Pope Francis compares Black Lives Matter protests to Good Samaritan by David McLoone for Life Site News
The protests frequently turned into riots, and groups affiliated with the movement have anti-Catholic positions, including on abortion.
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In an address to the Fourth World Meeting of Popular Movements on Saturday, Pope Francis advocated for the destructive “protests” which broke out in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020, describing those involved in the movement as “collective Samaritans.”
The Pope’s comments came as part of a longer speech on social justice, part of which he devoted to urging “all the great pharmaceutical laboratories” to open their patents on the COVID-19 jabs as “a gesture of humanity,” despite their connection to abortion.
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His comments were addressed to the members of popular movements, an initiative created by the Pope and which describes itself as “grassroots organizations and social movements established around the world by people whose inalienable rights to decent work, decent housing, and fertile land and food are undermined, threatened or denied outright.”
Francis addressed the members as “socials poets,” since he said they “have the ability and the courage to create hope where there appears to be only waste and exclusion.”
Comparing popular movements to the Good Samaritan found in the Gospel of St. Luke, the Pope said that he is reminded of the death of George Floyd — the 46-year-old African American who died at the hands of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin — when he thinks of the famous parable.
“Do you know what comes to mind now when, together with popular movements, I think of the Good Samaritan? Do you know what comes to mind? The protests over the death of George Floyd,” Francis said.
LifeSiteNews reached out to the Holy See Press Office for clarification on the Pope’s comments, but did not immediately receive a response.
The parable of the Good Samaritan tells the story of a man who is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, interpreted by the Church fathers as descending from grace to sin, and thus the man is robbed and wounded on his path to perdition. He is a symbol of all mankind, according to the fathers, since he moves in life and is overcome by sin, by the work of the Devil, or simply by the demands of life.
The priest and the Levite who, seeing the man, pass by, are symbols of the Old Covenant: though they are good, they are unable to save. The Samaritan, the one rejected by the Jews as a lower-class citizen, is a symbol of Christ, according to the Church fathers. He comes despite the world’s rejection, to heal and rehabilitate fallen man.
In the case of George Floyd, who was apprehended and subsequently died in an aggressive arrest, Francis puts Floyd in the place of mankind, and the protests (often descending into riots) that rose up around his death in the place of Christ.
Taking charitable motivation for granted, Pope Francis said that “[i]t is clear that this type of reaction against social, racial or macho injustice can be manipulated or exploited by political machinations or whatever, but the main thing is that, in that protest against this death, there was the Collective Samaritan who is no fool!”
