Bishop Roger Joseph Foys of the Diocese of Covington, Ky., has apologized for joining the effort to destroy a group of Covington Catholic high school students. The students were turned into a viral sensation on social media last weekend, falsely accused of taunting and abusing a Native American protester near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The story turned out to be false – in fact, it was they who were being harassed and abused, as subsequent video helped make clear.
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“We are sorry that this situation has caused such disruption in the lives of so many,” the bishop said in a statement released Friday.
The Covington Catholic teens, who were in the nation’s capital last week for the annual March for Life, were accused originally of “mobbing” Native American activist Nathan Phillips. Lawmakers, reporters, celebrities, and even the Diocese of Covington wasted no time denouncing the Covington boys in the harshest terms possible.
“We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general, Jan. 18, after the March for Life, in Washington, D.C.,” the diocese said in a statement released almost immediately after the incident.
It added, “We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”
But more complete footage of the incident shows something entirely different from what newsrooms and social media activists (redundant, I know) originally claimed. The uncut video shows that the boys were being harassed relentlessly by the Black Hebrew Israelites, an insane black nationalist cult. They handled the provocations and abuse with patience and a positive spirit – chanting school chants at one point to drown out the harassment – about as well as anyone could ever expect teenagers to handle it.
The tapes then show that Phillips confronted the teens with a drum, banging away right in the face of one boy (Nick Sandmann) for no immediately clear reason. Unfortunately, it was Phillips’ original claim – that racist white teenagers had mobbed an elderly Native American protester – that went viral, but his allegation has since been proven false by multiple videos of what happened.
On Friday, the Diocese of Covington finally admitted it had erred in rushing to throw its own faithful under the bus.
“We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements which were made with good will based on the information we had,” Foy’s statement reads.
It adds in reference to Sandmann, the most visible teen seen in footage of the March for Life incident, “I especially apologize to Nicholas Sandmann and his family as well as to all [Covington Catholic] families who have felt abandoned during this ordeal. Nicholas unfortunately has become the face of these allegations based on video clips. This is not fair. It is not just.”
Though the bishop’s letter carries a few apologies, it carries more excuses – namely that his office rushed to publicly disown the youth of his flock because peer pressure is scary.
“[W]e were being pressured from all sides to make a statement,” the bishop’s letter said. “We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it.”
At least the bishop did apologize, but it’s really too little too late.
At a time when the Catholic hierarchy’s prestige has hit a modern low point, a leader of the Church cared more about the world’s opinion than about doing right by the young people in his flock. It’s not a slight shortcoming.
