Posted on by WanderingNation

Pro Life, Truly?

Today during mass, our priest talked about the shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, highlighting the meaning of pro life; that it extends from before the cradle to the lip of the grave.

One thing that Catholics seem to be quite good at is vocal opposition to abortion and, to an extent, supporting the women who need help during and following a pregnancy – I would like to voice my full support of this. While there are plenty of Catholic organizations and Catholic individuals giving their time and money to pursuing the pro-life cause in many ways other than just fighting the sin of abortion, it often gets drowned out by the cacophony surrounding this abortion issue. Today, however, I would like to talk a bit more about the pro life issue, and how it extends much further than just the unborn and the infant.

One thing that I have come to realize is that being a good Catholic and being a good American are not always in line. Here, regarding the second amendment, I am again unsure if they can be reconciled. As someone who has been (and is, at least for now) very pro 2A, this has been something that is becoming more and more obvious of presenting at the very least an internal struggle and perhaps even more than that. During the homily, one line that stuck with me was that, to paraphrase, the second amendment did not come down from Sinai. As an American, I am fully in support of the 2A, with no restrictions, with the belief that without it, this country will descend into tyranny. As a Catholic, I never believed that this was in contradiction with any of my beliefs. But today, after that homily? I think that there is, perhaps, more to think about.

I spoke earlier about the American sickness, which manifests, all too often, through the awful tragedy of a shooting. I also spoke about the importance of welcoming God back into our society if we hope to combat this sickness, and make a more equitable and welcoming society for all, particularly those on the margins. I do not have a prescription that can fix this issue, but what I can suggest is that those of us, who believe in the sanctity of life and also support the second amendment, to at least begin to think through this issue, and think about what welcoming God back into society looks like. Is a society that is Godly one that has a gun in every hand? Is a society that supports those on the margins and gives care to those who cannot care for themselves one that allows weapons of war to be purchased with nothing but a cursory glance? I do not know, but I do know that I need to think about those questions, instead of dogmatic support of gun rights.

Posted on by WanderingNation

The American Sickness

America is not well. This is not a controversial statement. People from all walks of life, all beliefs and political leanings and religious bent, when honest, are forced to admit that the United States of America is ill, in a deep and pervasive sense. Perhaps the only point of contention on this is whether the disease is terminal – can America be saved, or must we shed the carcass?

When diagnosing, the prevailing method of education is to assess the symptoms, and then develop the diagnosis based upon what one has seen. This is done for mental illness, physical illness and even in our day to day lives, when making judgements centered on the people which make up our interactions. When looking at America, the symptoms are numerous: school shootings, fentanyl deaths among a larger opioid crisis among an even larger overmedication crisis, a dishonest and divisive media, untenably high housing prices, a lingering pandemic, an increasing inability to purchase adequate amounts of food for many Americans, significant numbers of homeless children (not to mention the adults), pervasive police brutality, and a plethora of other symptoms; not that they are less concerning, but only that they might be missed when looking at all these that would be deadly on their own.

In the face of the Uvalde and Buffalo massacres, we are yet again faced with this form of tragedy but, perhaps even more damning, we are again faced with the apathy that follows, as we Americans have become almost inured to these rampages. This apathy is perhaps the most concerning of all the symptoms, as it is always the emotion that seems to flood all people, after the immediate reactions from whatever tragedy we are faced with fades in immediacy. In this blog, I have often spoken about impotent rage, and this apathy always seems to pervade after our rage is confronted by our impotence to change the situations that our country is continually faced with. Apathy is only replaced when we are directly affected – when we know someone who is wasting away with a needle in their arm, when a family member is on the verge of homelessness because of soaring rent, when it is our grandparent that we are not allowed to see as they die in a hospital because of uncaring pandemic restrictions. This lack of care, except when we are directly affected, speaks to another symptom of the American sickness – the disintegration of community.

While symptoms can lead a shrewd individual to an accurate diagnosis, they can also lead one astray. Perhaps even more often than leading one astray, they take too much of our attention, and it is the symptom that is treated. While this can have beneficial effects, as I am positive addressing any of these symptoms listed above would, they do not attend to the underlying disease, and thus, at best, put a band aid on a severed artery. At worst, we can delude ourselves into thinking that the situation was handled, while the disease continues to metastasize. Addressing symptomology can only start once the disease has been accurately identified and the symptoms are attacked in a systematic manner, where one is aware of how one affects the other, so that there is long term change, with an eye on the next decade or three, not just on the next fiscal year.

So what is this disease? In many ways, to my eyes, it is the death of religion and community. We, as Americans, prize individuality to the point of danger. We idolize ourselves and our stories over the stories and challenges of our communities, our families and our country. In this hyper individualism, we have also placed ourselves above God, believing that through human rationality, through science, through politics or sheer will, we can attend to the ills that have plagued our nation for so long, and only continue to get worse. This is not the case. We cannot succeed in curing the cancer at the heart of this country, until we recognize that it is a cancer of spiritual and religious rot.

This is not to say that we can simply ask God to fix our problems, and sit back and watch as this is done. Rather, we must recognize that all our efforts need to be in service to Him, and not to our own selfish and short sighted goals. Our actions can only be tuned to success and the betterment of humanity when they are in line with the Heavenly will. In this country, all too often do we forget that the Divine will is not simply our own.

Attending to this disease begins first with compassion for the people around us, for the neighbors that have political signs on their doors that we despise, for the person begging at the corner of the gas station, for the woman struggling with the decision to abort because she has no support and no one to help her. By realizing that we are the servants to the lowest among us, by giving ourselves to those who are most needy around us, and by having compassion even for those that we cannot find a single common piece of earth that we share other than our shared humanity – this is how we can begin to address the symptoms that threaten to

Posted on by WanderingNation

Middle American Ennui

I am a Catholic, attending a shrinking parish.

I am a Ph.D student, attending a dying university, teaching struggling students on a shoestring budget.

I am a resident of the lower Midwest, driving on pockmarked roads, past crumbling buildings, with deflated housing prices and fallow fields.

I am a citizen of the USA, where trust in centuries old institutions is at an all time low, where the oligarchy has grown sacrilegiously wealthy, where people can work 60 hours a week and barely afford to subsit.

At what point does change become necessary? At what point does hope lose its power? In all honesty, even with the struggles that I gave, I am one of the lucky ones. What do we do for those who are not fortunate enough to have the blessings that I do – a fulfilling calling, a loving wife, a supportive family, a loving God? At what point do we force the issue to the fore and take control, instead of watching the country of which we are a part of slowly die in front of us and our children?

Posted on by WanderingNation

The New American Republic

Abolish the concept of “one” central ruler. One of the main worries of George Washington was that the presidency would become too much like a monarchy, and it seems his worries were proved, at least partially, true. With the willful abdication of power by Congress and the Senate, placing a massive weight of influence on the Office of the President and the Supreme Court, the United States is much closer to a monarchy today than it was just after declaring her freedom from one.

There needs to be a balance of power – some of it needs to be in the hands of the people, but there cannot be too much. Just as there has been an abdication of power by congress and the senate, we can see the origination of this relinquishment of control in the voting public. Often by no fault of their own, the common voter has been manipulated, swindled, bribed and beaten into certain voting patterns by wealthy individuals and organizations. In today’s economy and world, these “wealthy individuals and organizations” are mainly comprised of corporations, both domestic and international. This is an indictment on the whole of our Republic, and it encourages us to re-imagine what the ideal form of government should be. It has been proven, from Rome to the U.S.A., that a Republic inevitably crumbles into an oligarchy. Direct democracy is simply mob rule, which is the quickest way to oppress any form of minority, from gender, religion, ethnicity or any other demarcation. A balance must be struck between the rule of the many and the rule of the competent. The Founding Fathers attempted to do this, but they did not foresee the devolution into corporatism, nor can they be blamed for this lack of foresight.

A separation from political parties and blind adherence to a singular economic strategy is a necessity. Neither Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Feudalism nor any other economic system is capable of adequacy in a world with over 7 billion people and with pervasive globalization. A truly modern state is one that would implement the best of all economic systems, with the only requisite of implementation being that it provides the most benefit to her citizens, with no partiality based on dogma. On top of this, it is blindingly obvious to any modern American that there needs to be a remedy to the two-party system. It would be beneficial to keep in place the idea that all citizens have the right to hold office. At the same time, there needs to be an implementation of a competency check. If a surgeon is required to be licensed in order to have power over an individual’s life within the operating room, should not a politician be credentialed before being to have over the lives of hundreds of millions?

Those who are too poor to take care of themselves need a robust social safety net. Whether this be the infirm, the elderly, children, or those who are mentally and/or physically ill, no one should live in poverty. This will come at the cost of the rich. A progressive income tax needs to be put in place, targeting ultrawealthy individuals, but more importantly, targeting ultra-powerful and wealthy corporations. America has become strangled by corporate power, resulting in myriad injustices. Wealth is not inherently evil, but it becomes so when glorified and placed above the health of those without it. Wealth is a tool to achieve a goal, it is not a goal in and of itself. At least, it should not be.

We must eschew the pursuit of happiness and instead pursue contentment, for our contentment has been stolen from us. The growth and plenty that defined the American Dream has been destroyed by those that were blinded by the benefits of their actions, failing to see the consequences of those same said actions. Happiness is inherently frivolous and fleeting, based on any number of changing desires. Contentment is purchased by the sweat of the brow, while happiness is bought by the desires of the loins, the stomach and a desire to keep apathy at bay.

Our new American Republic must be planted in the soil that our forefathers cultivated, along with the root and trunks they so painstakingly nurtured. We must trim the frivolous, bigoted and antiquated branches from it, and water it with new ideas that have sprung from technological and moral advancement since 1775. This will be a lesson in discovering that which is worth saving, that which is worth pruning and that which is necessary to add. It is a daunting task.