Letter from Your FPUU President

By Kitty McGregor, February 2, 2025

I do not normally speak out on our website, but I recently read a portion of an article called Key Facts from a site called the Holocaust’s Encyclopedia, documenting what some people believe to be a poem by

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), who was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany in the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Initially he sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for his postwar statement, which begins “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out…”.

I am sure many of us can quote most of this, but many social movements have inserted whatever is of their heart-felt concern like migrants, people of color, women in general – on and on it goes.

The last phrase of Martin Niemöller’s statement is why I am writing today. “Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

As you may know First Parish of Canton has affiliated with the Canton Town committee known as the CDEI – Canton Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion. Your Parish Committee member, Don Seaman, along with Rev. Dr Michelle, coordinate our efforts with this committee. I do what I can to spread the good works of the CDEI. We assist in events, advertise their event, help with guest speakers, and help in many other ways. Like other town committees, CDEI relies on funding as determined in the annual town budget. In these times, it is more important than ever that the CDEI is not only fully budgeted but that their budget in fact is increased. Canton should remain a town that affirms the worth of DEI programming and activities.

Not all members of First Parish live in Canton – we are in fact a Neponset River Unitarian Universalist Community – but all of us should be concerned about any effort to diminish the support of our shared Unitarian Universalist values and principles – one of which is “equity,” in which we declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion. This is the foundation of the work of the Canton Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee – and of DEI work everywhere.

I am proposing that we let our Town of Canton Select Persons know how vital it is to support the CDEI financially. This may seem a small matter, but if we do not speak out on this, or on any attacks to our democracy and our moral duty, there may be no one to speak out when someone walks into our sanctuary and demands us to turn over vulnerable people in our midst.

As one of our former FPUU ministers, the Rev. Diane Teichert, was fond of suggesting – “Speak truth to power with love.”