CHICAGO (OSV News) — Catholics in a downtown Chicago neighborhood expressed sorrow and dismay days after a cross was found burning at a popular park nearby.
The incident, with its menacing racist undertones, drew strong public condemnation from Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago.
Chicago Police told OSV News June 15 the cross-burning at Grant Park, which took place June 9, remains under investigation.
After daily Mass June 15 at Old St. Mary Catholic Church in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood, Massgoers told OSV News they were saddened, dismayed and disturbed by the cross-burning.
In the United States, since the 20th century, a burning cross has historically been a symbol of racial hatred and threat of violent terrorism, most often directed toward Black Americans by members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. It has also been used by racist individuals and groups to target other minorities, including Catholics, Jews and immigrants.
Paulist Father Rich Andre told OSV News he was “shocked” that it happened.
‘It’s just so disheartening and upsetting’
“We are a parish that, since the 1870s, has had a reputation for welcoming a real diversity of people ever since the city started to grow. And Father Augustus Tolton did some of his first ministry in the city of Chicago from our parish. And so, our Catholic community is so welcoming of all people,” the pastor said. “It’s just so disheartening and upsetting that this is happening.”
Venerable Augustus (Augustine) Tolton was the first publicly known African American priest of the Catholic Church to minister in the U.S.
A longtime resident of Quincy in western Illinois, where a shrine is being established in his honor, Father Tolton served in Chicago in the last eight years of his priesthood before his untimely death at 46 in 1897. He is one of the “Saintly Seven,” referring to the group of African Americans recognized as “servant of God” or “venerable” who have active sainthood causes.
“It makes me sad for humanity, because it’s 2026, come on. Like, there should be no more racism, right? We’re all God’s people,” said Cindy Sinkevicz, 60, a parishioner who has lived in the South Loop for 23 years. “If we prick our finger, we all bleed the same. We’re all … children of God, and the hatred is just very saddening.”
Saw cross burnings-as a child in Louisiana
Daily Massgoer Betty Kenny, 92, told OSV News that she saw cross-burnings as a child growing up in the Deep South, in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and saw the burning cross found in Grant Park differently from what she experienced.
“I just don’t think that person who did that knew what they were doing,” Kenny, who is African American, told OSV News. Kenny, a retired Chicago hospital nurse, described the cross-burnings she witnessed. They were ignited by members of the KKK, a militant white supremacist group formed after the Civil War to violently repress Black Americans trying to claim their newfound freedom and equality under the law after the end of slavery.
“Usually, at the cross-burning, they gathered. When they did, it was gathered,” she said. In contrast, the burning cross was discovered alone in Grant Park’s 319 acres, an area within the central business district. “That was one person that did it and ran away. … That’s why I said I don’t think he knew what he was doing.”
Kenny said she thought the individual behind it had “heard things” about cross-burnings and acted out.
Gabrielle Pickett, a caregiver, daily Massgoer and 40-year Chicago resident originally from Haiti, agreed with Kenny. She suspected the behavior was likely similar to the large numbers of teens that move in throngs on Chicago’s popular streets and lakefront on warm weekend evenings, at gatherings that have turned violent and chaotic.
“I’m thinking that he did it out of anger, and I feel that maybe he needs to be talked to. I mean, it’s bad to do that. You don’t burn a cross, because that’s Jesus. He died on the cross for us,” she said. “But if the person’s not religious, I think he did it out of anger, and I think we should forgive. But we should find out why that happened.”
In a statement posted June 10, a day after the burning cross was discovered, Cardinal Cupich said “the sickness of spirit” symbolized by burning crosses or other acts “designed to terrorize” from the past is still present today.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this action and affirm that hate has no place in our country, our city and our hearts,” he said. “We pledge to work with our city’s faith and community leaders to redouble our efforts to share the Gospel message that we are all children of God, made in His image.”
Racism ‘a radical evil’ that divides people
The U.S. bishops first condemned the sin of racism, in a 1979 pastoral letter, calling it a “radical evil that divides the human family and denies the new creation of a redeemed world.”
The bishops in 2018 issued another pastoral letter, “Open Wide Our Hearts,” which stated how racism today “comes in many forms,” both by sinful acts and omissions, and demands in response “an equally radical transformation, in our own minds and hearts as well as in the structure of our society.”
The bishops stated the “re-appearance of symbols of hatred … is a tragic indicator of rising racial and ethnic animus,” and condemned the “xenophobic rhetoric that instigates fear against foreigners, immigrants, and refugees” in U.S. discourse.
Father Andre shared with OSV News the prayers of the faithful at Old St. Mary’s weekend Masses following the incident. One of them prayed: “For our city: In the face of acts of hatred and intimidation, including the terror of a burning cross, may we bear witness to the true meaning of the Cross of Christ — sacrificial love, mercy, and peace, we pray to the Lord.”
Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.
