In a certain way, the Ash Wednesday service outside Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Melrose Park, was about what MAGA used to call “religious liberty.”
And by religious liberty, I do not mean cruelty and chaos.
I don’t mean ICE agents pepper-spraying protesters point blank. I don’t mean mid-day arrests of Hispanic-looking people on crowded streets or outside Home Depot.
On Ash Wednesday, thousands, including many Oak Parkers, processed in memory of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, who was shot dead by ICE in nearby Franklin Park on Sept. 13 after dropping his two children off at elementary school.
They processed for Rene Good and Alex Pretti of Minneapolis who were also shot dead by ICE.
They processed for families of wage earners detained at the nearby Broadview ICE facility or deported.
Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich was there and said that people who lack resident papers from a state “are not dust that can be swept away” because “God does not need papers to know who or where you are.”
Days earlier, Chicago Federal Judge Robert Gettleman had to order Homeland Security to allow clergy access to the nearby Broadview ICE detention facility for Ash Wednesday services.
Armed with the court order, the clergy went to Broadview and only then did ICE let them in.
Religious liberty? President Trump’s contrary notions were on display at the recent Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
He said, “I don’t know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat. I really don’t.” He also said, “This, by the way, will be the last year that Democrats show up to this event, I tell you.”
Religious liberty as cruelty and chaos. The counter-programming from Melrose Park was a quiet procession through the streets by people praying with ashes on their foreheads.