Michael Pfleger is Shady

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Father Michael Pfleger

Who am I?

Michael Louis Pfleger is a Roman Catholic priest and social activist in Chicago, Illinois.

A German American from the South Side of Chicago, Pfleger attended Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, Loyola University and the University of Saint Mary of the Lake. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 14, 1975. Since 1981, Pfleger has been pastor of the mostly African American parish of Saint Sabina, a Catholic church in Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood. When he was appointed to his present position, at the age of 31, he became the youngest pastor in the Chicago archdiocese. Under Pfleger's leadership, Saint Sabina has established an Employment Resource Center, a Social Service Center, and also an Elders home.

Pfleger's social activism has brought him attention throughout Chicago and beyond. He has often collaborated and associated with African American religious, political and social activists such as Jeremiah Wright, Joseph Lowery, Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, and Louis Farrakhan.

In 2000, Fr. Pfleger received international attention for encouraging his parishioners to buy time from prostitutes as a means of inviting the women to counseling and job training. The Chicago Archdiocese largely distanced themselves from Pfleger's efforts, to which Pfleger responded, "How is what I'm doing not part of the Gospel? The church leaders talk about evangelization. Well, if this isn't evangelization, I don't know what is." Saint Sabina raised several thousand dollars for Pfleger's program, attracting many donors from outside their parish. St. Sabina has used similar methods to reach out to drug dealers.

In 2001, Pfleger fired racism charges towards a mostly white elementary school athletic league, the Southside Catholic Conference, after they refused to admit Saint Sabina's parish school. The league claimed that visiting teams and parents would be unsafe in Saint Sabina's neighborhood. Pfleger responded, "Racism continues to be alive and well both inside society and inside the church. To be denied admission on the sole premise that certain coaches and parishes feared for the safety of their children is illegitimate, ridiculous and insulting. It is very troubling that the conference would insinuate that we would place their children in harm's way." Chicago's Francis Cardinal George eventually pressured the league to reverse its decision.

In 2007, Pfleger and his Saint Sabina parishioners erected twenty billboards across Chicago with the words "Stop Listening To Trash", followed by a list of "disrespectful rappers", which included Fat Joe, Lil Wayne, Nelly, 50 Cent & G-Unit, Twista, Snoop Dogg, and Ludacris. Pfleger said in a press release, "If we are going to end the violence and disrespect of women, we must fight every form of negativity, including the music industry." He explained to WMAQ-TV's Alex Perez, "When you disrespect women and you continue to demean a community or race by names and by language, that's unacceptable. . . . We can kill with our words."

On March 28, 2008, Pfleger invited Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of President elect Barack Obama, to deliver a blessing at Saint Sabina during a visit by poet Maya Angelou. Wright had been criticized by political pundits for a controversial sermon, but Pfleger came to Wright's defense. "I wanted him to come here so he could see that people really stand with him and support him while he's under all this attack. America, unfortunately, has been really cheated of knowing the real Dr. Wright," said Pfleger. In a statement on Saint Sabina's website, Pfleger wrote, "Dr. Wright is one of the great biblical scholars of our country and the best of preachers in the prophetic tradition. Dr. Wright has been shamefully demonized by 30 second sound bites that have tried to re-define him into someone other than who he is."

Facts about Obama and I

In February 2003, Pfleger generated controversy by inviting Al Sharpton to speak at a mass during Black History Month celebrations. Francis Cardinal George disapproved of Sharpton's appearance, due to Sharpton's support of abortion rights. Sharpton was also a presidential candidate at the time, and archdiocese officials were concerned that having a political candidate speak in church would cause them to lose their tax-exempt status. However, George decided that trying to stop Sharpton from coming "would be a futile gesture and a waste of effort".

Of his disagreements with George, Pfleger once said, "I can only assume the Cardinal sees my style of ministry to be something he doesn't agree with. In that sense, he sees me as a thorn. That's what I'm left to feel like. I don't revel in that. In fact, it's very difficult. It's a very difficult feeling [being] on the fringe, getting public reprimands, public criticisms. I don't enjoy that at all. [But] my focus right now is to try to continue building up the Church. A lot of what we do is [considered] out of the ordinary. That kind of puzzles me. It's not the Church I grew up in. The Church then was very involved in justice and civil rights issues."

In May 2007, During a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition protest outside a suburban Chicago gun shop, Pfleger was accused of threatening the life of the owner, John Riggio. The Illinois State Rifle Association released a tape where Pfleger was heard telling the assembled crowd, "He's the owner of Chuck's. John Riggio. R-i-g-g-i-o. We're going to find you and snuff you out… you know you're going to hide like a rat. You're going to hide but like a rat we're going to catch you and pull you out." Pfleger later claimed his use of the phrase "snuff you out" was misinterpreted.

Cardinal George rebuked Pfleger, saying, "Publicly delivering a threat against anyone's life betrays the civil order and is morally outrageous, especially if this threat came from a priest." Pfleger claimed that he did not intend to use the word "snuff" as a slang term for "kill", but rather as a substitute for "pull", as he used later in his statement.

During another protest at the same store, Pfleger and Jesse Jackson were arrested by Chicago police for blocking the entrance to the store. Both were later released without charge. The store had been the target of multiple protests by Pfleger and Jackson. According to the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, Chuck's Gun Shop & Range, had sold over 2,000 weapons that were traced to crimes committed between 1996 and 2004.

On May 25, 2008, Pfleger gave a sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama's church, where he made controversial statements concerning Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama's opponent for the Democratic Party nomination. Pfleger said, "I really believe that she just always thought, 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife. I'm white, and this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate.' Then out of nowhere came, 'Hey, I'm Barack Obama,' and she said, 'Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show!'" He then pretended to wipe tears from his face, a reference to Clinton's emotional speech before the New Hampshire primary, and added, "She wasn't the only one crying. There was a whole lot of white people crying."

After hearing about Pfleger's remarks, Obama said he was "deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric". Pfleger later released a statement through St. Sabina that read, "I regret the words I chose Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Sen. Obama's life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Sen. Clinton or anyone else who saw them." On May 31, 2008, Obama resigned his membership in Trinity Church, saying that his campaign had caused the church to receive excessive media attention. On June 1, 2008, Pfleger released a longer apology to the St. Sabina parish regarding the incident and its aftermath.

On June 3, 2008, Cardinal George asked Pfleger to take a disciplinary leave of absence from St. Sabina. George said in a statement, "I have asked Father Michael Pfleger, Pastor of St. Sabina’s Parish, to step back from his obligations there and take leave for a couple of weeks from his pastoral duties, effective today. Fr. Pfleger does not believe this to be the right step at this time. While respecting his disagreement, I have nevertheless asked him to use this opportunity to reflect on his recent statements and actions in the light of the Church’s regulations for all Catholic priests. I hope that this period will also be a time away from the public spotlight and for rest and attention to family concerns." Pfleger resumed his parish duties on June 16, 2008.

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