It's come to this

A Catholic university in St. Louis has taken down a statue of a Catholic missionary over complaints that its depiction of Catholic conversion efforts represents a legacy of white supremacy, The College Fix reported.

The statue at Jesuit-run Saint Louis University (SLU) is of Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet, who evangelized American Indians during the 1800s and has several cities and schools in the U.S. named after him. It shows him holding a crucifix aloft as he ministers to two American Indians, who both look up to him in awe…

The complaints that De Smet’s conversion efforts are an unsuitable topic for a statue are ironic on several levels. First, his conversion efforts and those of other Jesuits were quite successful; DeSmet successfully converted the Flathead Indians and thousands of others, and Christianity is still the largest religion among American Indians. In some ways, attacking the statue is similar to attacking one of the Irish being ministered to by Saint Patrick, as Patrick was also a foreign missionary.

Not only that, but De Smet was a trusted friend of the Indians who helped them negotiate with the U.S. government and who, in his writings, preserved a great deal of information about their culture and traditional way of life.