Today, on his birthday, I went back and deleted Cesar Chavez from my list of saints.

In January I completed a year-long devotional on past and modern “saints,” people whose example in faith and justice we can look up to. This year-long commitment was both a personal and a pastoral exercise for me. I think we need examples to face our current fascist regime in a time of apocalyptic social and environmental change. We learn from history, not only about how to avoid certain dangers, but to be inspired to do the right thing when faced with impossible choices. We draw courage from people like Dolores Huerta, Dorothy Day, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

On this day last year, I included Cesar Chavez in my daily devotional. In the last few months, we have learned that he committed serial sexual abuse of women leaders, including Dolores Huerta, among others.

“Apocalypse” means “revealing,” or revelation. We live in an apocalyptic time in which it is becoming clearer to wider and wider audiences that so much of the economic and political oppression of the world is tied up with patriarchy and the pervasiveness of sexual abuse, harassment, and exploitation. This apocalypse forces a re-evaluation of who we publicly memorialize and honor.

I know very well that many of the saints I’ve included in my list can be problematic. I wrestled with their inclusion. Martin Luther was an anti-semite. Mohandas Gandhi expressed racist and anti-Black attitudes. I think it’s important to recognize that problematic legacies are also part of sainthood. As Martin Luther said, we are simultaneously sinners and saints. I tried to note in my devotional where those legacies were mixed.

For me, there is a bright and unfuzzy line between attitudes and actions. I like to think most of the people I included in my list of saints could learn and do better if they were still around. But certain actions of these historical figures, like sexual assault or human trafficking, belie a level of self-deception and irreverence for the Image of God in our neighbor that merit rejection from hagiography.

Why lift up the saints? I am not interested in propagandizing certain figures of the past. I’m interested in learning from them. How did they think about their lives and their mission on earth? How did they maintain the courage to face physical pain, public humiliation, and even death for what they believed was right? How did they pray when they felt the sting of disappointment or felt forsaken by God? What can we learn from them—not just what they wrote, but how they lived?

I know there are cynics who would say, “Better if we had no saints at all. We shouldn’t put people on a pedestal.” I couldn’t disagree more.

The people running this fascist regime are so self-centered and arrogant that they have no heroes. Their only interest in knowing the truth about history is to create more propaganda. They believe the truth should be hidden, especially when it involves human trafficking and sexual abuse, whether it happened a century or only months ago. I believe the truth—even uncomfortable truth—sets us free. I hope all of the people I wrote about over the past year would agree.

While I feel disappointment at removing Cesar Chavez from my list, I feel even more justified in including Dolores Huerta, whose truth-telling and vulnerability in publicly sharing her story helps “shame change sides.” I want to share two of her quotes on this day, both of which I hear in light of revelation about sexual violence:

Prayer: God of Truth, we have nothing to fear from the sunlight. You promise that everything will be brought into the light. Bring it quickly, Lord! Amen.