Long before she burst into the public spotlight delivering her inauguration poem, Amanda Gorman got a standing ovation from fellow parishioners of St. Brigid Church in Los Angeles for reciting a poem she wrote about the parish.
And on Jan. 20, at the inauguration ceremony of President Joe Biden, parishioners watching this young woman on their TV screens — addressing political leaders and the nation at large about courageously rebuilding the country — applauded her all the more.
And even though they were thrilled for Gorman, parishioners of the historically Black church didn’t see her performance as a “solo act,” because Gorman has always been at the parish with her twin sister, Gabrielle, and her mom. Hawkins felt that sense of family when cameras followed Gorman joining her mother when she finished her delivery.
St. Brigid’s pastor, Josephite Father Kenneth Keke, also didn’t just see Gorman in that moment but felt she represented the entire parish in South Central Los Angeles — which is predominantly African American but now also has a growing number of Latinos, Filipinos and white parishioners too.
When she graduated from high school to attend Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gorman received a scholarship donation from the parish.
“Parishioners are very much proud of her,” the priest, from Nigeria, told Catholic News Service Jan. 22, adding that he personally knew she would go far. “She is a very, very intelligent young lady. The first time I saw her, I knew that one day she was going to be very important.”
Full story at Angelus News; story originally from Catholic News Service.
Catholic News Agency: Amanda Gorman, inaugural poet for Biden, has history of abortion advocacy
Poet Amanda Gorman made a splash with her performance at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. But less than two years earlier, she performed a strongly pro-abortion poem that championed abortion access as necessary to secure equality, to escape from poverty, and to achieve the freedom to determine family size.
Her poem charged that those who advocate abortion bans aim to control women and sustain the “patriarchy.”
Her performance, carried by Now This News in May 2019, took place when Gorman was a 21-year-old undergraduate at Harvard University. She argued against proposed abortion restrictions in Alabama, Georgia, and elsewhere.
“Fight for Roe v. Wade in the United States,” she said, “because this change can’t wait.”
“We are never alone when we fight fire with feminism. We will not be masquerade to the tale of a handmaid. We will not let Roe v. Wade slowly fade,” she said.
Gorman’s 2019 performance depicted legal abortion as liberating.
“Through forcing them into motherhood before they’re ready, these bans steadily sustain the patriarchy but also chain families in poverty. And maintain economic inequality,” she said. “Pregnancy is a private and personal decision and should not require the permission of any politician.”
Even if abortion is made a crime, she said, “women have and will always seek their own reproductive destinies.”
“All these penalties do is subdue women’s freedom to get healthy, safe services when they most need them,” she continued.
Gorman depicted abortion as the foundation of equality.
“If the sexes and all people are to be equal, abortion has to be actually accessible and not just technically legal,” she said. This “isn’t only about women and girls, this fight is about fundamental civil rights. Women are a big part of it but at the heart of it are freedom over how fast our families grow.”
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
Another fake Democrat Catholic. They’re all fake. And the Diocese of Los Angeles is showing it’s more interested in showing the world that it’s “anti-racist” than Catholic, which is why it was so quick to write a gushing column about a black girl even though she advocates things contrary to Catholic faith. Angelus News was so thrilled to write a positive story about a black Catholic that it didn’t do its due diligence in reporting. So sad.
So you prefer if they had just cancel-culture her?
A clear example of blackness being more important to many people than Catholicism. This is racism. A white poet would not have been so lauded.
Clearly you feel threatened by any highly educated, well spoken person. Since I have no idea what your skin color may be, all that is apparent is your lack of a balanced education, and that has instilled fear that you are inadequate to succeed in American society.
I taught high school. Any intelligent senior in high school could write something as good as that in a couple days. It’s not profound. It wouldn’t stand out in a set of twenty compositions by high school AP English students that a teacher would have to grade. Her skin color is what has “elevated” the prose in the eyes of the media. I’ll say this too: Joe Biden’s inauguration speech was boring and awful. Trump’s was much better four years ago. But the media extol Biden since he’s on their side. Merit is dead in academia and in the media. Her composition gets a “B”. It’s not A material.
You watched the inauguration?
One or another aphorism would be applicable to this situation – such as “The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing” or “They should get their act together”!
This liberal leftist, brainwashed, radicalized youngster’s parish and pastor have done a terrible, unspeakable crime, misguiding Catholic youth to Satan! And no, she certainly is NOT a so-called “poet!” She is a young leftist political activist puppet.
Radicalized young leftists like this one, are as great a danger to our society, as the leftist maniac protestors, who destroy our cities, and the crazy, right-wing maniacs, who stormed the Capitol building– and dangerous, Islamic terrorists of 9/11 and the Boston Marathon Massacre. A true, authentic, sensitive young Black poet, would write a tragically beautiful poem, lamenting the Holocaust of Black children killed in their mothers’ wombs, among the 61 million lives tragically taken, in the Crime of Abortion, since the Satanic Roe vs. Wade decision in Jan. 1973.
The poem Amanda recited at the Inauguration was inspiring, uplifting. Did she hone her poetic skills at Harvard?
Don’t know. But I do wonder if she learned any history there. To wit, approximately 50% of African-American babies
are aborted. 75% of the African-American babies who escape murder are born to unmarried mothers, many of whom
have multiple children, but cannot accurately identify the fathers. Watch the “Maury Povich Show” [but please, just
once] to get anecdotal evidence.
Angela SHOULD be pro-choice—not in the sense of murdering the innocent conceived in rampant promiscuity—
but rather to CHOOSE urging African-American women to choose sexual responsibility and restraint. Are you working
as hard to bring stability to the all but disappearing true family structure of mom, dad and the kids. How does the problem
of unequal dignity or poverty get solved morally by killing the innocent? That only encourages continuing the irresponsible behavior by viewing it as being without serious cost.
We Are Captains… Very good post. Strange for rabid feminists– but Amanda Gorman and the step-daughter of Kamala Harris recently joined a very fancy, high-class New York modeling agency. They are both about the same age.
Do the priests of St. Brigid’s parish realize the great danger to our Church and society, of their radicalized, leftist-liberal abortiion-promoter parishioner?? This now-famous, President-approved Harvard grad will undoubtedly soon be given evil political power for her feminist and Abortion goals, being ripe for Satanic Democratic party service!!
It wasn’t even a poem. It was a speech. It didn’t have any poetic form. Harvard Shmarvard. The text doesn’t withstand logical scrutiny. It’s banal, full of platitudes that leftists like to say but don’t practice nor really believe. If a white man had delivered that same text, it would have been criticized by all the press as being at least boring and without literary merit. But since a black woman said it? Wow… how amazing! If Trump had said those words, he would have been mocked. If Biden had said those words in his inaugural speech, he would have been praised. It’s all so phony and just a game in the worlds of media and politics. It’s just a game. There’s no merit, just prejudging by elites based on membership in a victim class.
And you earned your degree from Harvard in what field? Literary criticism, or simply random rejection of anything deeper than Dennis the Menace?
He’s right that the media fawn over anything black and liberal. The poem was mediocre at best. You don’t have to have an ivy league degree to know when something sucks.
Your last line indicates that it disturbs you greatly that anyone you would call black is highly educated. I see people of all colors and political opinions recognized by our society all the time. Perhaps you should change the channel for a while.
Cardinal Sarah is black and well educated. Cardinal Arinze is black and well educated. I am sure there are black nuns, sisters and brothers who are well educated who do not push abortion. Where is your love for them?
Where is your love for women like Immaculee, who begs you not to kill African children? Is she not well “educated” enough for you?
Amanda Gorman’s “poem” at the inauguration, “The Hill We Climb,” was fine– not great, however. What really shocks me to pieces, is her “8 Reasons,” which is popular also on YouTube– a totally shocking, horrific “poem” championing radical feminist dogma and Abortion. She is not even an average poet, with typical literary talent and skills, of many young, gifted writers and poets competing in high school-age literary contests. Her “works” are just sort of like monologues about her feelings. “8 Reasons” is a total horror, to me, especially for a young, college-age girl– and to see her popularity as a very mediocre “Youth Laureate Poet,” influencing kids with her passionate, evil, pro-abortion, radical feminist dogma– is a total American Nightmare. And this is a product of being raised in a “caring” Catholic parish? An authentically “Catholic” “Youth Poet Laureate?” Where are the lovely, authentically-gifted, beautifully-trained, outstanding young American poets (all races), expressing beautiful ideals, cherished by good Americans, in many lovely, memorable verses?? Well– I’m glad that “8 Reasons” was not the poem recited for Biden’s inauguration.
Welcome to the world in which media create celebrity based on nothing except their desire to approve someone or promote a representative of a favored ideology. The Kardashians have no talent, but they’ve been given fame and fortune. Same with this poet.
Yes, Amanda Gorman read a poem, a piece of literature that had meaning, a message, rhythm, and cadence. Not all poetry has to rhyme every two lines, like those we wrote in the third or fourth grade. Here was a call, a clarion call to unite the country, to make it ok for people of all colors and cultures, to put aside our differences, to put down our arms so that we can put our arms around each other. It was a poem for the ages, and one we needed in this age. And, yes, there was no call for the end of abortion, but not every poem, essay, or book written must be about that, important as it is. “But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”
Amanda Gorman and this parish is being used by the forces of evil and some people here are clueless. And oh no there is no crisis in the Churches and in catechesis. Everything is just fine…Not.
Oh, yeah, and diversity is a strength. China is rising, if you haven’t noticed.
And don’t forget, Anonymous, Democracy is not an uncompromising “Radical Liberal Leftist Socialist Dogma” nor “Freedoms to Live an Immoral Life.” All unborn children have the Right to Life in any true Democracy. “Political Correctness,” “Feminism” and immoral “Free Love and Abortion” is not what America lives by.
Abby Johnson has hundreds of ex-Planned Parenthood employees who are now Pro-Life converts, in her organization. Perhaps Pro-Life leaders like Abby Johnson can someday inspire evil Abortion promoters like Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Andrew Cuomo, Kamala Harris, Xavier Becerra, Gavin Newsom, Joe Biden, Amanda Gorman, and many others to convert to Christ, and to Pro-Life!
She’s an ideological slave and doesn’t realize it. That’s how the Democrats want to keep them.
You LA Diocese better give them hell for promoting this fake Catholic.
We are all allowed our own opinions, but not our own facts. To say that ALL of a group are good or evil is opinion, not fact. So, not all Democrats are all bad people any more than Republicans are all good people. Let us consider the following, recent Pew Research data indicates that 57% of American adults favor legal abortion. 48% of Catholics think it should be legal and 47% think it should not. 50% of “moderate” Republicans think abortion should be legal and 70% of “conservative Republicans think it should be illegal, while 60-70 percent of “moderate” Democrats think it should be legal and 60-70% of “conservative” Democrats think it should be legal. Calling people names doesn’t help much, all it does is pander to the mob and cause division among the populace. An opinion might be that there are too many Catholics that support legal abortion. A fact is that 48% support legal abortion. Let’s not make this the catholic Qanon site.
Bob One, have you taken a close look at the Democratic Party Platform?? It stands for many evil and immoral beliefs, and is shockingly, tragically corrupt!
I am not a “one-party-only” voter or believer. But the Democratic Party has embraced many dangerous evils– and seeks to violently control our Nation, opposing and excluding Christian Morality! Catholics have a duty to stand up and vigorously opposed the Democratic Party Platform, and seek to rid it of its horrific immorality! Starting right now, stand up for the rights of all American unborn children tragically condemned to Death, waiting on “Death Row,” in their mothers’ wombs, at Planned Parenthood! 61 million of them have been senseless murdered, since the Roe vs. Wade decision, in 1973!
Bob One, facts are seldom given in isolation but generally in some context–often an ideological worldview. As such, there is the danger of selectivity, meaning that some facts are brought to the fore and others hidden/excluded as they argue against the ideological presuppositions of the person or persons asserting a position. With such selectivity, it is then possible to interpret given facts to bolster a particular point of view. It is important to be able to discern when how and where such is occurring. It seems to this reader that the frustration expressed by contributors here is that a highly educated Harvard student from a Catholic parish would argue so vehemently for the murder of innocent human lives (and that is a cold, hard and very uncomfortable fact).
Bob One just look at the source. Selectivity is all on the Left. Educated does not guarantee common sense and I beg to differ on whether this is a Catholic parish or catholic in name only
To Bob One at 30 Jan/4:00 pm
The discussion is about the morality not the popularity of abortion. So why are Pew Research statistics at all relevant? They have no impact on the moral dimension of abortion. Consider this parallel: The vast majority of voting-age Americans cannot name the three branches of the federal government, the two Senators of their State, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Can we logically infer from this that no such entities/persons exist? Of course not. By analogy, the popularity of abortion tells us nothing about its inherent morality.
The lack of logic in some posts concerns me because it may mislead readers into thinking that what is popular is also good. Non sequitur.
Time to leave.
Amanda, if you read this, please look up the alarming rate of black babies that are killed by abortion.. Please look up where Planned Parenthood places its clinics. Please look up the history of Margaret Sanger and her intentions for her organization.
Equal access to abortion is like having equal access to rape. Having an abortion does not make someone not a mother. It makes them a mother of a dead child. There is severe grief. It is a death in the family.
Women control their reproductive destinies by chastity and self-control. Women need to learn their worth.
There are cases where non-consensual sex (rape or incest or statutory rape) results in pregnancy. Women who allow the child to live and raise them or let another family raise them are brave and they are heroes.
You are an impressive young lady. I saw your interview with Anderson Cooper and I said “I think I am looking at a future President.” I know someone that you may be running against. I am grieved by the hateful comments in this comment section, but if you are going to run for President you will have to get used to it. President Obama understood that they are real divides in opinion in our country but he did not demonize the other sides. Maybe it does not matter anymore what it used to be like, but legislators understood that they were representing the American people. They worked to find win-win solutions. Some problems have intractable because people have become intractable.
People are not pro-life because they are trying to control women. They are pro-life because they are trying to save lives. Each life is important. Every life counts.
God bless you and protect you and your family.
Immaculee Ilibagiza is black and beautiful and pro life.
I remember when a black Haitian priest told us at a Rosary in front of a Planned Parenthood site about a married woman with two sons, who was later raped by another man. She kept the child, and he was the only one who supported her in her old age.
Adoption is another option if one can find a good heterosexual couple to take the child. Children deserve both a mother and father if possible. Support women in the right way, even though it be hard.
Miss Nursery-Rhymes’s St Brigid is a Black Liberation Theology “parish.” ‘Nuff said.
For all the time that I have visited this site, you have posted the same prejudicial statement every time the subject relates to African-American Catholics. Every time. Simply incongruous with living a Catholic life.
OMG I looked at the parish website. You’re totally right. The believe in Blackness there.
Anon (1/21/21 1:30 pm) we will all assume that your comment wasn’t meant to be racist. This is a parish that serves a Black and Hispanic community in the middle of LA. One would expect that they would be a “Black church” or a “Spanish church.” My neighborhood parish tends to be mostly of White European descent, so its services could, I suppose, be thought of as a “White church.” The US makes up only about 6% of the Catholic faith, but much of it is made up of European extracts, so it tends to worship that way. If you watched the Mass on their Youtube you would have seen a very humble, well done Mass, very reverent. The music, for an outdoor Mass was ok. So, I’m not sure when you say they believe in Blackness, they are Black.
John 13:34-35I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
We do not need misguided, sick, brazen, secular Feminism, in this world. What we need, is for men to always respect women, and treat them fairly and respectfully, and for women to always confidently stand up for themselves and for anyone who is mistreated, and defend what is right. God made us male and female, and each gender is different but equal, and good. In our Catholic Faith, Christ is the role model for men, and our Blessed Mother is the role model for women. Men should always respect women, and treat them fairly, as Christ would teach them to do. Women are more delicate, and should receive special help and protection, as needed, from men. Men should be taught to help, protect, and defend their more delicate mothers, their little sisters, or their elderly grandmas, and be true, unselfish, well-mannered gentlemen. A true Catholic gentleman has learned good character and has self-control, and respects women that he dates, refraining from behavior that is wrong. A good Catholic woman does likewise, and together, the two may attend Mass, pray together, and carefully discern Marriage. All sexual behavior is saved for the Marriage bed; two virgins should ideally exchange marriage vows, in the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Birth control and abortion– murder of unborn children — are totally unthinkable.