{"id":26022,"date":"2020-06-02T22:52:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T20:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/?p=26022"},"modified":"2020-06-02T23:54:10","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T21:54:10","slug":"racism-is-spiritualvirus-that-must-be-wiped-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/racism-is-spiritualvirus-that-must-be-wiped-out.html","title":{"rendered":"Racism is ‘spiritual’virus that must be wiped out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Junno Arocho Esteves<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

VATICAN CITY (CNS) \u2014 Much like the coronavirus pandemic, racism is a \u201cspiritual\u201d virus that has spread throughout the world and must be eradicated, said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would compare (racism) to COVID-19, but it is a virus of the spirit, a cultural virus that, if not isolated, spreads quickly,\u201d Archbishop Paglia told Catholic News Service June 1.<\/p>\n

The Italian archbishop commented on the May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests throughout the United States.<\/p>\n

Floyd, 46, was arrested by police on suspicion of forgery. Once he was handcuffed, a white officer pinned him down on the street, putting his knee on Floyd\u2019s neck for eight minutes. A now widely circulated video shows Floyd repeatedly saying, \u201cI can\u2019t breathe.\u201d He appears to lose consciousness or die and was later declared dead at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Paglia told CNS that just as people were called to self-isolate in order to care for one another, racism can only be defeated by people caring for each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we must start a revolution of brotherhood. We are all brothers and sisters. Brotherhood is a promise that is lacking in modern times,\u201d he said. \u201cIn my opinion, the true strength that supports us in our weakness is brotherhood and solidarity. And just as it defeats the coronavirus, it also defeats racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fight against racism, he added, is done \u201cnot with violence but in the style of Martin Luther King, Jr.: with words, with culture, with faith, with humanism. It is fought the same way we fight against the coronavirus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not enough to remain silent,\u201d the Italian archbishop said. \u201cTo prevent the virus of racism from multiplying, those (who oppose racism) must also multiply.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the United States has had a vocation of helping others, not just themselves, but \u201cI believe they have lost\u201d that vocation.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Paglia said he believed Pope Francis should consider writing a document that addresses the subject of racism, a problem \u201call over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he also noted that the pope\u2019s 2019 letter marking the 25th anniversary of the Pontifical Academy for Life reflects on many of the same divisions that exist in the world today.<\/p>\n

In the letter, titled \u201cThe Human Community,\u201d the pope said the sense of fraternity between people and nations has been weakened by the erosion of mutual trust and \u201cremains the unkept promise of modernity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMutual distrust between individuals and peoples is being fed by an inordinate pursuit of self-interest and intense competition that can even turn violent. The gap between concern with one\u2019s own well-being and the prosperity of the larger human family seems to be stretching to the point of complete division,\u201d the pope wrote.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Paglia told CNS that brotherhood among peoples can only be possible \u201cif the discussion passes to the fact that we are one family of 7 billion people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that I can say to my brother, \u2018I don\u2019t care about you\u2019 because he\u2019s the ninth brother and I only like the first five siblings,\u201d he said. Nevertheless, \u201cI am convinced that there is a great mission for American Catholicism\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n

Catholic News Service<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) \u2014 Much like the coronavirus pandemic, racism is a \u201cspiritual\u201d virus that has spread throughout the world and must be eradicated, said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. \u201cI would compare (racism) to COVID-19, but it is a virus of the spirit, a cultural virus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-news","category-rassegna"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/paglia.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26025,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26022\/revisions\/26025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}