First they came for Father Moloney...

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 19, 2020

Father Dan Moloney, the Catholic chaplain at MIT, was forced to resign within 48 hours after making a public statement that both the university and the Boston archdiocese found unacceptable. What was that statement? You can find it all here.

In an email message to Catholic students—his only way to communicate with his flock, since the campus is closed—Father Moloney condemned racism. He voiced opposition to the death penalty. He argued that Christians should cultivate an attitude of mercy rather than hostility. He cited two statements by Cardinal Sean O’Malley denouncing the killing of George Floyd. As for his own reaction to Floyd’s death, he wrote:

The police officer who knelt on his neck until he died acted wrongly. I do not know what he was thinking. The charges filed against him allege dangerous negligence, but say nothing about his state of mind. He might have killed George Floyd intentionally, or not. He hasn’t told us. But he showed disregard for his life, and we cannot accept that in our law enforcement officers. It is right that he has been arrested and will be prosecuted.

Why was this email message so controversial, then? Because Father Moloney questioned the popular narrative:

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, most people in the country have framed this as an act of racism. I don’t think we know that.

Notice: The chaplain didn’t say that Floyd’s death was not prompted by racism. He simply remarked that the evidence is not conclusive. For that he was banished from the campus. For that he was given a public reprimand by his own archdiocese, which announced to the world that his statements “were wrong.”

Please, read the whole email message from Father Moloney. You might find some statements that are debatable, some statements with which you may disagree, some ideas that are not well explained. But do you find anything that you can confidently say is wrong? Anything that is inherently offensive? Anything that conflicts with the teaching of the Catholic Church?

Now imagine that a Catholic chaplain on some other campus had issued a statement questioning the Real Presence or the Virgin Birth. Or—this will be a good deal easier—imagine a chaplain who welcomed the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Would he be forced to resign? Within 48 hours? Would the archdiocese issue an immediate public correction?

In another context, David Horowitz has observed that if there’s a war in which one side is using live ammunition while the other shoots blanks, you don’t need to know anything else about military strategy to predict the outcome.