White nationalists clash with counter-protesters at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Photo:
CNS US Catholics have called for peace in the aftermath of violence in Charlottesville, in which three people died and dozens were injured.
Catholic bishops, a cardinal and several Catholic organisations made the appeal following clashes between pacifists, protestors and white supremacists in the Virginian town.
A white nationalist rally was organised in reaction to Charlottesville city council’s plan to remove the statue of Robert E Lee, a Confederate general who many say is a symbol of racism. They were met by counter-protestors, and at least 20 people were injured last Saturday according to the Associated Press.
Marchers
Further brutality at the University of Virginia the following day left one person dead after a car ploughed into a crowd of counter-protestors on the afternoon of August 12.
A 32-year-old paralegal, Heather D. Heyer, was killed when a man known to be a Nazi sympathiser drove into the marchers. Vigils were held for her and those who suffered in several countries.
The bishop of the diocese that encompasses Charlottesville, Francis DiLorenzo, said: “In the last 24 hours, hatred and violence have been on display in the city of Charlottesville.
“Only the light of Christ can quench the torches of hatred and violence. Let us pray for peace,” said Bishop DiLorenzo in the statement. “I pray that those men and women on both sides can talk and seek solutions to their differences respectfully.”
Virginia’s governor declared a state of emergency when violence erupted during the Unite the Right white nationalist protest. According to US media reports hundreds of men and women with lit torches chanted anti-Semitic slogans the previous day on the grounds of the University of Virginia.
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the events “abhorrent acts of hatred”, in a statement. He said they are an “attack on the unity of our nation”.