UPDATE, 3:30PM ET 5/17: Statement from CatholicVote President Brian Burch: “We are pleased that the @Dodgers reconsidered their decision to honor an anti-Catholic hate group known for their gross mockery of Catholic nuns. While we continue to wonder how such a group was selected in the first place, this incident should serve as a wake-up call for all religious believers: unchecked woke corporations have no qualms about exploiting people of faith.”
UPDATE, 2:00PM ET 5/17: The voice mailbox of the Dodgers’ administrative offices included in the original article is now full. Further numbers provided by the MLB for fan feedback have also sent callers to extended holds or full mailboxes. We urge all readers to contact the Dodgers via email at fanfeedback@ladodgers.com or continue to call MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred at 212-931-7800.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Graphic content advisory. Read with caution.
CV NEWS FEED // CatholicVote is calling on all Catholics to contact the Los Angeles Dodgers and demand they cancel their plans to grant a “Community Hero Award” to an anti-Catholic hate group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI).
According to a recent press release, the Dodgers will honor the SPI with the award during an “LGBTQ+ Pride Night” ceremony prior to their game against the San Francisco Giants on June 16.
“The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI) are an anti-Catholic hate group which exists to desecrate and degrade the Catholic faith,” wrote Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote. “Their sole mission is to disgust Christians with the most grotesque acts they can imagine.”
“It’s bad enough to drag down baseball – which ought to be synonymous with the best of America,” added CatholicVote Vice President Joshua Mercer. “But the LA Dodgers – with the blessing of Major League Baseball – are doing more than pollute our national pastime with woke intolerance and far-Left propaganda: They’re directly attacking religious Americans.”
The LA Dodgers administrative offices can be reached at fanfeedback@ladodgers.com. “We hope every baseball fan in America takes three minutes to contact the team,” Burch said.
Concerned fans can also call the office of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred at 212-931-7800.
In a detailed letter sent to the Dodgers and copied to Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Robert Manfred, Burch laid out several graphic examples of the abhorrent acts of the SPI:
The SPI mock Catholics by taking on vulgar names such as “Sister GladAss of the Joyous Reserectum.” They dress in sexualized perversions of religious garb, taunting the women religious who serve the poor in Southern California and around the world. In one infamous stunt, they tricked an archbishop into giving them the Eucharist – the most important sacrament of the Catholic faith – so they could defile it. This past Easter Sunday, the SPI put on an exhibition in San Francisco in which a performer dressed as Jesus carried a cross up a hill and then performed a pole dance on it.
Burch noted that the award comes at a time when Catholics are under threat across the country, pointing to the more-than 300 acts of violence and vandalism against Catholic churches that CatholicVote has tracked in the last three years, including 47 such attacks in California alone.
“We sincerely doubt that the Dodgers would give such an award to a group which made a similar travesty of the Jewish faith or Muslim faith,” Burch noted.
The award is scheduled to come less than a year after the death of legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, a baseball icon who was a lifelong and devoted Catholic. Scully spoke frequently about the importance of his faith. He was a regular Mass attendee and once lent his golden vocal cords to a recording of the Rosary, among many other acts of charity on behalf of the Church.
“He practiced – and encouraged others to practice – the very devotions which the SPI abuse, such as the Rosary. Vin and other members of the Dodgers family, including many fans, would surely be appalled that the team to which they gave so much of their lives would dishonor their faith in such a manner,” Burch said in his letter.
“Baseball is the national pastime, and a baseball stadium should be a place where people of all faiths are welcomed and respected,” Burch added. “For a revered, all-American institution like the Dodgers to bring the SPI into the mainstream and honor them is reprehensible.”
The letter urges the Dodgers to demonstrate their oft-stated commitment to “inclusivity.”
“Make no mistake: the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a hate group. If the Dodgers are truly committed to fighting bigotry and promoting inclusivity, as you have often claimed, you must cancel this award,” Burch concluded.
Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida sent Manfred a letter of his own about the scandal, demanding to know why the MLB team is honoring “a group that mocks Christians through diabolical parodies of our faith.”
Read CatholicVote’s full letter here.
ADDITIONAL COVERAGE
– Fox News: LA Dodgers’ partnership with radical LGBT activists draws Catholic ire: ‘Perverted, sexual and disgusting’
– Daily Wire: “CatholicVote, a Catholic nonprofit, wrote a letter to the Dodgers expressing outrage over the team’s decision to honor the drag group and demanding their invitation be revoked.”
– The Washington Examiner: “In a Tuesday letter to the Dodgers, Brian Burch, the president of the Catholic political activist group CatholicVote, accused the Dodgers of normalizing anti-Catholic bigotry and urged the team to cancel the award.”
