c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(AT)aol.com.)

CHICAGO _ It may have been the most stupid question I have ever heard from a journalist: Do you think the beating of a black teen in a middle-class Chicago neighborhood by three white Catholic high school students will influence the Vatican’s decision on who will become the city’s next archbishop?

The question is stupid because those who will nominate Chicago’s next archbishop could not care less about what happens in this city. For them, there is only one issue: Which flunky will be imposed on Chicago by New York Cardinal John O’Connor _ who, it seems, is the most influential U.S. prelate that has the ear of the pope on these matters.

The reporter’s question is stupid for another reason: It presumes that all Chicago Catholics, the Chicago Catholic hierarchy, and Chicago Catholic schools are responsible for the deplorable beating.

Many in the media have used the theory of collective guilt to explain what happened _ a seriously flawed theory that apparently only applies to Catholics, especially Chicago Catholics.

The beating, however, must be blamed on someone. The three young men who attacked the harmless African-American teen are thugs. But to blame their behavior on an entire neighborhood, or school, or religious group is disingenuous, at best, and even evil.

What if the media were to point its finger at someone or something other than the Catholic Church? Then, all thinking liberals would rise to the accused’s defense. But the implication that racism is a peculiarly Catholic _ peculiarly a Chicago Catholic _ problem goes unchallenged.

If a young African-American were to assault a Catholic medical student in a university parking lot, no one would blame all African-Americans. Such implications of collective guilt, rightly so, would be dismissed as racist bigotry.

But hardly anyone has challenged the paradigm in which the crimes of these three punks are blamed on an entire community, city, and religious population.

The fact is, the high school attended by this trio was one of the first private high schools in Chicago to become racially integrated. But apparently it gets no credit for that; only conviction for something that three of its students did.

Placing collective guilt is dangerous because it refuses to permit individuals to be themselves. Instead, it judges them on the demographic group to which they belong. Such targeted groups are usually presumed guilty until proven innocent, but they can never prove themselves innocent.

All Ukrainians are not responsible for the death of Bill Cosby’s son. All blacks are not responsible for the death of a Brooklyn rabbinic student. Yet it seems to me that all”white ethnic racists”(read Catholics) are blamed for the Chicago beating, even though the church quickly condemned the attack. Unfortunately, in their haste to condemn the attack, the church neglected to condemn the theory of collective guilt, too.

Unquestionably, racism lives in every big American city and particularly in communities that feel under attack. Chicago has no monopoly on racism, nor do Chicago Catholics, nor do Chicago Catholic schools. In fact, Chicago Catholics spend a great deal of money to provide alternative education for inner-city minorities. And educational research shows that Catholics who attend Catholic school are less racist than other Americans.

Sadly, the actions of these three goons are permitted to cancel all that out. I find that obscene. Equally obscene is the passivity of Catholics who do not attack such bigotry head on.

MJP END GREELEY