Editorials of The Times A Priest Says Trump Should Quit for Hate Talk

It was at a Sunday children’s Mass in 2002, and the Rev. Percival D’Silva had just called on Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston to resign for covering up abuses by pedophile priests. At a time when the Roman Catholic Church was in a full defensive crouch, it was incredibly brave for a parish priest to challenge the hierarchy like that. I started scribbling the words of the sermon on the back of the church bulletin.

“I tell you,” he promised, “I will never hurt your children.”

Although I had had my son baptized, confirmed and educated at Blessed Sacrament, I had lost faith in the church as an institution. But Father D’Silva was giving me hope. He was standing by what I was taught were essential values of the church.

Last Sunday, the diminutive priest, now 82 and officially retired, once again affirmed those basic principles and called leaders to account. In his sermon, he spoke of how the “current occupant of the White House spews hatred, bigotry and intolerance” and must resign, I learned from James Zogby, a longtime parishioner who heads the Arab American Institute, an advocacy group. (I now live in the New York area.)

“I’m compelled by Jesus Christ to say what I’m going to say. Jesus won’t let me off the hook,” the priest said, according to Zogby. Other parishioners who were there confirmed the gist of his comments.

The message, after President Donald Trump exhorted four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they came from, was unsparing. In the most political of towns, before a congregation that includes many of Washington’s most powerful people, of all political stripes, it offered a different view of what Christ expects of his followers from that promoted by acolytes of Trump, like Vice President Mike Pence, who assert that their evangelical Christianity is consistent with separating migrant children from their families, courting brutal dictators, seeking to bar Muslims from the country and stirring racism.

A few days earlier, hundreds of Catholic priests, nuns and lay people protested at the Capitol against conditions facing migrants at the southern border. Many protesters were led away in handcuffs.

D’Silva would not speak on the record about his sermon, but those at the Mass told me that he talked about how racism is a sin and referred to the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter on Racism of 1979, which called upon the church at every level to confront the evil of racism and work toward full inclusion of racial and ethnic groups. He stressed the need to “respect one another as children of God” and talked of racism as being rooted in fear — of the unknown, of losing control, of one’s inadequacies, of those who are different.

And he admonished parents about their responsibility to teach children to appreciate the differences among people, invoking the Rodgers and Hammerstein song from “South Pacific” about how “you’ve got to be taught to hate and fear” as a reference point.

D’Silva feels this personally. Born in Mumbai, India, he joined the priesthood in 1964 and came to the United States in 1978, later becoming a citizen. As he told churchgoers Sunday, he loves America and loves being an American. But he is alarmed by the disintegrating national political climate and worries that someone will look at his brown skin and tell him, “You have to go home.”

He is an inspiration for anyone who is outraged by the steady erosion of values and common decency in a country founded on the idea that all men are created equal, as well as by the corruption of the church. When it was announced in 2015 that he would be transferred to another parish, congregants protested and the decision was reversed. Some said he was being punished for his past statements.

After Sept. 11, when the country was hurting, fearful and vengeful, D’Silva preached the value of forgiveness and warned against retaliation, Zogby told me. In that fragile civic moment, it was another risky message that he felt needed to be heard. He ended that sermon waving the American flag and singing “America the Beautiful.”

Last year, D’Silva called for Cardinal Donald Wuerl to resign as archbishop of Washington after a Pennsylvania grand jury report criticized the cardinal’s handling of abusive priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006.

In each case, while there were some critics who complained to the priest’s superiors and some congregants who walked out, most of the people who heard these sermons applauded. That’s what happened Sunday, I was told, when D’Silva spoke at two consecutive Masses.

“He framed it perfectly,” Zogby said. “It was not done in a hateful, spiteful way but a very thoughtful, Christian way. It was very powerful.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.