Catholic Priest Compares Black Lives Matter Organization, Antifa To al-Qaeda. Church Apologizes.

A Catholic church in Dearborn, Michigan, has issued an apology after one of its priests compared the Black Lives Matter organization and Antifa to al-Qaeda terrorists.

“I am so sorry that a homily given by Fr. Paul Graney at the 4:30 p.m. Mass on Saturday has brought forth division, anger, confusion and chaos,” Rev. Bob McCabe, pastor at Church of the Divine Child, said in a statement according to The Detroit News. “I first spoke with a couple individuals shortly after his homily. I could sense their anger and their hurt.”

Graney, an associate priest of the Church of Divine Child, gave a homily on Saturday that warned that the agendas of the Black Lives Matter organization and Antifa, a violent far-left group, were aimed at tearing down American order and values. Graney had compared the two groups’ intentions to those of the al-Qaeda terrorists that hijacked four planes on Sept. 11, 2001.

“People have been out in our streets doing incredibly violent things in the name of justice,” Graney said. “Cars have been torched, property has been destroyed, businesses looted and burned, and police officers and other people have been intimidated, assaulted, and even murdered all in the name of justice, oftentimes the rallying cry being ‘No justice, no peace.’”

Graney’s homily was given the day after the 19th anniversary of the 9-11 terror attack. He related the destruction and chaos that has hit major American cities back to the agenda of the terrorists who carried out the attack.

“And back then, in 2001, al-Qaeda came with the goal to destroy America, little by little, with acts of terror. Not all at one time, they weren’t sending a great army,” Graney said. “But in 2020, many of our own people are now out there in the streets wanting to remake America into something else by destroying what it is today. Little by little. There’s no great army, but it’s riot by riot, really.

“Al-Qaeda was an Islamic terrorist organization that hated Christianity and what it stood for. America, being founded largely upon the values of Christianity, was therefore the big dog in the yard that al-Qaeda wanted to take down,” he continued. “Today in this day and age, it is groups from within our own borders, our own citizens, have now put America in their crosshairs on a scale that we may have never seen before, maybe not since the Civil War.”

Graney specifically mentioned Antifa, which he described as an “anarchist terrorist organization” and an “extreme left-wing group against capitalism, law enforcement, and any sort of government hierarchy or organization.” The priest also said the Black Lives Matter organization, which is related to but distinct from the Black Lives Matter movement, is pushing anti-Catholic and anti-traditional family views.

“The organization also says this: ‘We foster a queer affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.’ As Catholics, we do not view the practice of homosexuality as healthy for human beings. In fact, it is sinful,” Graney says, quoting the Black Lives Matter website.

A Dearborn resident posted video of the homily on Facebook after the church removed it from its own page.