholics, as people of faith, we must do more than just pray; we must model Jesus’ message to love one’s neighbor.
Our neighbor cannot breathe! Our neighbor is being lynched! Our neighbor is dying!
Our Red Record of Hate must end now!