#culture – Intentional Catholic

April 3, 2023

Guns. Again.

When the school shooting happened last week, I was on a much needed, long-delayed 36-hour overnight away with my husband.

One of the ways I’ve been trying to deal with the question of anger versus seeking Godly justice is simply to cool down my emotional temperature by insulating myself from the news. It’s hard to keep the temperature down when you’re constantly being triggered.

These days, most of my car time is devoted to my chromosomally-gifted daughter’s love for pop music, so I don’t really have time to listen to much news. When I do turn on the news, I often feel my heart crunching, my chest compressing my breath, and I recognize that stillness is what I actually need. So I often turn off the radio altogether and drive in silence.

Thus, I didn’t actually know there was a shooting until pretty late, and it wasn’t until Friday that I realized it happened at a private Christian school.

My first reaction, before I knew it was a Christian school, was that it wasn’t worth getting angry, because I know perfectly well nothing is going to change. A horrible, jaded reaction, but one I’ve been conditioned to by the incredibly dysfunctional relationship between American politics and the idolatry that is gun culture.

My second reaction happened the following morning, when a neighbor flagged me down, near-hysterical, to tell me that while she’d been out walking with her twin two-year-old grandchildren, she’d found a loaded gun lying on the sidewalk. (Well, anyway, it had a clip in it.) Less than two blocks from my house. “It’s spring break!” she cried. “Any kid could have found that and killed themselves!”

That was when I got angry. Because she is right, and the idolatry surrounding gun ownership—yes, I just said it again—insists that “freedom” (which is not the Catholic definition of freedom, but some twisted secular one—ironic, given that gun advocates are nearly universally Christian) is more important than protecting life. I spent a lot of time that day reminding myself that the world to come is the point, not how close—or not close—we come to mirroring the Kingdom in this one.

My third reaction happened when I realized this time, a Christian school had been targeted. I thought, I wonder if NOW it will make a difference. Because the people who have made guns an idol to worship almost universally profess Christian faith AND already believe themselves to be a persecuted minority.

Rather than attempt to reflect myself, since I’m clearly not the right person to do so, here are two extremely level-headed, not-polemical, Christianity-centered responses to the shooting, and by extension, to the political movement that has enshrined rigid resistance to any gun reform above life, human dignity, and Gospel values.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/bulletin/nashville-school-shooting-covenant-presbyterian.html

https://haleystewart.substack.com/p/homeschooling-is-not-the-answer-to

March 14, 2023March 8, 2023

So when CAN we speak?

Last week’s post on the double standard between MAGA devotees and “wokeism” began as an attempt to discern whether or not to reach out to the podcaster and the guest and push back on said double standard.

It didn’t really help, except insofar as I realized that such communications have to be made in love. Actually, I suppose it did help, because I realized: when you have no relationship whatsoever with a person, how CAN you reach out in loving correction? So that answered my dilemma about whether or not to reach out.

The problem is that you can’t talk to people you don’t know, because difficult conversations have to happen in the context of authentic relationship. But you also can’t talk to people you ARE in relationship with, because it damages the relationship.

So how are we ever to escape this toxic, excrement-filled antithesis of the Gospel that we as a society have landed ourselves in?

And how are we to evangelize? Because that’s literally, fundamentally the call of discipleship! To preach good news and bring hope.

Of course, come to think of it, neither side in this debate—leave wokeism out of it and let’s just talk about so-called social justice Catholics versus so-called “traditionalists”—people who believe their world views are formed by the Gospel, and yet hold opposing views. None of us come across as spreading good news. Or hope. We all just sound nasty, toxic, and every bit as excrement-filled as the secular spaces around us.

And I am very aware, these days, of how such hypocrisy, nastiness, toxicity, judgment, and lack of self-awareness is, even now, pushing people right out of Christianity. With good reason, honestly.

I think there is a desire we all share at some level. It goes like this: we didn’t USED to have this problem, so surely if we just turned back the clock, things would go back to The Way Things Used To Be.

The trouble is that The Way Things Used To Be looks rosier in the rearview than it actually was. In the sainted time before All The Hard Questions, we had domestic abuse where women were told to to stay and put up with it; we had clerical abuse in the shadows and overt discrimination against minorities and poisoning of the waters so extreme, a river caught fire, and no pathway for women to give of any of the gifts God gave them except that of motherhood.

There WAS no glorious day when things in society or the Church were as God intended. There is only different dysfunction.

But I am rambling. I wrote that wokeism/MAGA post to try to discern God’s will, and when I did, I found another, more fundamental one, lying beneath it: Then when do we speak? And how?

I still don’t have the answer to that one.

March 7, 2023March 3, 2023

Wokeism vs. MAGA…

Here’s a thing I would very much like to understand: how the word “woke” can be used as an insult by Christians.

Look up “awake scriptures” on your search engine and see what comes up. Awake is a GOOD THING for a Christian. It is literally all over the New Testament.

Honestly, I don’t really understand what “woke” even means to the people who use it as a pejorative. It seems to be just the latest demeaning, un-Christlike insult for people who lean left. (Feminazi, libs, libt—(will not finish that one, you get the idea).

Last week, I decided if I am looking for podcasts, I should try to find some that are specifically Catholic. So I did a basic search, and I happened across an episode that featured a woman talking about being “awake, not woke.” I had a pretty visceral knee-jerk reaction against this, but I thought, perhaps this is precisely the thing I need to listen to. Maybe this idea of “awake, not woke” is the middle ground I am looking for.

It wasn’t. Middle ground, I mean. No, it was a laundry list of why everything about “woke” culture was evil. I believe that word was even used.

The history this woman claimed was presented as a settled fact with not one detail of evidence that would help me even know how to begin fact checking it. So I’ll leave that aside.

But among the other arguments presented against “wokeism” were a plethora that were listed with no self-awareness. In other words, every single one of them applies to the MAGA crowd just as much as it applies to the “woke” crowd. For instance:

Wokeism functions like a cult, wherein people stop thinking critically. (Also true of MAGA? Yup.)

It’s all about power. (Also true of MAGA? Yup.)

People cut others out of their lives because they disagree. (Also true of MAGA? Yup.)

It leads naturally to violence, i.e. the BLM riots. (Ummmm…. January 6, anyone?????)

It is about indoctrination. (And laws that suppress historical realities because it might make whites “feel bad,” allowing only a narrative of American greatness narrative? That’s not indoctrination?)

Using “privilege” as a pejorative. (Like using “liberal” or “woke” as pejoratives?)

Targeting Christians with violence. (Like… I don’t know, the increase in hate crimes?)

It has control of media, which misleads people via bias. (Ummmmm…. in the last week we learned that Fox News knew they were telling lies about the election and about Dominion, and kept doing it because they thought otherwise their audience would jump ship for more extreme far-right sources… How does this not count toward calculations of media bias?)

I am laying all this out because I am honestly baffled. I look at everything in the world through the lens of my Christian faith. Through the teachings of Jesus. And for sure, some things in our culture are really far out there. (Although a lot of it has to do with greed and the idolatry of money, and nobody in Christian World ever seems to see that as a problem…)

I would have much more sympathy for someone who wanted to call out the problems in the far left if they would acknowledge that THE SAME PROBLEMS EXIST ON THE FAR RIGHT. At least as much.

But instead, there’s a double standard. All these things are problems when it’s on the left, but when it’s on the right, it… makes us a Christian nation? I don’t get it. Why is “wokeism” bad, and MAGAism isn’t?

There’s an old truism about how eventually, when you go far enough left and far enough right, you end up in the same place. Hence, you have Hitler on the right and Stalin on the left. But they’re both brutal dictators. Eventually, the extremes wrap around and hold hands.

I know this sounds like my usual rant, but I am genuinely baffled. I really want someone to explain this. Because from my point of view as a Catholic, we cannot demonize one variety of extremism while wholeheartedly embracing another. That’s not Christ at all. Jesus had plenty to say about people who held one standard for themselves while condemning others.

#unworthyofchrist

February 20, 2023February 17, 2023

Truth Over Tribe talks extremism

Turning my little corner of the web over to the Truth Over Tribe podcast today, because I thought this was so valuable.

Their most recent guest is a Christian woman who worked counterterrorism under George W. Bush and came back to work under Trump, so she has seen the shift from worrying about Islamic extremists to home-grown extremists. Her perspective on what has happened politically in our country was really interesting, but most interesting was the nuance on what constitutes extremism and how there is a “funnel” effect that takes people who aren’t extremists and can radicalize them. There were good messages for me as well, as a person who is alarmed by this trend and doesn’t always handle communications around it in a healthy, holy way. Really good listening.

https://podcast.choosetruthovertribe.com/episodes/extremism-elizabeth-neumann?hsLang=en

December 18, 2022December 17, 2022

Thoughts On Homelessness For Christians

Confession: Recently, I got into it online over homeless camps in my hometown.

Person A: Those camps are an eyesore. When is the city going to do something?

Me (drawing on past conversations on the same topic): The thing is, everyone has to sleep SOMEWHERE. But people say “not on public land, and not on vacant private property either, and don’t you DARE build a shelter for them because that will just encourage more of them to come!” It’s like people think if we’re mean enough to them, they’ll just cease to exist.

Person B (paraphrased): These people are lazy freeloaders and the city should not allow them to panhandle at the highway interchanges.

Me: how do you know they’re lazy? Have you talked to them? I’ve been feeling my conscience twinged for years. I’ve started keeping food in the car so I can give them SOMETHING. It’s good for us to look them in the eye and see the face of God, and have our conscience and our privilege tweaked.

Person B: My conscience is not “tweaked” and I have NO PRIVILEGE OTHER THAN I WORK MY BUTT OFF!”

Me (privately): That person has definitely had their conscience and privilege tweaked, or they wouldn’t be that defensive. God, I put this one in your hands now, because I clearly am powerless here.

Person C (in the style of “mic drop”): “Those who will not work, neither should they eat.” 2 Thessalonians.

Me: You can’t take that out of context. What about Matthew 25? Paul was building on the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus never put any such conditions on taking care of people.

Person B: Those people are lazy. They don’t want work, they just want a handout.

Me: Have you offered them work? I haven’t, and I fully recognize my own failures in that. This is why I keep food in the cars for them.

Person B: Well, if that makes your little bleeding heart feel better, go for it.

Me: (unfollows thread.)

It is horrifying, how un-Christian Christians can be. And then how bewildered we all act that people are calling b.s. and leaving Christianity.

In one town, a Catholic city councilperson fought tooth and nail to prevent an ecumenical group from creating a winter warming shelter. They threw obstacle after obstacle in the way.

In another church filled with people who do, in fact, care about social justice, people resisted hosting a similar shelter because they want to feel safe in their church and they wouldn’t feel safe if there were homeless people hanging around.

I am realizing that these failures within the Christian community to live out the Gospel call are not a function of right or left, although I have often thought of them that way. They are a failure of connecting the dots between what we claim to believe and where the rubber meets the road.

For the record, let’s discuss that passage from 2 Thessalonians. Because it came up, first in the Lectionary, and then in its full context in the Bible in a Year.

In the context, Paul was talking about how he had the right to expect people to support him financially while he was among them, but he chose not to do so because he didn’t want to burden them. And so he said, “You within the Christian community, follow our example.”

In other words, he’s talking to people who, according to Acts, were already living in community, sharing all their worldly wealth so that no one went without.

THAT is the context of this verse. It is NOT meant to be used, weapon-like, as a bludgeon against the poor in an economic system where the gap between rich and poor is sinfully wide.

So if you want to use this verse AFTER you’ve folded the homeless population into community, THEN you have the right. Until then, it is abuse of Scripture.

October 10, 2022October 10, 2022

A little less talk, a little more action

You know that saying: whenever you point a finger at someone else, four fingers are pointing back at you? (Well, it’s really three, as you can see, but…)

I think about that a lot in the context of Intentional Catholic. Anything I write, integrity forces me to turn back on myself, mirror-like.

I’ve been struggling through the Bible in a Year podcast… valuing it for the sake of hearing Scripture in a way that helps me grasp the historical context, but struggling because sometimes the commentaries really set me off. The one on Matthew 25—which is sort of the whole foundation of Intentional Catholic–pretty much gave permission for people to say “I’m clothing my naked children and feeding my hungry family. I’m covered.” In fairness, I do not believe that’s what he intended to convey, but it certainly does give tacit permission to ignore the plight of ACTUAL poverty and suffering.

Which is not to belittle feeding and clothing a family. I am up to the tips of my frizzy curls in caring for kids. It’s a real thing.

But it doesn’t negate our responsibility to the poor, marginalized, and vulnerable. First of all because keeping our kids fed and clothed is only a sliver of what keeps us so busy. The vast majority of what keeps us hopping is not essential. We could ALL cut back on some of our luxury and busy-ness and refocus some of that energy on the poor, marginalized, and vulnerable.

But as I sat there stewing and fuming over this, it occurred to me that me sitting in my house writing blogs and social media posts is not clothing the naked and feeding the hungry, either.

Here’s the thing. The conventional wisdom is that not everyone is called to everything. We are supposed to find what we, individually, are called to.

But I am an Enneagram 1, which means I’m very concerned with Getting It Right. For myself AND for the larger world. Enneagram 1s are deeply susceptible to scrupulousness. (Scrupulosity?)

The trouble is, when I, as an Enneagram 1, try to parse out what I feel most passionate about, I can’t do it. It all matters!

I have a child with a disability. Our health care system of access & payment is deeply dysfunctional and a burden on families.

My conscience stings every time I see a homeless person at an exit ramp. How dare we drive by, avoiding eye contact to preserve our own comfort? How dare people on my “Nextdoor” app call them “zombies,” as if these are not human beings with the same innate dignity as themselves?

I see the chaos and suffering that causes people in Central America to flee for the U.S.—and the way some people here villainize those who are desperate for the same security we treat as a divine right. How can I not be passionate about refugee and immigration?

I have godchildren and family members whose skin color will make them a target when they grow up. How can I not rail against those who deny systemic racism?

I had infertility that the medical community wanted to treat by slapping bandaids on it (birth control, artificial procedures) while ignoring the problems that caused it. We have a family because an NFP doctor took the time to find the root cause (PCO + agricultural chemicals in the water—how can I not be passionate about the environment?). So when I see how abortion is the symptom of a host of other problems that are systemic in our culture, how can I fail to rage at those who want to address the symptom while ignoring the causes?

I don’t know what my “one” issue is, because dang it, they’re all equally important. Thank you very much, Enneagram 1. But I can’t do everything. For years, I’ve been trying to learn to respect my limits, to create healthy boundaries.

But sooner or later you have to say “yes,” too.

So for now, I am working a shift at the Food Bank into my schedule, and exploring volunteer possibilities with Refugee and Immigration Services. Because at least there’s a known entry point there.

I am not going to stop talking. But I’m going to start mixing more action in with it.

September 14, 2022

America the Beautiful at Mass

I woke up early on Sunday morning to the sound of a much-needed long, soaking rain. I laid in bed a long time, alternating prayers of gratitude with wrestling something that is probably going to get me in trouble.

Sunday, of course, was 9/11. At my parish on any national commemoration, it’s become tradition to sing America the Beautiful as a recessional. I’ve been in a leadership role in music for twenty-two years now, and in that time my feelings on this have gone back and forth multiple times. I’ve led the song PLENTY of times.

America the Beautiful is a beautiful song. It’s an aspirational song—in other words, it describes what America is meant to be.

But I’m not sure it belongs at Mass.

For a long time, the single phrase, “God mend thine every flaw” has saved it for me in a liturgical context. But Sunday morning, lying in bed, I thought:

We have a strong contingent of Americans who are systematically trying to erase America’s flaws from history books. They don’t think we need to know them. They think it’s unpatriotic to name America’s national sins… even though this same philosophy calls America to “get back to its Christian values,” which would include the reality that acknowledging our failures is intrinsic to the practice of Christianity.

In contemplative circles lately, I have been encountering the idea of holding conflicting ideas in tension. America has been a place of great freedom, innovation, and human achievement. It has also been, in the same places and the same times, a place of great oppression, injustice, and hedonism and the pursuit of money without concern for the good of others. (A modern example: Regulation is looked at as bad because people perceive it as stymying economic growth. By our national actions, then, we demonstrate that we believe money is more important than safety, health, and the dignity of human beings made in God’s image. Theology of the Body in action: it is through our bodies that we do–or don’t–make God’s image visible in the world.)

I love America the Beautiful. But I think when we tear up singing it, it’s not because of what America COULD be or SHOULD be, but because of a false sense that this is what America IS.

Christian life—for Catholics especially—is supposed to embrace the tension between what we aspire to be and the ways we fall short. We have penitential seasons. We are supposed to go to confession often.

But most of us don’t, and even those of us who do (full disclosure: I am not one of them, by default of busy-ness, and I recognize that’s just an excuse) don’t recognize the flaws in the way we view patriotism.

In recent years, a large segment of Christianity has wrapped up the cross in the flag. A lot of people have pursued, and more have justified, or at least winked at, some pretty heinous things in pursuit of that false worship. False, because God and patriotism are not the same thing. God comes first. Way, WAY before country.

There is no question that it is appropriate to sing America the Beautiful at patriotic events.

But at church?

Doesn’t singing America the Beautiful put things in the wrong order? Like, we put the nation in first place, highlighting its ideals and ignoring its failures, and then, as an afterthought, ask God to bless it?

I’m asking this as a legit question. I’m willing to listen to another perspective on this, for sure. Because of COURSE, it is totally appropriate to ask God to bless America. But what purpose does it serve to ignore the divided, toxic reality in which America exists right now and substitute an idealized version of America that never has really existed except in our hopes and prayers? Not a Godly one.

A lot of people died on 9/11. They deserve to be remembered. They deserve to be prayed for. They deserve to be remembered and prayed for at Mass. But America the Beautiful doesn’t do any of that. It shifts the focus away from the victims and substitutes rah-rah patriotism. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to sing, for instance, “On Eagle’s Wings” or “Be Not Afraid”?

If we want to show a proper priority of God and country, wouldn’t it be better to observe national holiday weekends with “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” or “This Is My Song, O God of All The Nations”?

Basically, we use America the Beautiful because it’s beloved on a secular level. We do it because of the “pastoral” judgment. But I’m not convinced it actually IS pastoral in impact.

As I said, I am willing to be convinced, but I ask that if you respond, please do so courteously and respectfully, and with prayer, as I prayed through the discernment of this post. I am putting this out there for respectful discussion in the spirit of Jesus Christ.

August 29, 2022August 26, 2022

Reflections from the intersection of the prophets and the Sermon on the Mount

I’ve been listening to the Bible in a Year, and the long exploration of the prophets, where I am now, has been quite illuminating. First of all, I never really processed that a whole lot of the prophetic books don’t mean “Israel” as the nation of Israel, but the northern kingdom. It clarified for me that Judah is in fact what I spent most of my life thinking of as Israel. I just figured prophets were speaking to the whole nation of Israel all the time, but that’s not actually true. That’s why we hear so much about Judah. Not every prophet is speaking to everyone. They have specific crowds they are called to talk to, to address specific problems in those communities.

I have been wrestling with the idea of the prophetic call for quite some time. Priest, prophet, king: through baptism, we are all called to all these things. Prophets, by definition, have the task of saying what the considers-ourselves-religious crowd doesn’t want to hear, because it is inconvenient and uncomfortable. Occasionally they talk to the pagans (the unchurched), but mostly they’re talking to people who think they are God’s chosen and are not living it.

As I listen to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel et al rail against their various audiences, what strikes me is how blatant the idolatry seems. If people were burning incense and sacrificing children on mountains and building “gods” out of wood and gilding them with gold, that’s pretty flagrant!

And yet I feel that most of the charges being leveled against God’s people in ancient times still ring heartbreakingly true today. But our idols are more subtle. Money is a big one. I struggle with its influence in my own life and household. Politics is HUGE, and individual political figures & issues, in particular. Idolatry. No one who professes Christianity wants to acknowledge that, but I do not see how anyone could argue that I am wrong. I’ve never had anyone do so. When I point it out, they just pretend I didn’t say it and move on. If you can’t answer the charge, it seems to me, that’s an invitation to examine one’s conscience. It certainly has been in my life. That’s how I’ve ended up where I am.

The last few weeks, I have also been listening to Fr. Richard Rohr’s series of talks on the Sermon On the Mount. It was recorded shortly after the fall of Communism, and his references to Communism versus capitalism (isn’t it odd how we capitalize one, to demonize it, and not the other?) are startling both because they are so out of context and still so right on point, because 30-odd years later we, the Christian capitalists, are still arguing about communism.

This series of talks was really eye-opening. I highly recommend it. To break open what the Kingdom really is, and what it means to live in the Kingdom—to acknowledge how far off our so-called Christian culture is from what Jesus actually called us to do—to be challenged in our judgments both as liberals and conservatives… it’s a very Christ-centered, radical approach to the intersection of faith and the real world. It is giving me a lot to think about. I don’t have it worked out; I’m just beginning to process. In fact, I think I might go back to the beginning and start again. (FYI, it is on Hoopla for audio download, which is how I am listening, so check your library.)

So that’s what my spiritual life looks like at present. I’m not sure how valuable any of this is to anyone out there—I feel like effective blog posts are supposed to present a problem and solve it, and I’m more just faith sharing here—but who knows? There has to be some reason I felt compelled to write all out, right?

June 28, 2022June 28, 2022

Being Prolife in a Post-Roe America

Photo by Mauru00edcio Eugu00eanio on Pexels.com

For several weeks I’ve been wrestling with what to say about the expected court decision overturning Roe. It took me several days after the decision to get my thoughts to coalesce. Truthfully, as raw as this issue is right now in our country, I don’t really want to wade into the conversation at all.

But given that I grew up in the pro-life movement and have been fairly opinionated on what being pro-life ACTUALLY means (as opposed to what it has been made into), I feel I should.

I am glad this day has come. Life IS precious. The unborn ARE human beings whose dignity we, as Christians, are obligated to protect.

But beyond that foundational level, I worry. Why? Because the methods undertaken in the political sphere to achieve this good end demonstrate a belief that a worthy end justifies any means, no matter how far from Gospel values.

Lately I’ve thought a lot about something we used to say when we were teaching NFP for the Couple to Couple League: a morally upright goal does not justify immoral means. This was how we explained the difference between NFP and contraception. Wanting to provide for one’s family is praiseworthy. Robbing a bank to do it is wrong. Period. Planning a family is a holy thing, but it matters how.

The problem around abortion is that the “pro-life” party has been, for more than two years, enthusiastically and willfully embracing outright lies about stolen elections. It has been dismissing the violent attempt to overthrow the fundamental basis of our country—the peaceful transfer of power. It has been tossing out false equivalences and red herrings (like CRT) to avoid facing up to real injustices that have been baked into our system and left lasting ripple effects that cannot be dealt with without governmental intervention. It has been prioritizing wealth and money (i.e. low taxes, corporate interests, and deregulation) above caring for our neighbor. To say nothing of guns (how can any person claim to be pro-life while placing gun ownership above human life?)

The problem we have is that all this has been winked at–and in many cases, vehemently and rabidly defended–by good people. The most acknowledgment we’ve gotten is, “Yes, but without life, none of that matters!”

But it does.

It all matters. If the measuring stick is Jesus–and of course it is–it ALL matters. Uncomfortable truths are still true.

On the other hand, I’ve been equally baffled and appalled by the rhetoric from pro-choice people—especially those who claim to be Christians. I understand and affirm the desire to advocate for women in impossible situations. But to do so while blindly—is it willful blindness?—ignoring the uncomfortable truth of the life of the human being sacrificed in abortion? I can’t understand that, either. We live in an age where we can see inside the womb. How can we doubt that those children are human beings with dignity equal to that of the marginalized, discriminated against, or suffering?

And yet.

Some of my pro-choice friends have shared things in the past few days that I think carry truths that we, pro-life Christians, need to have the courage to face up to honestly. Here is one (click here to see the whole post, as this is only a partial screen sho t ):

I have maintained for years that we were going about this fight in the wrong order. There are valid concerns put forward by abortion rights advocates. Abortion is the wrong answer, but the problems are real: poverty, inequality of education and opportunity, health care that is not, no matter what anyone says, the best in the world (at least in our way of accessing it–and I have more right to have an opinion on that matter than most, given our family’s medical history–the insurance system serves Mammon, not people). If we had been willing to address those problems, I don’t think we’d have reached this point of poisonous, toxic division over this issue. Now that we’ve done it in the wrong order—at the very least, it should have been done concurrently—the pro choice advocates are right. We ARE responsible to step in on these issues.

The trouble is, abortion was easy to oppose, because criminalizing abortion costs US nothing. We don’t have to bear the burden. And yes, I use the word “burden” without apology. Pregnancy and parenthood IS a burden. No one who complains about parenting, ever, has any right to suggest otherwise. Which means none of us get to deny the word, because all of us complain. All of us feel the burden. It’s a joyful burden, a burden that sanctifies and gives as much as it asks of us—but it IS a burden, nonetheless.

So the quote below, which has been shared a lot, also resonates uncomfortably. It’s not perfect, but there is truth in it, and we have an obligation to examine our consciences.

Finally, this (pro-life) article, from Christianity Today, came closest to expressing what I have felt. A quick excerpt:

“(Pro-life Christians) inhabit the ambivalence of this moment, embracing a multitude of responses. … We must also admit that we are part of something larger than ourselves. Because just as was true for the women of Jerusalem, the destruction of children is too often the result of larger, collective sins.”

May 25, 2022May 25, 2022

Ho Hum, Another School Shooting

Image by Ray Shrewsberry • *** from Pixabay

I know this post will make no difference. Some people will react with cheers and the rest will rear up in defense of guns. They’ll use every worldly argument and not one Godly one, because there is no Godly argument for placing guns above human life.

In the larger world someone, probably multiple someones, will say we shouldn’t politicize this tragedy, therefore neatly sidestepping the glaring call to examine our collective conscience… yet again.

Many Christians will insist, again, that the gun isn’t the problem, it’s mental health—but won’t support public funds to address that problem, either. They’ll change the subject using whatever excuse they can find to bury the fact that the only places in the world with more gun violence than us are places riddled with gangs. To bury the fact that no one else in the developed world has as many guns in people’s hands as we do, or as many people dying from guns.

And nothing will change.

And yet, I will say it anyway, because it needs to be said:

Guns are an idol.

I’m not even angry. Just disgusted that Catholics who fight so hard for the innocent unborn, who believe themselves to be pro-life, can act as if guns are more important than the lives of innocent school children. Can go to bat looking for reasons to oppose the legislation that the U.S. bishops have been urging for years.

That’s all I have to say.