Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich is outraged that the price of a black life is a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill

Below is a powerful statement of Cardinal Blase  Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, on the murder of George Floyd and its aftermath.

The past nights I have watched in great personal pain as the pent-up anger of our people caught fire across our country. I saw the city where I was born, the cities where I have lived, the city I pastor now, catch embers from the city where I was educated and burn. Was I horrified at the violence? Yes. But was I surprised? No.

As the saying goes, if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. What did we expect when we learned that in Minneapolis, a city often hailed as a model of inclusivity, the price of a black life is a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill? 

When we added another name to the list of those murdered for being black or for caring about the marginalised?

I will not pretend to speak with any authority about the challenges people of color experience in our society.  I do not share the fear they put on when they and their children leave their homes every day. 

I do not know what it means to be “other.” But I know there is a way to fix it.  And the fix begins when we stop talking about the proportionality of “their” response and start talking about the proportionality of “ours.” 

Surely a nation that could put a man in space, his safety assured by the brilliance of black women, can create a fair legal system, equitable education and employment opportunities and ready access to health care. 

Laws do not solve problems, but they create a system where racism in all its forms is punished and playing fields are levelled.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been called a great equalizer. It has been even more a great revealer of societal cancers as deadly as the virus. As others have pointed out, health insecurity kills, and poverty is poison.  

We can and must make a society that views the soaring of a child’s potential with more joy than the soaring of a rocket.

I stand ready to join religious, civic, labor and business leaders in coming together to launch a new effort to bring about recovery and reconciliation in our city.  

We do not need a study of the causes and effects. Those answers can be found on the shelves of government offices and academic institutions across our burning nation. 

No, we need to take up the hard work of healing the deep wound that has afflicted our people since the first slave ships docked on this continent. And we need to start today.