Trump Administration's Pretense Of Piety Collides With Pope Leo's Sincere Call For Justice

Marc H. Morial 
President and CEO
National Urban League

“[N]either can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery …  This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached. It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord. For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”  -- Pope Leo XIV

Despite his bungled attempts to quote the Bible or portraying himself as Jesus Christ, the President of the United States is not a faith leader. Moral leadership, however, “is in fact the central task of our presidents.” Such leadership demands not only the condemnation of atrocities, but “acknowledging the harm done, just reparation and taking steps to prevent it from happening again.”

These were the eloquent words of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, in which he formally apologized for the role the Vatican played in legitimizing slavery and its centuries-long failure to condemn it.

The Pope’s principled and unequivocal declaration stands in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s unconscionable vote against a United Nations resolution designating the transatlantic slave trade "the gravest crime against humanity."

According to the resolution, “States bear responsibility for internationally wrongful acts and have an obligation to cease the act … offer appropriate assurances and guarantees of non-repetition … and to make full reparation for the injury caused.” 

Neither the U.N. resolution nor Pope Leo’s encyclical specify what forms such reparation should take, but Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Dan Negrea’s feeble and dishonest defense of the indefensible vote was that the United States “does not recognize a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred.”

In fact, the United States has repeatedly recognized the right to reparations, the most widely recognized of which is the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted formal apologies and reparations to Japanese Americans who were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in internment camps during World War II.

Between 1946 and 1978, the Indian Claims Commission awarded more than $800 million to tribes for land taken without fair compensation.  In 1974, the United States provided reparations to survivors of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and their heirs.

The United States even provided reparations to slaveholders when the institution was abolished in the District of Columbia. But no form of restitution – much less the promised “40 acres and a mule” – ever was granted to the formerly enslaved or their descendants.

Even if the issue of reparations were set aside, the only historical injustice the Trump administration affirmatively acknowledges is imaginary discrimination against white people. It has usurped the laws and institutions intended to defend racial justice and wielded them in defense of inequity.

In his encyclical, Pope Leo wrote, “…injustices do not arise solely from the wrong choices of individuals, but also from structures, mechanisms and economic and cultural systems that produce inequality almost automatically.” This acknowledgement is repulsive to an administration dedicated to the illusion that the existing, inequitable status quo is the result solely of “merit” and “hard work” on the part of those who enjoy its advantages.

The President repeatedly cloaks his actions and policies in the language and imagery of faith—wielding a Bible for a photo op, claiming he was chosen by God, and pandering to the religious right. But when confronted with faith’s moral demands, he has resisted and rejected it. The contrast is not merely a disagreement over policy, but a deeper conflict over whether faith is an instrument to defend authority or to hold it to account.

 
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