An Indiana pastor apologized on Wednesday after calling the Black Lives Matter protesters and organizers “maggots and parasites” in his weekly message.
Wrote Pastor Ted Rothrock, of St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel, in the message which has since been deleted: “The only lives that matter are their own and the only power they seek is their own. They are wolves in wolves clothing, masked thieves and bandits, seeking only to devour the life of the poor and profit from the fear of others. They are maggots and parasites at best, feeding off the isolation of addiction and broken families, and offering to replace any current frustration and anxiety with more misery and greater resentment.”
Rothrock called on the church to oppose Black Lives Matter and Antifa, the Indy Star reports.
Wrote Rothrock in an apology on Wednesday: “I am somewhat surprised that my recent article has received such extensive coverage and has aroused such interest and debate. It was not my intention to offend anyone, and I am sorry that my words have caused any hurt to anyone.”
“Racial and ethnic bigotries are evils that have been rightly condemned
by the Church and are not to be tolerated,” Rothrock added. “They have never been tolerated by me, and never will be. Life is a sacred gift from God and must be reverenced as such. The institutional sin of black enslavement
had to be removed from our nation at a terrible cost and the damage
has not departed from us. The sin of bigotry has remained a part of the
fabric of our society. This must be rooted out of our culture through
the grace of spiritual conversion in the hearts of everyone. It is the task
of every Christian, and certainly every Catholic, to uphold the Gospel
and the social teaching of the Church. I have always held firm to this
belief and have promoted this teaching at St. Elizabeth Seton.
However, we must also be fully aware that there are those who would
distort the Gospel for their own misguided purposes. People are afraid,
as I pointed out, rather poorly I would admit, that there are those who
feed on that fear to promote more fear and division.”
