American religious leaders denounced the police violence in Washington on Tuesday and castigated Donald Trump’s decision the day before to disperse demonstrators violently to be photographed in front of a degraded church, a bible in hand.
“It was traumatic and deeply insulting in the sense that something sacred was hijacked for political stance“NPR public broadcaster Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, denounced on public radio.
According to her, the republican billionaire, who counts among his supporters a number of evangelical Christians, used “the symbolic power of our sacred book and held it in hand as if it were the justification of its positions and its authority“.
At the time of the dispersal, “the demonstration was completely peaceful“and there was”no justification“using force, said the bishop.
Donald Trump adopted a martial tone in the White House on Monday by threatening to call on the army to restore calm to the country, where hundreds of thousands of people have expressed their anger since the death on May 25 of George Floyd, a African American, 46, during his police arrest in Minneapolis. Peaceful rallies have sometimes degenerated into riots.
As he spoke, several hundred people protesting outside the presidential compound were dispersed with tear gas.
The goal was to clear the field to St. John’s Church, a nearby iconic building belonging to the Episcopal Church, which had been degraded on Sunday evening by thugs. The president went there on foot, surrounded by members of his cabinet, to be photographed there, a bible in hand.
Other episcopalian officials from New England (northeast) in a statement denounced an act “ashamed and morally repugnant“, the president wishing”claim to have the support of Christians and that of the Episcopalian Church“by engaging in this photo shoot.
The President and First Lady’s visit Tuesday to the Saint John Paul II National Sanctuary in the northeast of the federal capital also made the Catholic hierarchy jump.
“I find it disconcerting and reprehensible that a Catholic site allows us to be hijacked and manipulated in such a flagrant manner (and) that violates our religious principles“Archbishop of Washington Wilton Gregory said in a statement.
The Sovereign Pontiff, who died in 2005, “certainly would not have endorsed the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, disperse or intimidate (the protesters) to be photographed in front of a place of prayer and peace“, he added.
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