The largest group of Catholic priests in the United States, in the wake of the racially motivated supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York, are urging their bishops to endorse the use of the Eucharist for evangelical nonviolence.
“We believe that the liturgy is more than prayer, it is a public work, a holy work, an action of Christ the High Priest and his Mystical Body,” reads a press release from the Association of Priests. American Catholics.
The AUSCP presents this prayer to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and urges them to seek at least experimental approval from the Vatican Office of Worship.
“We also encourage our members and anyone interested to pray with this and other prayers in approved ways. We urge you to join us in advocating for the Eucharist of Gospel Nonviolence in the hope that it will become part of our Catholic worship,” it said.
The Eucharist of evangelical non-violence includes this Trinitarian prayer:
God of Life, you continue to create your universe
of marvelous beauty and rich diversity.
Send your Spirit of unity deeper into our lives, so that we do not turn our diversity into division, or our fear into hatred.
May your Risen Son, the Servant of Nonviolent Love, breathe his peace into our minds and into our hearts.
The AUSCP, which has about 1,200 priests in its ranks, is the largest association of priests in the United States. It was founded in 2011 as a support group for priests who are inspired by the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and its continued implementation.
Thirteen people were shot – 10 fatally – in a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday in a massacre that authorities were investigating the shooting, which was racially motivated. Of the 13 victims shot, 11 were black.
Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white man now indicted by a grand jury, is charged with driving nearly 200 miles away to kill 10 people and injure three others in the shooting at a neighborhood supermarket in predominantly black.
“It’s the same question over and over again, this time in Buffalo, NY. How do we respond to evil? In conversation among AUSCP members, the emerging answer is that evil must be named and acknowledged, and that the answer to evil must be more than thoughts and prayers,” read the AUSCP website’s weekly column, “Wisdom Wednesday” on May 18.
“The mass shooting in Buffalo was a vicious act by an outspoken racist who targeted a black community and believed in the white supremacist ideology that white people are ‘replaced’ with people of color.
“The action of this killer is one of the clearest violations of the command to love our neighbors as ourselves. In response, we, on behalf of the AUSCP, condemn racismwhite supremacy, sexism, gender discrimination, clericalism and refusal to help immigrants and refugees,” it read.
