“Rainbowland” is one of the latest causalities of the culture wars. It is a 2017 hit recording by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton that first graders at Heyer Elementary School in Waukesha, Wisconsin were practicing for Black History Month. It dovetailed with the school show’s themes of acceptance, peace, and diversity.
Before it could be performed, the school was informed that it had to be scrubbed from the program because it was deemed to be too controversial.
When it was first released, Cyrus described it as being “about all these different races and genders and religions, if we all did come together to create and said ‘Hey, we’re different, that’s awesome, let’s not change to be the same, but let’s come together anyway’.”
According to the Washington Post, School Superintendent James Sebert said that the decision was made in accordance with a district policy that defines a controversial issue as “any one that may be subject of intense public argument, disagreement or disapproval, may have political, social or personal impact, or is likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community.”
The district policy also aims to prevent indoctrination to a particular point of view.
Presumably, this school district’s policy would prevent a positive presentation of the value of democracy over autocracy and totalitarianism. Such a presentation would need to be banned because of its proclivity to indoctrinate students into believing that democracy is preferable to dictatorships.
If this sounds very problematic, it absolutely is. It also throws into bold relief the absurdity of caving into the minority of people who think that racism, sexism, antisemitism, and gender dysphoria do not exist.
Catholic social teaching has long been described as the Catholic Church’s best kept secret. It is all about human dignity and responsibility to care for one another. Talking about social responsibility can be a minefield for rabbis, pastors, and priests.
This is so because more than a few people probably agree with banning things like “Rainbowland,” doubtless the same folks who see nothing wrong with omitting Rosa Park’s African American heritage from history books and avoiding any discussion of critical race theory in church and synagogues.
In other words, preaching about social issues can easily raise the ire of the culture warriors who would never miss a sermon and prefer it never dare to afflict the comfortable.
While this may be a caricature of some regular worshipers, it resonates with the experiences of pastors who dare to raise controversial topics in their sermons.
When Judge Ketanji Brown was before Congress for her Supreme Court hearings, Senator Cory Booker expressed joy at seeing a Black woman on the threshold of becoming a Supreme Court Justice. He waxed eloquently in expressing his unmitigated joy and pleasure at her historic nomination.
When a pastor dared to compare the joy expressed by Booker to the joy that the loving father experiences in the Gospel of the Prodigal Son, he was reminded that he should return to talking about Jesus and not delve into politics. This was not an isolated reaction.
Before the National Socialists became the murderous Third Reich under Adolph Hitler, the German Catholic bishops intentionally omitted mention of antisemitism in their public pronouncements and pastoral letters. They also demanded that pastors and priests not address this political issue in their Sunday sermons.
The Holocaust that followed is a dark page in world history. It is also a dark page in Catholic Church history because so much more should have been expected from the German Catholic community in the 1920s. By Kristallnacht and the burning of Synagogues in 1938, it was too late.
Catholic social teaching is intrinsically political. Jesus was not put to death because he was a nice guy. He was put to death because he threatened the prevailing hegemony of the Roman Empire and the authority of some of the religious leaders of his day. When the Gospels tell us that the crowds who called for his blood attested to their fealty to Caesar, it tells us something about the political maelstrom that his preaching had occasioned.
Catholic social teaching is all about public policy aimed at the common good and care for the most vulnerable in society.
It values human life and dignity above profit, the preservation of the environment above short term goals, humane treatment for immigrants over jingoism, and the dignity of workers over exploitation. These and so many other public policy issues are hugely complex, but when politicized, they become intractable problems.
Developing a social conscience is about morality. The major moral issues of our day inevitably have political dimensions. Remaining silent may be good for the churches in the short term but has dire consequences in the long term, as the German bishops found out.
It is hard to be courageous about Catholic social teaching in politicized America nowadays. Catholic priests know this first hand. It is one of the reasons that Catholic social teaching remains the best kept secret in the Catholic Church today.
Msgr. Paul Garrity was ordained for the Archdiocese of Boston in 1973. He is currently a senior priest, helping out at a number of diocesan parishes.