When we first learned of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ plans to award the vile hate group known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI) with a “Community Hero Award,” we were in disbelief.
How could a venerated American institution like the Dodgers — who play for 4 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles alone and count devout Catholics such as Vin Scully, Tommy Lasorda, and Gil Hodges among their beloved legends — celebrate such radically anti-Catholic bigots? Why would Dodgers owner Todd Boehly decide to taint baseball’s beloved legacy of patriotism, faith, and family with a group that exists to defile religious values?
The SPI have gone to great lengths to show their hostility to Catholicism. Yet despite mountains of evidence condemning the so-called “sisters,” the corporate media have — unsurprisingly — made enormous efforts to downplay the group with descriptions like “campy” and “satirical.” Anyone who has ever set foot in a Catholic church or knows anything about Catholic teachings, however, understands that such euphemisms are wildly inappropriate.
We first pitched this op-ed to the Los Angeles Times. We pinged the paper four times over the course of three days but received no response. We take this as an indication that the pro-Dodgers Times does not wish its readers to hear the other side of the story.
What Catholics hold most dear in life is their faith, the sacred symbols, traditions, and practices of which have been handed down over 2,000 years to the most diverse congregation on the planet. The SPI know this, and that’s why they engage in the most grotesque parodies of those symbols, traditions, and practices that they can come up with.
The organization consists of men dressing up as nuns who take on names such as “Sister Porn Again” and adopt slogans like “Go and sin some more” to mock the words of Jesus, “Go and sin no more,” which call all of us to conversion. The “sisters” also ridicule Jesus’ saving passion, death, and resurrection by turning the crucifixion scene into a pole dance on Easter Sunday — for Christians, the most sacred day of the entire year. They are infamous for filling chalices with yogurt made to look like semen, as well as distributing condoms in a gross simulation of Holy Communion. We could go on with more sordid details, but you get the point.
Any Christian who witnesses such behavior understands that these offenses are intended to go far beyond “satire.” In fact, the SPI’s track record is so perverse that many Catholics do not know how to respond other than expressing their shock with the very same words Jesus once said from the cross about those putting Him to death: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
The Dodgers will soon honor this group in the name of “inclusivity” and “tolerance.”
Would anyone tolerate a group that portrayed the prophet Muhammad as a drag queen? Or a striptease at the Western Wall in Jerusalem? Of course not. But now, when pro-abortion extremists are already unleashing a wave of violent attacks on Catholics around the country, the Dodgers have made it clear that anti-Catholicism is not only an acceptable form of bigotry, but laudable.
Unlike the powerful LGBT lobby, we don’t have the ear of billion-dollar corporations like the Dodgers. So we expressed our concerns the old-fashioned way: We wrote them a letter, and we called and filled up their voicemail. Our request was modest and reasonable. We didn’t demand the Dodgers cancel their “pride night” altogether, even though we believe baseball teams should focus on baseball, not identity politics. We simply asked them not to give a platform to vicious anti-Catholic zealots.
For a few days, the Dodgers looked as though they would change course and reconsider their grave mistake. But in the end, left-wing extremists got their way and elicited not only a re-invitation to the SPI on pride night but an apology for ever having disinvited them.
This should outrage the millions of Catholics in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, whose voices and religious beliefs are clearly despised by the very team relying on their support. It should also concern the millions of non-Catholic Los Angeles residents, whose team decided to openly encourage and celebrate anti-Catholic discrimination.
We will not stand for these attacks on our faith. Everyone in Southern California should understand that the Dodgers they knew and loved sacrificed their legacy and honor on the altar of anti-Catholic hate.
Marco Rubio is a U.S. senator from Florida. Brian Burch is the president of CatholicVote.
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