An Open Letter To Father Michael L. Pfleger

“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” –Isaiah 54:17

By John W. Fountain

Dear Brother, I pray my letter finds you in good spirits – at least comforted by the Spirit of He who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

The latest assault against your good name and character, although not a new device of the enemy, is undoubtedly deeply painful even at times agonizing. It is the kind of pain that steals one’s sleep and appetite. That gnaws at the soul, causes tears to swell and stream down your face in those silent lonely hours when we feel most alone, even abandoned, in our trials, persecutions and sufferings.

By the attack that rises against you after you have labored for the good of others, having sacrificed your time and energy, withholding nothing – too often smiling through your tears, silently gasping for the breath or renewal, at times longing for death itself, but uncomplainingly continuing in your assigned mission and often amid thanklessness.

It is the kind of agony that is sometimes exacerbated by the delight of those who lie and conspire to invoke your demise, which, were not for our blessed hope in Him, might seem impending. By the so-called friendlies and brothers who one too often discovers during the process of trial by fire are really no more than “frien-emies.”

By the retreat of some whom you hold dear but who have grown weary by having to contend with yet another of your battles.

By the weight of a lie and its ability to tarnish every good thing you have ever done, and that even after proof that of its falsity, even after complete exoneration, cannot be unwoven. Still lingers in the psyche and hearts of some within whom that lie has settled like red ink and forever stained their perception of the falsely accused.

There are those defenders of the status quo and ungodly but purportedly Christ-like kingdoms who are threatened by truth tellers like you. By men who can’t be bought.

I know.

I know what it means to speak for others, to fight for them, even those battles waged behind closed doors, which for me were often inside newsrooms among some who hated my Black ass. At least resented me for my consistent stance on telling the stories of my people and my determination to humanize us, to help the world to SEE us. Even though I was sure that those of a different race (which was most of those I worked with in mainstream newsrooms) did not – could not – even see me. At least not beyond reducing me to being some bitching Black reporter with a chip on his shoulder.

Along the way, there were Black reporters also among them who urged me to just shut up, to get with the program. To make them think “you’re an Oreo” – black on the outside, white in the inside. To change who I was. To be less me and more like “they” wanted me to be. To get along, don’t make waves, don’t speak truth to power. Just “shut up and dribble.”

I disrespectfully declined the offer to be a sell-out. Too much at stake: My character, my voice, my people, the very essence of who God created me to be, and my soul.

So what’s my point? I’ll get there shortly. But let me say first: I’m so damn proud of you.

I’m proud of you, not just as a man of God, but as an uncompromising trumpeter of justice. As a constant buffer against the politics, powers and evils that threaten even the least of these.

For your unrelenting stance against racial hatred and discrimination that has a longstanding history in America and is interwoven within the fabric of this nation, even within the Catholic Church, which sanctioned slavery, once owned Black slaves – and whom Pope Leo IVX on May 25, publicly repented for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, calling the church’s delay in condemning its role as a “wound in Christian memory.”

Two months earlier, the United Nations on March 25 adopted a resolution calling the transatlantic trade of enslaved Africans the “gravest crime against humanity” in the history of mankind. Most glaring for me has always been the Catholic church’s role in the Maafa, our great suffering.

As a boy, I didn’t care much for Catholicism, perhaps due largely to my upbringing in Pentecostalism, which spoke to me culturally, embraced my blackness and resonated deeply with a sense of expressive spirituality. As a teen, the Catholic Church seemed aloof. And its decision to shutter Black Catholic schools in poor Black neighborhoods, which demonstrated a lack of sensitivity, concern or care for the education of Black children, made the Catholic church, in my eyes — embodied by and run by the Archdiocese of Chicago — a racial albatross. Later, I learned about Father Augustus Tolton —the first African-American priest—and the racial harassment and discrimination he faced, including the fact that no seminary would ordain him, forcing him to go to Rome where he studied and was ordained and eventually assigned to Chicago.

It was always clear that the Catholic church really didn’t care about us.

Then I encountered a white Chicago Catholic priest who seemed much less white than right in his call to live out a social Gospel. A priest who had not only walked with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but also embodied and embraced his teachings. Who set them into action.

He stood unflinchingly face to face against those who would proliferate drug paraphernalia, alcohol, and guns in Black communities; against those who perennially seek to pimp the poor for a vote then renege on promises; against fellow Catholics who could worship and true, living and loving God on Sundays but entreat Black boys in an elementary school basketball league with venom and hate. A stalwart social agitator who continues to challenge the hypocrisy of a nation that has long spoken with fork tongue about liberty and justice for all but has left a well-documented historical trail of genocide and tears begun even before the founding of this nation.

A freedom fighter who, in the spirit of Ida B. Wells, has led a modern anti-lynching campaign of this incessant destructive violence by brother against brother. Who has ministered to the poor, the widows and the orphans. A voice crying in the wilderness, standing on the Word of God. Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Joining in alliance with all those whp seek peace, uplift and justice for all of humanity—whether those alliances be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or, Black or white.

A man who is hated because he loves us as African Americans in particular and who has spent a lifetime fighting for our good, for mankind.

There are those defenders of the status quo and ungodly but purportedly Christ-like kingdoms who are threatened by truth tellers like you. By men who can’t be bought. By voices like yours who have not yielded. By a prophet who has not bent the knee in exchange for status or for gold. Nor turned his back on friends or brothers whose defiant righteous criticisms against the systems and purveyors of racial hate and discrimination vex those whose only recourse is to try — again and again and again — to assassinate your character and name.

Truth is, the Archdiocese ought to be honoring you, uplifting you, instead of dishonoring and assaulting you. I am reminded, however, that man can only “award.” But God “rewards.” And His honor is far greater than any “honor” man can bestow. Keep the faith, brother. God has not forgot.

Blase Cupich is not the name known in the streets of Chicago’s “drained stream” as the one who touched the untouchable, who speaks to the unspeakable horrors and abuses against the least of these in the hood, the lost and the forgotten; the one who walks through the plenteous harvest of the “Cold Coast” rather than reclining on the Gold Coast; the one who seeks to redeem the lost with a relevant Gospel of a living, loving savior. It is not Cupich who, year after year after year, for decades now, has eulogized and buried Chicago’s murdered sons and daughters, comforted their grieving mothers and sought to mend the broken-hearted on the forgotten West and South Sides of Chicago.

And yet, in your suffering amid this latest attack, I see the true Christ in you... In the attack of the enemy and its attempt to tear us down, Christ is glorified, and His grace is sufficient. For his “strength is made perfect in weakness.” I am reminded that it was the church that persecuted Christ. And Father Tolton and Father Mike. Because in its carnality and corruption, “the church” cared more about its political ties and profiteering than mirroring the image of Christ and His devotion to all humankind, especially to the least of these.

If there is a silver lining in this latest witch hunt, it may be that it has given those of us who have witnessed your great walk and testament cause to consider that inevitable time when you retire, or have otherwise finished your course how we may continue to bear the cross of your work. To step forward and accept the challenge of speaking, working, building, protecting, challenging and confronting the forces that oppose the kingdom of heaven, even if some of those adversaries are cloaked in sheep’s clothing. To raise up a thousand Father Pfleger’s whose fire, like yours, shall never be extinguished. Who cannot be sanctioned or silenced by the church, and having studied the mechanisms and wiles of the enemy, can extinguish all of its fiery darts.

NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST thee shall prosper.

That does not negate your deep wincing pain. Nor the feeling of near helplessness to defend one’s self. Nor does it diminish the intensity of the flame or the experience of being cast into the fiery furnace. But the Lord delivers us from them all.

Keep standing, dear brother. Do not bend. Yield not one scintilla of your righteous fire. Stand your ground. You are doing the work of Jesus. Keep holding up the blood-stained banner of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Be encouraged and ever emboldened in the Spirit by your just cause. In your fight for the voiceless, downtrodden and forgotten. And give not one inch in your determination to do His will and fulfill your calling. “…Be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15:58

I pray that my letter offers some measure of solace. That you are reminded that there are countless of us in Chicago and far beyond who have borne witness to your commitment and the unquenchable fire that after all these years has not waned.

I pray that you hear the chorus of voices and prayers for you, both present and among the ancestors, that echo in the atmosphere and in eternity that the peace, strength and might of the Lord will embrace, deliver and vindicate you — and trample all your enemies.

May He be a fence around you. And may your enemies heed the scriptural warning of 1 Chronicles 16:22: ^“Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” Or in the words of M.C. Hammer: “Can’t touch this!”

Sounds like a great sermon title for your return, lol. Be encouraged. Be bold. Be who God has made you to be.

I love you, dear brother. And may it be known that I still stand with Father Pfleger. Amen and Amen.

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com

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Why I Stand with Father Pfleger

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February 21, 2021

Father Michael L. Pfleger stands during a march last year to protest the killing of George Floyd and the continuation of systemic racism. (Photo credit: John W. Fountain)