Archbishop Charles Chaput's response to Brian Sims's unseemly behavior

As a followup to my post from yesterday, we have a different response from Archbishop Chaput. Different firstly in that he refers to Brian Sims as having behavior "unbecoming of an elected official" and a "disregard for human decency" rather than as a "jackass", but more importantly also referring to people protesting this behavior as "people of good will" rather than a "subculture" with a martyr complex. (Nota bene: I really have no problem with the term "jackass" to describe Sims either.)

The archbishop invited prayerful participation in a rally May 10 at 11am outside of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood, the same clinic at which state Rep. Brian Sims filmed himself aggressively questioning a woman praying the rosary across the street from a Planned Parenthood May 2.

In a series of livestreamed videos, Sims’ solicited viewers for the woman’s name and address and for the names and addresses of three teenagers praying at Planned Parenthood, saying in one video: “Let’s go protest out in front of her house and tell her what’s right for her body.”

“Who would have thought that an old white lady would be outside of a Planned Parenthood telling people what’s right for their bodies? Shame on you,” Sims said in the video.

Chaput said that there is “much bitter irony” in Sims’ claim to be a champion for the rights of all women while he “trampled on the rights of others and disgracefully shamed them in public.”

“Representative Sims spoke often of shame and there was plenty of that to be found in his actions, which demonstrated a complete disregard for civility and basic human decency,” Chaput said.

It's always good to see an official representative of my Church take a real leadership role against a blatant, obvious, public display of evil at work. Good for Archbishop Chaput.