June 16 is shaping up to be a showdown at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles.
Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers franchise has set itself up as an institution willing to coddle anti-Catholic bigotry in the form of a hate group that goes by the name of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
That led one of its starring pitchers to take a public swing at the organization, and on Tuesday, another followed those words with a statement as blistering as any fastball.
Now, as more voices rise in opposition to the Dodgers’ decision, the tide could well be turning around a key point in the country’s culture wars.
In a statement published Tuesday on Twitter by Christian singer and friend Sean Feucht, Dodgers relief pitcher Blake Treinen blasted his own employer’s decision to invite the Sisters to the team’s “pride night” festivities as promoting “hate of Christians and people of faith.”
“This single event alienates the fans and supporters of the Dodgers, Major League Baseball, and professional sports,” the statement said.
My friend and @MLB pitcher Blake Treinen asked that I post this statement for him in regards to the @Dodgers honoring of the sisters of perpetual indulgence. #HoldTheLine pic.twitter.com/jIDeDJF8ke
— Sean Feucht (@seanfeucht) May 30, 2023
And it drew rave reviews from conservatives on social media.
“Meet Blake Treinen, a man who puts God and country first before baseball,” film and video producer/director and conservative commentator Robby Starbuck wrote. “THIS is how it’s done. Bravo Blake.”
As I said, the next Dodgers player to speak out was going to make a statement. Meet Blake Treinen, a man who puts God and country first before baseball. THIS is how it’s done. Bravo Blake. The players union @MLBPA needs to step up and protect the players from political agendas! pic.twitter.com/ZRa5ZnDHqc
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) May 31, 2023
Author and Daily Wire reporter Meg Basham lauded the statement as showing “tremendous courage.”
“This group openly mocks Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of my faith, and I want to make it clear that I do not agree with nor support the decision of the Dodgers to honor [them.]”@Dodgers player Blake Treinen showing tremendous courage. https://t.co/0L80ADebtg
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) May 31, 2023
Meanwhile, Christopher Rufo, commentator and senior fellow at the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute summed it up in one word: “Excellent.”
Excellent.
— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) May 31, 2023
There was more to Treinen’s statement than simply warning the Dodgers of a public relations disaster for the team and for MLB itself. (The league has already done more than its share to alienate conservative Americans, going back to the idiotic, insulting decision to move the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta over opposition to Georgia lawmakers passing a law to protect voter integrity.)
Treinen wrote that his own team was attacking the bedrock of his religious faith — a bedrock shared by countless millions of Americans.
“My convictions in Jesus Christ will always come first,” he wrote.
“I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins,” the pitcher said. “I believe the word of God is true, and in Galatians 6:7 it says, ‘do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked; a man reaps what he sows.’ This group openly mocks Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of my faith, and I want to make it clear that I do not agree with nor support the decision of the Dodger’s to ‘honor’ the Sister’s of Perpetual Indulgence.”
This is no small matter.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is a group known for far more malicious behavior than drag queens reading in public libraries. It’s known for the kind of street performance theater that deliberately insults all Christians and particularly Catholics. There’s an example here, if you can stomach it.
(The group is so repulsive that former Biden administration Energy Department weirdo Sam Brinton had a leading role in its D.C. chapter not too long ago.)
Possibly even worse than the utterly vile deliberate provocation the group engages in is its cowardice in its choice of victims. Think any of its members would try a day mocking Islam as the “Brothers of Perpetual Jihad”?
The Treinen statement came a day after Dodgers All-Star pitcher Clayton Kershaw criticized the team for inviting the Sisters to the event.
“I don’t agree with making fun of other people’s religions,” Kershaw told the Los Angeles Times. “It has nothing to do with anything other than that. I just don’t think that, no matter what religion you are, you should make fun of somebody else’s religion. So that’s something that I definitely don’t agree with.”
(The fact that the Dodgers originally invited the group, then disinvited it before inviting it again should be a clue that the team itself doesn’t have a clue about where its own moral compass points.)
And Treinen’s statement came the same day that another major leaguer — Washington Nationals pitcher Trevor Williams — published a statement blasting the Dodgers’ decision and calling on the team to reconsider, once again.
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“I know I’m not alone in my frustration, hurt and disappointment about this situation,” he wrote. “As Catholics, we look to Jesus Christ and the way He was treated and we realize that any suffering in this world unites us to Him in the next.”
What might be most interesting about this is the relative silence that’s greeted the issue among the usual loudmouths in the establishment media and politics.
Has anyone heard from the “devout Catholic” President Joe Biden on this subject?
But there are voices being raised within MLB itself, and Catholic advocacy groups are organizing their own responses.
If the tide keeps turning like this, June 16 could be quite the showdown in LA.
Pro-Christian groups could turn out. Militant “gay rights” groups — even more debased than the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — could make an appearance. Heck, it’s not impossible that a Christian player or two might decline to take the field — or come down with a convenient reason to be unable to.
Or the Dodgers could make a different decision. The team has done it before.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
