Thread by @SamRochadotcom

I listened to Gloria's debut podcast episode late this morning and I've thought about it all day long. My wife and I spoke about it on our walk. It has lingered. I will probably re-listen tonight and maybe again tomorrow. Let me share a bit of why here, in an appreciation thread.

https://twitter.com/gloria_purvis/status/1397181540585680896

First, the sheer moral significance of Gloria debuting her show on the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd is enough to meditate on for a long time. The courage and statement and, of course, her "straight no chaser" opening monologue that simply starts THERE.

We really need to stop and appreciate what it means for Gloria to choose this day, of all days, to launch her new show and to not simply allow it to be an allusion or possible coincidence, but to name it and own it in all of its tragic moral reality.

I am not making a big deal out of something minor here. After the monologue that names this date and occasion, the interview to follow is with Fr. Erich Rutten, a priest from a Black Catholic parish in St. Paul, MN, reflecting on his experience of this event from the field.

The entire first episode to Gloria's first solo venture in Catholic media with full and total control and freedom is released intentionally on a day of great Black sorrow to mark and honor and also work through that trauma. Folks: This is not child's play or trite triumphalism.

Add to this the conditions that contributed to Gloria's loss of her show on EWTN, and this debut is a triumph without triumphalism. Gloria has kept her word to never stop speaking the truth! She is not trying to sugar coat that truth, even as she admits her own need for healing.

The courage it takes to do this simple and direct and unvarnished act of defiance of those who lied and tried to cancel and diminish her without rancor or pettiness is just mind-blowing to me. It is a singular watershed moment in the history of Catholic media in the USA.

This is a bigger moment, for me personally but also for the American Church, than Sheen, M. Angelica, and Nehaus all put together. Where it goes and what comes of it remains to be seen but we should not let bad ecclesial news cloud or dampen that something great happened today.

How many times in the history of the American Church has a Black Catholic woman been so systematically silenced and marginalized in such an obvious and sly yet public way and, within less than a year, risen up, punctuating that rise on the very occasion that began the conflict?

Gloria is too humble (and too good at what she is doing) to explicitly note that her debut is an emphatic, righteous rebuke of those who tried to rob her of her singular witness on behalf of the most invisible and disrespected social group within the US Catholic Church.

Brothers and sisters: When goodness triumphs over evil we have to see it and thank God for it and recognize that the mighty will be cast down and the powerful will always, always lose. And even in this victory, Gloria reminds us of the work to be done. Of the wounds and trauma.

This is a bluesy victory, like Christ's wounded resurrected body and Gloria doesn't try to dull the pain or anesthetize it in the Chauvin verdict, reminding us that the sentencing remains to be seen and above all reminding us of the racism that it brought to light in the Church.

This balance between the magnitude of her debut's moment and its sober and challenging message is the real kind of nuance you find in love and suffering and things of moral consequence. And she did it all by just being herself, talking about the things she cares about.

Having been radicalized by the news of Guadalupe Radio Network's "suspension" of her show in the midst of my attempt to awaken and process and fight in the wake of the killing of Floyd, her debut episode today felt bigger to me than the trial outcome, as key as it obviously was.

There is NOTHING, nothing like this on offer in a major outlet in English-speaking Catholic media today. From the triumphalisms of Kelly and Barron, to the cynicism we all know of from the crazies, and their subtle alignment against "wokeness," Gloria is our voice in the desert.

There's more, but for now let me end by reiterating that Gloria's debut speaks directly to the heart through her own heart, on a chosen and named date that reminds us of the perpetuation of anti-Black white supremacy in America, exhorting us to repent and believe in the Gospel.

Thank God for my sister Gloria, bless and keep her and lift her up since the truth she speaks lifts so many who have no one else like her to reliably and visibly and vocally offer words of consolation and conviction. Amen.

Now, go and LISTEN and subscribe to her podcast!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…