VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In an address to the Fourth World Meeting of Popular Movements on Saturday, Pope Francis advocated for the destructive “protests” which broke out in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020, describing those involved in the movement as “collective Samaritans.”
The Pope’s comments came as part of a longer speech on social justice, part of which he devoted to urging “all the great pharmaceutical laboratories” to open their patents on the COVID-19 jabs as “a gesture of humanity,” despite their connection to abortion.
His comments were addressed to the members of popular movements, an initiative created by the Pope and which describes itself as “grassroots organizations and social movements established around the world by people whose inalienable rights to decent work, decent housing, and fertile land and food are undermined, threatened or denied outright.”
Francis addressed the members as “socials poets,” since he said they “have the ability and the courage to create hope where there appears to be only waste and exclusion.”
Comparing popular movements to the Good Samaritan found in the Gospel of St. Luke, the Pope said that he is reminded of the death of George Floyd — the 46-year-old African American who died at the hands of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin — when he thinks of the famous parable.
“Do you know what comes to mind now when, together with popular movements, I think of the Good Samaritan? Do you know what comes to mind? The protests over the death of George Floyd,” Francis said.
LifeSiteNews reached out to the Holy See Press Office for clarification on the Pope’s comments, but did not immediately receive a response.
The parable of the Good Samaritan tells the story of a man who is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, interpreted by the Church fathers as descending from grace to sin, and thus the man is robbed and wounded on his path to perdition. He is a symbol of all mankind, according to the fathers, since he moves in life and is overcome by sin, by the work of the Devil, or simply by the demands of life.
The priest and the Levite who, seeing the man, pass by, are symbols of the Old Covenant: though they are good, they are unable to save. The Samaritan, the one rejected by the Jews as a lower-class citizen, is a symbol of Christ, according to the Church fathers. He comes despite the world’s rejection, to heal and rehabilitate fallen man.
In the case of George Floyd, who was apprehended and subsequently died in an aggressive arrest, Francis puts Floyd in the place of mankind, and the protests (often descending into riots) that rose up around his death in the place of Christ.
Taking charitable motivation for granted, Pope Francis said that “[i]t is clear that this type of reaction against social, racial or macho injustice can be manipulated or exploited by political machinations or whatever, but the main thing is that, in that protest against this death, there was the Collective Samaritan who is no fool!”
“This movement did not pass by on the other side of the road when it saw the injury to human dignity caused by an abuse of power,” the Pontiff continued, adding that “[t]he popular movements are not only social poets but also collective Samaritans.”
In comments to LifeSiteNews, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Catholic columnist and liturgical expert, said that the Pope’s words demonstrate one of two things: “Either Francis is astonishingly ignorant of the true nature of BLM, a Marxist organization that cares nothing for following civil law or even natural law and believes in fomenting revolution and reverse racism, or he is showing his true Marxist and anti-Catholic colors.”
Kwasniewski added that for a long time during the Francis pontificate, it has been “difficult to reconcile the Pope’s off-the-cuff remarks and even some of his official documents with the perennial teachings of Catholicism,” but that now “it seems that we are entering a ‘gloves off’ period where the pope openly aligns himself with the most liberal and anarchic trends of the age.”
These so-called Samaritans, according to the Pope, have been linked to nearly all of the more than 570 riots that raged across 47 states last summer after the George Floyd’s death. Around 30 people, including young children and parents of young children, lost their lives either in those riots or due to the broader unrest.
In a since deleted tweet, prominent BLM spokesman Shaun King in June 2020 called for the removal and destruction of “[a]ll murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends.”
“They are a gross form of white supremacy,” King added, saying that images depicting Christ as white were “[c]reated as tools of oppression,” and are now used as “[r]acist propaganda.”
The protests led to the injuries of over 700 police officers and to a record $1-2 billion worth of damages just between May 27 and June 8, 2020.
Not only have the damages been so materially costly, but the principles upon which BLM purports to operate undermine the natural law and stand in stark contrast to the ideals of Catholicism.
One group affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement supports abortion, homosexuality, and the dismantling of “the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”
In a previously available online manifesto titled “What We Believe,” Black Lives Matter organizers Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi said they and their followers have freed themselves from “heteronormative thinking” and demand “reproductive justice.” The entry has since been removed from the website, following media scrutiny.
“We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise),” they wrote at the time.
Additionally, the group asserted being owed, and therefore demanding, “reproductive justice [i.e., abortion] that gives us autonomy over our bodies and our identities while ensuring that our children and families are supported, safe, and able to thrive.”
Meanwhile, an estimated 40 percent of all U.S. abortions are sought by black women, meaning that BLM supports the annual elimination of more than 344,800 black lives every year.