Letter to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Atlanta concerning the hosting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans

I have not heard back from the Roman Catholic bishop of Charleston so I am sending this letter to the Archbishop of Atlanta whose responsibilities cover the Roman Catholic diocese of Charleston. I am also going to email this letter to the Atlanta archdiocese.

If I don't hear a satisfactory response, I am going to write Pope Francis.

                                                                                                1/14/2014

                                                                                                esebesta@tx.rr.com

The Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory

Archbishop of Atlanta

2401 Lake Park Dr. S.E.
Smyrna, GA 30080

Dear Most Rev. Gregory:

As you can see from the enclosed bar graph of churches hosting the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) national convention services by denomination the Roman Catholic Church is tied for most frequent from the period of 1990 to 2013. I also enclose a map of churches that hosted national convention services of the SCV and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. You can see that the Roman Catholic Church comes in second in frequency in hosting these services. You can also see this map and bar graphs online at www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm.

The SCV is an extremist and racist organization. Their official literature compares Abraham Lincoln to Hitler, and praises and promotes books that defend slavery and books that laud the Ku Klux Klan. Please find enclosed a dossier on the SCV with detailed footnotes of all quotes and assertions. This dossier is also available online at http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html.

I wrote Bishop Guglielmone asking him not to allow churches in his diocese to host the SCV national convention service on November 20, 2013 since the Roman Catholic Church is one of the more frequent hosting churches of the SCV. I regret I have not heard back. I enclose a copy of my letter to him. Over the years I have noticed that the Roman Catholic Church is not hesitant to speak out about moral issues, it is disappointing that this issue of race is ignored.

Additionally, I enclose a paper on Confederate Christian nationalism which is also online at

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/ConfederateChristianNationalism.pdf. It was published by the Canadian Review of American Studies at the University of Toronto. Even though the article is largely about the neo-Confederate League of the South, the religious ideas promoted by the SCV Chaplains Corps (http://www.scv.org/about/chaplainsChronicle.php) are largely the same or similar.

When a church allows the SCV to use their facilities it gives them credibility that a prominent religious organizations would find the SCV to be an organization to which it would be acceptable to lend their facilities. Additionally they gain some of the prestige of the religious organization and the prestige of an architecturally prominent church building for their religious services and hence organization.

I ask that your church not give support to the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization by allowing them to use your facilities for their activities.

                                                                                                Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                                Edward H. Sebesta

Atlanta Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy history with a full page ad for the Ku Klux Klan

During the 1920s a United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) chapter in Virginia passed a resolution condemning the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) of the 1920s. The condemnation was that the members of the 1920s KKK weren't worthy of the name of the KKK unlike the ex-Confederates who made up the KKK of Reconstruction. It wasn't a repudiation of the Reconstruction Era KKK or the racism of the KKK, it just felt that the UDC chapter didn't think that the members of the 1920s KKK were not worthy of being KKK.

This resolution has been used by some to say that the UDC in general rejected the KKK. It means no such thing. The resolution wasn't adopted by the Virginia Division of the UDC nor the general UDC organization. It remained the resolution of just on chapter in Virginia in the UDC.

The Atlanta Chapter of the UDC was a very prominent chapter of the UDC being the chapter of a major metropolis in the South. They published a pamphlet, "History Atlanta Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy: 1897-1922," for their 25th anniversary. This was an important pamphlet for them.

In the pamphlet they had advertisements. One of those advertisements was a full page ad for the Ku Klux Klan. The Atlanta Chapter of the UDC didn't think the 1920s KKK was unworthy of being in a very important publication of theirs. This shows at least one very prominent chapter of the UDC hadn't rejected the 1920s KKK.

Not in the KKK ad that they are an organization for "native-born" white people. This is in keeping with the Anglo-Saxonist prejudice of the UDC and the KKK.