It took me some time before I decided to attend one of the “No Kings” protests.
I do not make important decisions easily, and whether to attend one of the protests seemed to me like a very important decision. I try to pray about important decisions and to seek counsel from friends. Much has been happening in our country that I find disturbing, but what eventually moved me to attend one of the protests was the Holy Father’s specific criticism of the treatment of immigrants in our country. Pope Leo XIV described the United States’ treatment of immigrants as inhuman and not “pro-life.”
Because of the Holy Father’s criticism, I decided that I had to attend one of the protests. I saw attending a protest as a way of publicly bearing witness. I have come to believe that bearing witness is one of the most important actions that those of us who believe in Christ can do. Bearing witness can challenge the freedom of others. Pope Francis bore witness for millions of people. I hope Pope Leo will be an inspiring witness.
I found the experience of attending the protest on Oct. 18 very inspiring. Across the country, 7 million people wanted to bear witness. Attending the protest reminded me of another occasion when I tried to bear witness publicly on a national scene with many others.
In 1963, I participated in the March on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King. I travelled to Washington with a busload of teenagers, all persons of color. Heading there, we must have sung “We Shall Overcome” many times. I had never met any of the teenagers before the bus ride, but I felt very close to them. I wondered how much racial prejudice they had experienced in their lives. I tried to imagine what this trip meant to them.
I was experiencing emotional highs throughout the trip, though I had never directly experienced prejudice. On the way back to Brooklyn, we stopped in a Baltimore restaurant for lunch. We waited to be served for about half an hour, and then someone noticed that there were separate bathrooms for whites and for people of color.
I could not believe that on this day of all days, a restaurant would not serve people of color. When we returned to the bus, the mood had changed dramatically. Some of the teenagers were crying. Naive as I was, I thought racism was going to disappear because of the March and King’s magnificent talk. Of course, racism is still very much with us.
As a Catholic and as a priest, I have to do everything I can in both my teaching at St. John’s University, in sermons, and in what I publish, to present racism as the terrible sin that it is. I have no regrets about attending either the March on Washington or the No Kings protest. That 7 million people participated in the demonstrations, and that all the protests were peaceful, I think, is a giant step in the right direction. I am confident that Pope Leo will continue to challenge my conscience and indeed the consciences of many Catholics and others.
I think of a conscience as the habitual way that a person judges in moral matters. Consciences are habits, and they do not change easily. I believe and trust that Pope Leo will be a strong voice challenging people, both Catholics and others.
Though consciences do not change easily, they can change, at times dramatically. Consciences can be influenced in many ways. The media is a very powerful voice that can influence consciences. For me — and I hope for others — Pope Leo will be a special voice, a voice to be listened to with confidence and trust. At the end of his apostolic exhortation “I Have Loved You,” the Holy Father wrote the following:
“Christian love breaks down every barrier, brings close those who were distant, unites strangers, and reconciles enemies. It spans chasms that are humanly impossible to bridge, and it penetrates the most hidden crevices of society. By its very nature, Christian love is prophetic: It works miracles and knows no limits. It makes what was impossible happen. Love is above all a way of looking at life and a way of living it. A Church that sets no limit to love, that knows no enemies to fight but only men and women to love, is the Church that the world needs today.”
In the last century, I think the Church has been blessed with wonderful Popes. For me, Pope Francis was special. I wrote two books about him. Time and again, I found his words inspiring and challenging. I expect to have similar experiences with Pope Leo. I have already had one.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.