Ah, you knew I was going to deal with the issue of the Confederate flag, right? Hopefully, I provide some fresh insight to this ‘current event’ by approaching it from facets that have not been explored in great detail- i am responding to a comment made to me by one of my Catholic friends on social media…

From my Catholic friend: Does anyone really think removing a flag 150 years after the war will solve racial issues in this country? Not a snowball’s chance in hell. The only chance is in the country turning back to God, but in a completely open and honest way, something much deeper than before. We need true and genuine Love for each other, and we should practice the golden rule. Throwing out flags is a waste of time.

My response: My Catholic friend, I greatly appreciate your sentiment, and I agree with much of it. I hear your cry for a 2 Chronicles 7:14 return to God, and the need for loving each other as this ceremonial dumping would certainly be a telling MOMENT, which hopefully will be sustained into a MOVEMENT of love and reconciliation. Of a certainty, this removal of the flag from PUBLIC places would be the beginning of a DEMONSTRATION and practical manifestation of loving your fellow man over one’s pride for a dubious heritage and love of a ‘pet’ symbol…

I believe Paul demonstrated this to the nth degree when he said, “…I will eat no flesh, while the world stands, lest I make my brother to offend.” Talk about lifelong Lent! I realize that Paul was talking about another matter altogether, but the PRINCIPLE is principal thing here…

Speaking of principles, we need to deal with the principle of the SYMBOL. I believe we can all agree that flags are MEANT to be SYMBOLS of pride, patriotism, and subsequently, passion. I am reminded of one of the enduring SYMBOLS of U.S. victory during WWII – the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima…The photo and succeeding statue ably portrayed the passion, the struggle, the sacrifice, the blood, sweat and tears shed to achieve this important victory during the waning days of the second world war. Thus, twenty or so years later, many of the same soldiers (that were now approaching middle-age) who served in that world war could not understand why that same FLAG was being burned so passionately by young anti-Vietnam war protestors – hence the famous ‘generation gap’ cited during the 1960’s…

SYMBOL- something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance; especially a visible sign of something invisible…

In the case of the confederate flag, what feelings and emotions is this visible banner bringing from the invisible realm? Removing the veneer of cultural pride, what does this flag really stand for? How has it been used?

SYMBOL- an act, sound or object having cultural significance and the capacity to excite or objectify a response…

What is the cultural significance of the Confederate flag?

OBJECTIFY – to give expression to (as an abstract notion, feeling or ideal) in a form that can be experienced by others…

That flag speaks a predictable, consistent mesage to many… What has that flag caused many to experience? For some, feelings of pride and superiority. For others, a definite symbol of oppression and intimidation.

Symbols create perceptions, perceptions create reality, and reality breeds actions.

The actions take a positive or negative course, depending on the nature of the symbols…

So, we see that SYMBOLS do matter…symbols are representations, representations that can say a thousand words without a human utterance.

Actually, the flag WAS removed – for the most part – until it was resurrected as a racist response to the changing times after World War II…

Of course, prior to this ‘resurrection’, there was the KKK, who used the flag from their beginnings – the flag became part of their tool-kit of domestic terrorism, designed to induce fear into the heats of African-Americans, Jews and CATHOLICS…

This symbol was not resurrected in a public platform until 1948, when the flag became the symbol of the States’ Rights Democratic Party, or ‘Dixiecrats’, that formed in 1948 to oppose civil-rights platforms of the Democratic Party. Then-South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond was the splinter group’s nominee for president that same year; he won 39 electoral votes.

South Carolina did not erect their ‘symbol’ until 1962 as a SYMBOLIC expression of the interposition and nullification that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke so eloquently about and against…

Speaking of flags, young Dylan Roof was shown burning the American flag, yet he venerated and brandished the Confederate flag more than once in other photo presentations…

I could give you a number of examples re: SYMBOLS, as it pertains to the African-American community… Symbols which are working to the detriment of that community… One example would be this – as the Confederate flag comes DOWN, many African-American young men need to pull their pants UP…

May I remind you that many of YOUR priests, nuns, brethren, and sisters marched AGAINST that flag and what it stood for in solidarity with Martin Luther King Jr. & other civil rights marchers during the 60’s…

And as I recall, the KKK (our ardent confederate flag waving group) didn’t and don’t care for Catholics either.

And my friend, speaking of SYMBOLS – what about the irony of an Irish-Catholic Supreme Court Justice (Kennedy) being the swing vote for one of the most far-reaching Supreme Court decisions in history – a decision that is diametrically opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church – what is that SYMBOLIC of?

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