Schnucks crucifix debate heats up
Culinaria manager Tom Collora, Jr. works the phones at the customer service counter on Sept. 15. Photo by Robert Cohen.
Today’s A1 story about a crucifix on display at the new downtown Schnucks, called Culinaria, is creating a lot of traffic on stltoday.com.
And I’m getting a ton of phone calls and e-mails from people supporting Tom Collora, the store’s manager. Many of those readers feel like Christianity is under attack in American society, and that newspapers are the voice of such a movement.
Many of the callers are angry - both at those who have complained about the crucifix, and at the newspaper for reporting the story.
Some have used language we wouldn’t be able to print in the newspaper. Two have said they were canceling their subscriptions. One suggested a large swatch of his fellow Americans “go back to their own countries.”
Many more have (calmly) made valid points about cherished, Constitutionally-protected American values, like freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Only a couple have called to say they agree with those who have complained to Schnucks about the crucifix. These people - like those mentioned in the story - say a secular grocery store chain that serves a wide variety of people, who practice a wide variety of faiths, should remain unadorned by any religious iconography or symbolism.
Some have pointed out that Schnucks caters to Jewish customers, especially at its Ladue Crossing store. This was a point that - like many others - was cut from the story because of space. It’s a newspaper, after all, and we can’t cover every angle of an issue in 30 column inches.
Karen Aroesty, the Anti-defamation League director I quoted in the story, told me yesterday about how an entire aisle in the Ladue store is devoted to kosher and other Jewish food products. Members of the Jewish Orthodox community who live nearby frequent the store because its managers pay attention to their food needs.
Beth Damsgaard-Rodriguez, executive director of Interfaith Partnership/Faith Beyond Walls (and who also had to be cut from the story for length reasons) made the point that religious displays in secular grocery stores are typically either for food-labeling purposes, or to advertise to religious shoppers that they can buy particular foods that adhere to religious laws. In other words, a commercial display to attract shoppers, not a permanent display of the store manager’s faith.
“It would be common, of course, to see crosses, near a display of Easter lillies, or to see dreidels near a Hannukah display,” she said. “But this is along lines of a permanent display and the question is how that is perceived by customers of other faiths and would it affect their shopping?”
Additionally, in the September 9th edition of the Jewish Light - the same edition that published Lori Weinstock’s letter to the editor about the Schnucks crucifix issue - there was a full-page Schnucks ad wishing the St. Louis Jewish community a happy new year (Rosh Hashanah, and the High Holidays, begin this coming weekend) - “You’ll find gefilte fish and more in our Kosher Food Department.”
I asked Lori Willis, Schnucks communications director, if the company was religiously sensitive only when it was commercially beneficial. Here’s what she said:
Any number of people in the Ladue community have worked closely with us. We’ve partnered with many customers on what types of services we offer. Insensitivity is not what has kept us in business for 70 years. We’re family owned and privately held, and that extends to the people who work with us as well. We’ve worked hard to make sure our customers have the products they want and need. [Allowing Collora to display the crucifix downtown] was not an insensitive decision. It was made with great sensitivity.
Others have brought up the fact that the Arsenal Schnucks, the one on the Hill that Collora managed for a generation, has had Christian symbolism up in the store for years and years. I’ve received some calls from readers who said they had complained to Schnucks in the past about crucifixes in the Arsenal Schnucks.
But many more have said that given the Italian history of the Hill, it made as much contextual sense to display Catholic symbolism as it does to create an Italian feel at the eastern end of the store.
The ADL’s Aroesty:
Schnucks is a community institution, not just a grocery store. (Culinaria) is in a unique location - it’s not the Hill. For all the years the crucifixes were present in the Hill Schnucks, we wouldn’t have expected anyone to complain. It may be that because of the Catholic population on the Hill, no one even paid attention to it. At the (new) location at 9th and Olive, which reflects a more diverse community, that’s not so easy.
Tim Townsend has been the religion reporter at the Post-Dispatch since June 2004. He previously covered personal finance and consumer news for The Wall Street Journal. He holds master's degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Divinity School. In 2005 he won the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year Award, given by the Religion Newswriters Association. 
This is a free country. We have the right to display what we like in our homes, stores, offices, or where ever as long as the owner/employer is ok with it. If you do not like it do not go to that location. Simple as that. If you are offended by someone else’s religion, you need to get a life. We are all different and we will not like the same things or believe the same things.
To start, the idea that a religion that 80% of Americans are part of, including the president, most of the Congress, 7 of 9 Supreme Court Justices, and the Mayor of St Louis; along with probably a good portion of the PD newsstaff, is under attack, is just simply crazy.
To start, put me in the camp that thinks that this display is inappropriate. I actually think that the picture in the paper does not convey the same message that the picture above (that accompanied the on-line version of the article). Showing the crucifix in context has a much more chilling (especially to this product of Catholic education) effect than the picture in the paper. It is ironic that the crucifix is hanging directly over the security camera, as one of God’s many talents, as we were taught, is as the Supreme “security camera” that sees everything you do to know if you sinned.
Seriously, does this guy not have an office he can display it it?
I’d like to point out that taking offense is a choice. I see many things, every day, that COULD offend me. However, I choose to not be offended. It takes too much energy.
In this case, those who are offended are choosing that. A crucifix in a grocery store (or any other public establishment) is offensive only to those who want to be offended by it.
In the last weeks, there has been much talk about forming a more civil society. I would suggest that one of the things that needs to happen to make things more civil is for everyone to take a deep breath and choose to “live and let live”, and ask, “how important is it?”
If the presence of a crucifix in a grocery store offends, then don’t shop there. It’s not that big a deal, is it? In the community I live in, there is one Hospital, and it has always been a Catholic establishment. There is a crucifix in every patient room. I’d suggest that might be a bigger problem for some than one in a grocery store, don’t you think?
Excellent background to the story.
Two thoughts. First, this man’s office is where the crucifix is displayed, and if the company gives him permission, most anybody would have no problem with such personal office symbols. However, since his office is open to the general public, and in fact sharing open walls with the rest of the store, it is in a much less personal space cf a private office. In fact, instead of expressing a personal statement, a symbol such as a crucifix occupying a wall in a store like this reads visually as a kind of territorial marking or shrine.
Second, I am actually heartened to see Shnucks stand behind their employee, saying in effect that they have such respect and appreciation for his work that if a customer forces them to choose between the employee or the customer, they’ll let the customer walk out. This loyalty and confidence in the people a company employs is far too rare today.
The Bible advises against it in every aspect, and I wouldn’t do it. What else can one say? Its a free country.
The guy can worship Harry Potter for all I care. Is he sacrificing small animals in produce? Who cares?
One more thought…
The fact that this is becoming an issue says something very troubling. It says something about the state of Religion in America today. It suggests that to many people, Religion is a negative thing. Why is this? And, importantly for the religious communities, what can be done about it?
After all, there was a time when if you knew the religious affiliation of someone you did business with, then that fact told you something about how they did their business. Mostly, it stood for honorable and fair dealing, and good quality, and so on. When did that change?
As an ethical humanist, I have no problem with the generic display of religious symbols, though I wonder if a Islamic crescent or a symbol of some other less popular religion or of humanism would be as well accepted.
But that’s beside the point.
What I object to is the particular symbol chosen. A crucifix contains the image of a man being tortured to death. This is not an image I would want my young children exposed to. I find the fact that a crucifix hangs in every classroom of every Catholic school profoundly disturbing.
A plain cross is different, since what it represents is taught, and I can choose to teach it to my children when they are ready.
I wonder how supporting the Christian community would be if the item on display was an “imagine no religion” sign on a mock stained glass background. Given the perception seems to be that it does not even belong on a paid billboard, I doubt many Christians in the community would support it being displayed prominently in a grocery store. If the rules are different for displays by Christians vs others, it would seem to be a matter of bigotry to me.
Simian
hs,
We disagree on this one.
The fact that it is creating such attention only supports the underlying sense that it does not work and is a temptation.
Even those who are not Christian sense the pride and arrogance in it. We are warned against this. People are tempted to ignore it by saying they don’t care, or to make a mockery of it. It generates irresponsible thoughts, unspoken judgements, meanings of misunderstanding or worse, resentment. It is presented callously and without repsonsibility for its impact.
It is a temptation.
If a person shares that something offends, why do we dismiss it? To dismiss the concerns freely shared as wrong, no matter how they are stated or characterize, denies the message in them.
Some may inherently know our faith better than we.
Icons work in safe places. This is not a safe place for such an icon.
Acts are what work in the world. Nailing a sacred symbol, such as a crucifix, on a wall is not one of them. I am not saddened by this. It affirms the text, and the wisdom in it.