Father Arthur Unachukwa, left, incoming pastor at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Oak Cliff, and Auxiliary Bishop Greg Kelly kneel for 8 minutes and 46 seconds during a prayer service at Dallas City Hall on June 5.
By Father Timothy Gollob
Special to The Texas Catholic
Way back in time, I think it was the year 1953, the students of Assumption Seminary in San Antonio performed their annual musical. It was the hit, “Oklahoma.”
In that production was one song that has stuck in my memory. It went this way.
“Oh, the farmer and cowman should be friends. They must all behave themselves and act like brothers. And learn these words by heart the way you should. ‘I don’t say I’m no better than anybody else; but I’ll be damned if I ain’t just as good!’”
That thought is an eternal truth casting a light on the evil of judging anyone as unworthy of our time or love or help for any reason. But we live in a system that has fostered within many of us an attitude of “white privilege”.
In other words, there is no one with a privilege to state that they are better than anyone else because of occupation, money, expertise, race, place of origin, color of skin, social skills, friends in high places or just the “luck of the draw!”
The events of the last few weeks surrounding the murder of George Floyd have to had striken a cord in the hearts of those who have minds to perceive that this is a time of opportunity to confess our unfair judgments of the past.
The protest marches, the signs of “Black Lives Matter,” the outpouring of photos and of words asking for justice, the portrait shown to all that George Floyd is a real person with a real family and a real place in his community; all coalesce as a command from our Creator God, to check out and confess the many ways we have used our many privileges to promote our own agendas.
Our personal task is we all must behave as brothers and sisters, God is showing us the path to holiness and wholeness in the days to come.
We are all family! Today, begin to change the system!
Father Timothy Gollob is the pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Oak Cliff.
