Season 2 of Paramount+’s Evil has delved further into examining David Acosta (Mike Colter) getting closer to being ordained a priest as he may have some doubts. In the October 3 episode “D is for Doll,” David seeks out a former priest who is now a minister (Leon Addison Brown). The minister takes an activist stance, specifically against the Catholic Church and for Black Lives Matter.
David is walking through New York City when he stops at the minister’s church. The minister suspects David’s doubts, which he denies. “Well, let me do my song and dance,” the minister chuckles. “The Catholic Church has some good points, but they’re not with the loss of freedom. You go where they say, do what they want.”
As David is shown around the church, the minister points out their programs, such as a literacy program and a community outreach program which appears to have a food bank as well as assists people with job applications, school essays, and the like. There’s also an activist side to the church activities:
Minister: We’re just getting ready for a BLM March downtown. How long would it take to get that authorized through the archdiocese? They’d still be arguing liability by the time we’re out on the streets, protesting.
David: So you leave the church, instead of trying to change it?
Minister: Two thousand years is a lot to try to change. Does it bother you that you’ll never be Pope?
David: [Laughs] I don’t want to be the Pope. And I’m not so sure that’s true
Minister: The Italians will never allow a Black man to be Pope, come on.
David: I’m made in God’s image, not the Pope’s.
Minister: God’s not the one that we see on TV. There’d be a place here if you wanted. You’d be a major force. Think about it.
David does not push back on the Black Lives Matter protest, nor does he sufficiently try to address it. He does care for his fellow Black Catholics, though, as he’s spoken about race before, even being unable to resist resorting to unnecessary social justice warrior propaganda.
The Catholic Church takes a serious stance against racism, including and especially after the death of George Floyd in 2020. A page on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website for the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism calls racism “a grave sin” and an “evil” which “causes great harm to its victims” as well as “corrupts the souls of those who harbor racist or prejudicial thoughts.” The page also contains a link to the letter “Open Wide Our Hearts” from 2018.
That being said, the Catholic Church cannot endorse Black Lives Matter, as many of its stances are directly contradictory to Church teaching, such as promoting abortion. At one point its website called for “disrupt[ing] the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”
While until the selection of Pope Francis in 2013, popes have been European, this selection shows that fellow cardinals are willing to select a non-European. The current pope is the first Jesuit and the first to come from Latin America, specifically Argentina. Some had also previously speculated that Cardinal Robert Sarah, from Guinea, might be selected as the first African pope.
David sees the minister again and, predictably, more racially-tinged comments are made:
David: Why’d you leave the Church?
Minister: Are you getting serious about leaving?
David: I just want to know.
Minister: I didn’t leave the Church. I left the priesthood.
David: Why?
Minister: I stopped believing in it.
David: The scandals?
Minister: Of course. Child rape has that effect on me.
David: [sighs] And not the fact that you met a nun you wanted to marry?
Minister: [laughs] You googled me. Look, did I leave the Church because I fell in love? Sure. But I’m here, at my church, doing God’s work, and I think that you should join me.
David: Part of my role with the Church is assisting with exorcisms, helping people who are under spiritual attack. How do you deal with that here?
Minister: People here are under spiritual attack, but it’s from redlinings, from student loans, from police shootings.
David: And the evil of the Satanic?
Minister: Ahh, the Hocus Pocus stuff? Look, I love the Church. I love its robes, its incense, its chants. But I’m in the 21st century. I don’t believe in the Devil with spiked horns and a tail. I believe in the Devil of the burning cross and the corrupt cop.
…
[David steps away to read a text message]
Minister: Stay. Come, help me get this protest started.
David: No, they need me.
Minister: They pretend that they need you, but they don’t, really.
David: A 15-year-old just tried to saw his arm off because his house is demonically infested.
The minister is comparing demonic possession--which has involved some freaky and disturbing things these past two seasons--to something as trivial in comparison as student loans, which people have to willingly sign up for and sign off on. With such warped priorities and a muddled belief in God and the Devil, it’s perhaps for the best that this leftist activist priest isn’t there to confuse people in the Catholic Church as a member of its clergy.
