What the Sorrowful Mysteries Showed Me On This Day

Over the course of the last few months, I have been feeling utterly abandoned by my Catholic brothers and sisters due to the increasing backlash against the police in this country (see my last blog post).  As a Catholic cop, I am more than a little sensitive to this phenomenon.  I expect it from the public at large and especially from the criminal element, but I admit it threw me when I started to see it from my fellow parishioners, members of religious communities, and especially from the Catholic press.

It got to the point where I stopped praying my daily Rosary or doing any of the usual devotions I had been engaging in because I felt so betrayed.  I barely could get up the energy to attend Sunday Mass anymore.  Hard as I tried, I couldn’t separate my feelings from my spiritual life.

For many years now, I’ve been wondering if Jesus would give me a cross to bear.  I know that I have been blessed beyond measure by God with an unbelievably supportive and Godly wife and the most perfect children one could pray for.  My career has been amazing and it has allowed me to support my family well.  With the help of my beautiful wife, I found my way back home to the Catholic Faith where I have learned to truly love the Lord.  Could I really expect to escape this world without being tested?

Now I know what you are thinking: “Is this guy serious?  He has admitted to enjoying a happy, healthy life and family, and being blessed.  Is he now going to claim that just because some people have said some mean stuff about his profession that he has a cross to bear?”  With all the suffering all around us, is he really wanting us to feel bad for him??” I know.  I thought the same thing, but bear with me.  I’ll make you even more angry.

Forget the fact that cops are now getting murdered just for wearing the uniform due to the ongoing vilification of my profession and that my wife has to worry more and more each day if my brains are going to be blown out just for sport while I sit in my police car.  

Perhaps it is because I am within two months of retiring after thirty years as a cop that I am so sensitive, but I am starting to think about my “legacy” here at my department and the blood, sweat and tears-literally-that I’ve put into this job in the service of others.  I have endured a lot of vitriol and have had people try to kill me in earnest on several occasions, but I have always expected that from the bad guys.  Now though, I’m getting this hostility from my own faith community (even though none of them actually knows anything about police work, have never undergone one minute of training, have never been in a physical fight not to mention ever had to actually fight for their lives). 

As I reflect back on my career and the friends I’ve lost in the line of duty, and all the sacrifices made, I had been feeling completely disheartened because of today’s climate.  I am not exaggerating when I say I have lost much sleep over this and have agonized over it.  It has torn me up.

  

Today though, I forced myself to go over to my parish on my lunch break to pray the Rosary like I had been doing for the last three years or so but had let slip lately due to what I have already written about.  Believe me, I was not in the mood to do it.  As I pondered the Sorrowful Mysteries though, I thought about Christ as he was humiliated, tortured, and completely and utterly betrayed by those that He loves beyond understanding-those that He came down from Heaven to save.  They all not only turned their backs on Him, but many openly cheered for His death in the most horrific way imaginable, and some even participated in it.  His closest friends denied knowing Him.  Judas, hand-picked by Christ Himself turned Him over to the Romans for execution.  Still, He let it all happen with nothing but love in His heart.  Again, I know what you’re thinking: “Is he really going to compare his hurt feelings with the sufferings of Christ??”  No, I am not….but…..

I thought about how I could offer up my own feelings of betrayal and my disenchantment with fellow Catholics, especially the Catholic media, and some religious, and I thought to myself, if Christ can lovingly endure the unimaginable torture and death that He did, I certainly can join my suffering that pales in comparison with that of His.  I can take comfort in the fact that even while He was enduring the crown of thorns and the beatings, the plucking of His beard and the humiliation, if I were there and had approached our Blessed Lord with my piddling little problems, He still would’ve taken me into His arms like the loving Father He is, and He would’ve comforted me and healed me.  Today I asked him to do just that, and to help me concentrate on His Holy Bride the Catholic Church; to have faith in Him and all the promises He made to us and to realize my whole heart should be concentrating on getting my family and myself to Heaven and that nothing else in this world matters.  I left the cathedral feeling like a new man.

    

I’ll be resuming my daily rosary.                

         

Why Are So Many Catholics So Anti-Police?

In experiencing a reversion and returning fully to the Catholic Faith about eight years ago, I caught fire.  However, recent events have tested my faith in a most unexpected way.  You see, I am a veteran of almost thirty years of law enforcement, and to say my profession has been attacked recently is a gross understatement. 

As a cop, I have been accused of the most horrific things by complete strangers and have had people wish me dead just for wearing the badge-the badge I donned under oath to faithfully serve my fellow citizen even to the point of dying for them.  When I started, I was under no illusion that I would be loved for what I did, and in fact, I relished the idea of serving despite being hated for doing the right thing (Matt 5:10).  What I did not expect, however, was that the hatred shown would come from good, honest, decent and well-meaning people who have bought into a false narrative propagated by special interest groups and aided by the media.  I am not going to get into how cold hard facts prove that cops are not killing people-minorities especially- in the numbers the media want us to believe.  To read more on this, I’ve offered an excellent article written by Heather MacDonald from Hillsdale College: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-danger-of-the-black-lives-matter-movement/.  I also won’t get into how much more than 99% of officer-involved shootings are completely justified and within established legal guidelines.  That’s for another day.  This has to do with how my fellow Catholics are treating me and my colleagues despite those facts.

      

When I came back to the Catholic Church, I immersed myself in Her riches and read everything I could get my hands on.  I jumped on social media to keep up with Catholic apologists, Catholic blogs, Catholic news services, etc. and I realized I could even connect with a whole bunch of priests and other religious from around the world!  Best case scenario, right? Not even close.

Now, I am not naive enough to think that just because someone wears a Roman collar, or defends the faith on an international stage they will be completely free of prejudice, but I expected at least a modicum of fairness in the assessments they share.

One by one, these people whom I looked up to as models of Christian charity and steadfast truthfulness started to not only buy into the anti-cop rhetoric, but they also promote it as well.  One Legion of Christ priest in particular, who is very well known on social media posted an article about a police shooting that was authored by a virulently anti-cop, left wing writer and the priest offered a comment blaming the officer for the shooting.  He had no proof, mind you that the cop was wrong nor did he have any information other than the story from this reporter, but in the priest’s opinion, this shooting was unjustified.  When I commented in his post that the writer was biased and that none of the facts were known yet, the good Father responded quite tersely while supporting his uninformed assessment.  So much for truth or charity.

 

Another social media post by an internationally known Catholic apologist and radio show host concerned a different police-involved shooting.  Again, the attached news report was by a leftist news organization and immediately the issue of race was exploited to convict the officer.  Did the apologist offer any comments urging restraint or giving the benefit of the doubt?  Nope.  In fact, when I commented asking for just that, I was attacked, along with the whole of law enforcement by this guy’s Catholic followers.  Photos of police dogs attacking civil rights marchers back in the 1960’s were posted for my benefit.  What in the world does that have to do with a police officer in 2016 responding to a threat and shooting a gun-wielding person?  Did this apologist step in and call for a charitable exchange among his followers?  Nope.  He simply posted an anti-police story and sat back to watch the fireworks.  I’ve heard this apologist bend over backward to accommodate attackers of the Catholic Faith, but cops get no such treatment.  

These instances represent only two of many such encounters.  Google “Black Lives Matters Madonna” and take a look at how a “Catholic” organization has misused a painting of Our Lady to perpetuate the lies.

    

Catholics, by their nature often side with the underdog-the oppressed, the marginalized, and that is a great thing.  However, too many now have accepted the propaganda that ANY minority killed by the police is automatically a victim of “police violence” and was targeted due to their race.

 

I consider myself blessed to be able to work in the same city I live and go to church and every day on my lunch break, I try to get over to my parish to pray a Rosary.  It has helped me tremendously to grow in my faith. Over the last two years though, I’ve noticed a marked change in how fellow parishioners react to seeing me in uniform. It started with lack of eye contact and has moved to obvious disdain and now open hostility.

    

Contrast that with my interactions with Evangelical folk I deal with on a regular basis at a mega church that is also in our city. Whenever I have to go there while working, I can barely make it into the building without being stopped several times so they can thank me for my service.  If I did not know the truths of the Catholic faith, it is very possible that I would be a member there.  I now find myself avoiding my parish church unless it is to go to confession or attend Sunday Mass and my prayer life is suffering as a result.  I realize I can pray anywhere, but feeling unwelcome in my own parish and vilified by fellow Catholics has taken its toll.  I barely have the spiritual strength to get to Sunday Mass anymore.  My pastor and even our wonderful bishop have always supported law enforcement and are very welcoming, but when experiencing this backlash from others in my faith community, I’m at a loss.  I’ve had to really concentrate on the fact that the Catholic Church is much more than the sinners like me who occupy it, that it is divinely instituted and it is She alone that can give me the Eucharist and the chance at Heaven.  Otherwise, I’d probably be gone.

    

I have spent more than half my life fighting for the oppressed, protecting the victims in our society, and have lived a life of service.  I have given so much for my community and have sacrificed much.  I’ve missed holidays, birthdays, have had to leave my wife and four kids alone in our house during four different hurricanes. I’ve been shot at several times, been spat on, kicked, punched, ended up in the hospital, and had my family threatened.  All that I expect as part of my job.  What I do not expect is for my fellow Catholics-clergy included-to pile on.  The media trip over themselves to blame everything on cops and well-meaning people are now buying into those lies.  The rhetoric that exists nowadays making enemies of police officers is getting us killed just for wearing the uniform.  It’s no joke, and a good portion of the Catholic community seems to be fine with it.

 

You would think that Catholics had learned not to trust the media.  After the priest sex abuse scandals of the 90’s, the media made it seem as if every single priest was an abuser.  We all knew better though.  But now, the media says all cops are bloodthirsty racists and yeah, Catholics are good with that.  They’ll even use the stories from the same media outlets that disingenuously and viciously attacked Holy Mother Church in the past to indict the police when none of them knows anything about working the streets as a cop.  

Catholic talk shows will speak with confidence of how we “need to have a conversation” about police shootings while pretending to actually have a clue about such matters.  I make the analogy sometimes of my watching a heavily edited video of a surgeon who loses a patient on the table.  Of course, it’s only the last 10-15 seconds of this surgery, and all the things that happened that were out of the control of the surgeon prior to the death of the patient are not shown or discussed, but with absolutely no medical training or experience, I’m now going to meticulously pick apart, over the course of several hours, the actions of the surgeon who had only seconds to react and adjust and then proclaim that what he did amounted to murder because life choices the patient made contributed to his death.  Seems fair.  And, the surgeon isn’t even having to operate while his life is being threatened!  The Catholic talk show hosts often end this “conversation” (or indictment) with “but of course, we support law enforcement and thank them for their service.”  Please.  Just don’t.  And by all means, invite academicians and other “experts” on your show to discuss police shootings, but don’t for the love of all that is good in this world, invite an actual street cop on to give any perspective, because everyone is an expert, right?

        

I have had to start “un-friending” or “unfollowing” many, many fellow Catholics because of the overwhelming anti-cop rhetoric.  I literally lose sleep over this, and my faith is getting weaker every day because I can’t listen to Catholic radio that used to buoy my spiritual strength.  I never have asked for thanks for what I do.  The only thing I’ve ever asked from the public, including my fellow Catholics is the benefit of the doubt and I’m not seeing that.  In fact, I am now getting attacked and I’m not going to lie.  It hurts.  A lot.