All major professional sports have sadly become very woke, just like major corporations.
The National Basketball Association has been the biggest culprit, completely bowing to Marxist ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The league bowed to Black Lives Matter manifesto by allowing players to put personal slogans of social activism on their jerseys during the 2020 playoffs. Thankfully the idea significantly backfired with fans.
Even 11-time NBA champion coach Phil Jackson said he couldn’t watch this progressive activism. While players were kneeling during the National Anthem, one Christian player, Jonathan Isaac, courageously refused to kneel. His religious beliefs were his main reason. “Black lives … all lives are supported through the Gospel. We all fall short of God’s glory,” he told Ally Mauch in People magazine.
The NBA implements these practices with large doses of hypocrisy since it won’t speak a word against Chinese human rights abuses while making billions of dollars from the Chinese market.
When former Houston Rocket general manager Daryl Morey did the right thing by criticizing the Chinese suppression of Hong Kong democratic protests and the NBA’s silence on the issue, he was strongly rebuked by league offices and by one of their star players, Lebron James who personally makes huge amounts of money from China.
What the pursuit of money does to a man. As Jesus taught us, we cannot serve two masters. I personally know which master will bring the ultimate and everlasting victory – Jesus.
Enes Freedom (formerly Enes Kanter) is another NBA player who was blackballed by the league for speaking against China’s well-documented human rights atrocities and the NBA’s support of it through its silence. “My Mom told me that if you believe in something, stand up tall for it even if it means sacrificing everything you have,” he told The New York Times’ Sopan Deb.
Are we as Catholics willing to be courageous and stand tall for what our Catholic faith teaches us to be true, even if it may result in paying a price for these beliefs?
This brings us to the journey of Marc Lozano.
Although raised Catholic, Lozano rejected the Church at a young age, ultimately becoming an ardent atheist. While honing his sharp mathematics skills he found a way to combine it with his passion for basketball, getting a great job in the NBA corporate office.
His Catholic wife wouldn’t accept his atheist arguments, so Lozano decided to read Catholic authors such as Aquinas and Chesterton in order to try to dispel Church teachings. He was shocked to find that he instead became intellectually convinced of the truth in Catholicism. As he read modern philosophers like Sam Harris, he easily found logical flaws despite not being trained in this area. That wasn’t the case with Catholic authors, and this fact shook his ego.
His journey still had not become spiritual and Lozano took some time before getting on his knees and saying in prayer, “Your will, not mine, Lord,” he told EWTN’s Coming Home Network.
Lozano started carrying his faith wherever he went and in whatever he did, including at his dream job in the NBA corporate office. He started to see that the income he was earning through the NBA was by “illicit means.”
“My heart was not resting in God” in his work, he said. For moral reasons, he left the woke NBA, which Lozano describes as all about idol worship. He also began to see the league as supportive of the “genocidal” Chinese regime and listed its support of critical race theory and trangenderism for children as destructive policies for society.
His faith led him to realize he could no longer work for the NBA, he told Michael Wing at The Epoch Times. He sacrificed his dream and a large income to follow the will of God – the truth – and now feels extremely happy with his decision and the life he and his wife have built for their four children.
These examples show individuals who have made sacrifices in pursuit of truth. As Catholics, we must look at every daily interaction and decision as an opportunity to witness to our faith.
Some of our decisions could be financially helpful or make us popular, or they may not. May we pray and follow Our Lord in doing the morally right thing.