From the New York Times:
“The Los Angeles Dodgers, who faced enormous backlash over last week’s choice to disinvite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night, reversed course on Monday. The team apologized to the group and extended a new invitation for it to attend the festivities, which are scheduled to be held on June 16 at Dodger Stadium. The Sisters have accepted the invitation and some of the groups that had vowed to boycott have agreed to return as well.”
I can imagine I have many friends who, like the Dodgers, evidently, in their latest iteration of principles, view the Sisters as they describe themselves:
“An organization devoted to community service, outreach to marginal people, human rights, diversity and spiritual enlightenment, employing humor and irreverent wit to unchain the human spirit from the forces of bigotry and guilt.”
Fair enough. The website above offers portals to contribute to or join their order.
On the other hand, voices like Bishop Robert Barron, a prominent Catholic prelate, suggested a boycott against the Dodgers in response to the club’s promotion of an “anti-Catholic hate group mocking the sacred beliefs of the Faith.”
Bishop Barron accurately reminded Americans of the long and ugly history of discrimination against Catholics in the United States, even as he wondered aloud whether we would condone (much less affirm) similar sacrilege against our fellow Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or even atheist citizens. I hope not.
Conservative leaders have called on citizens to write or email Erik Braverman, senior VP of marketing, communication, and broadcasting for the Dodgers to express their viewpoint.
Here is an example of one letter from a person close to me whom I respect:
Dear Mr. Braverman,
I am writing to complain about the Dodgers’ plan to honor the so-called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at your “pride night.” From what I can tell, the SPI are a defamatory organization, dedicated to attempting to humiliate Jesus Christ and monastic women.
I am a Protestant, but I work for a Catholic organization, alongside Dominican sisters, whom I’ve found to be pious, kind, joyful, humble and altogether holy. Therefore, it pains me that sick people like the SPI would make such a mockery of their vocation, let alone dishonor the image of Christ. How would you like it if someone like the SPI dressed up as your sister or mother and ostentatiously bragged about engaging in profane and unnatural acts? Wouldn’t you take a dim view of such a minstrel show and refrain from publicly honoring such a travesty?
Cards on the table: I am not a fan of baseball in general or the Dodgers in particular, and I probably won’t watch a Dodgers game regardless of whether you publicly honor the SPI. However, you and I share a common national culture, which we must steward for future generations. Publicly humiliating hardworking, faithful women, not to mention our Savior Jesus Christ, and raising up the people who tear them down makes our culture that much more toxic. This “pride night” is hardly inclusive to the two hundred million Christians in this country, and it is terribly exclusive to monastic women. As I understand it, the Dodgers organization used to be especially welcoming to the monastic women who contribute so much to our community, and it would be much better for all of us to raise up nuns and sisters instead of celebrating the practitioners of a modern-day Black Mass, or failing that, the Dodgers should focus on baseball instead of the validity of newfangled theories of sexual ethics.
Well said.
Most likely, I will not write a letter. For me, an old fan, and a frequent denizen of Dodger Stadium in my youth, this disturbing turn of events is not enough to make me swear allegiance to the hated Giants—but it is most likely an appropriate moment for me to sever my final very tenuous mystic cords of affinity for Major League Baseball.
There sometimes comes a point when adults should stop blindly rooting for uniforms and a corporate logo. My beloved Dodgers were real people. People who could remember all the way back to Brooklyn and Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Walter Alston, Branch Rickey, and Sandy Koufax. They were flesh and blood heroes I truly loved: the O’Malley family, Vin Scully, Don Drysdale, Tommy Lasorda, Dusty Baker, Steve Garvey, Reggie Smith, Rick Monday, Steve Yeager, Pete Guerrero, Davey Lopes, Steve Sax, Bill Russell (yes, even Bill Russell), Ron Cey, Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser, Kirk Gibson, and so many more.
Now, honestly, I have no idea who the Dodgers are—and, frankly, I just don’t care. I do not necessarily wish them ill. But this is where I finally exit the Blue Crew for good.
Ash, I had no idea about what the "Sisters" did to mock Christ until Kathy told me the display they did. Our God will not be mocked. Let us just watch and sees what happens to the Dodgers and Dodger's stadium.