Catholic Archbishop Bemoans Impact of Club Q Shooting on Catholicism’s Reputation
Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver complained that religious communities are being unfairly targeted by people seeking to understand anti-LGBTQ+ hate in the wake of a mass shooting.
by Evan Urquhart
A Catholic Archbishop has identified the Catholic faith as one victim in the wake of a hate-motivated shooting that left five dead and many injured at Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, according to Catholic media. Archbiship Samuel J. Aquila of Denver wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (sadly locked behind a paywall) bemoaning the communities victimized in the wake of the Club Q shooting. No, not the shocked and traumatized LGBTQ+ community who can no longer feel safe even in LGBTQ+ spaces, but Catholics and other religious people who have been portrayed as adding to the climate of hate which has now erupted into anti-LGBTQ+ violence.
Aquila, according to this quote, seems to have expected that the aftermath of a mass shooting would be a time for unity, rather than a time to ask tough questions about the social forces which have contributed to the hatred which motivated the shooter according to prosecutors, who are bringing hate-crime charges.
The Archbishop himself struggles with the concept of what unity and healing might look lke, however, as he went on to write about the shooter’s dubious nonbinary identity.
The above quote is pretty heinous. He seems to be implying that the forces that led to the shooting cannot possible have included Catholicism but could include having a nonbinary identity. This is not how one seeks unity, Aquila!
The claim that Catholicism does not condone hatred, harassment, or violence is often made by Catholic officials. However, this is somewhat harder to believe when a Catholic university’s officials recently refused to assist a student who was the victim of anti-LGBTQ+ harassment from their own roommate. Catholics claim, on one hand, that they do not support violence, but on the other hand they are refusing to address the growing climate of abuse and hatred towards LGBTQ+ people, including when such abuse happens within Catholic institutions.
