It Matters

I've been reading/listening on and off to the Gosnell trial and the Benghazi testimony. Both stories are hard to listen to for prolonged periods without suffering from both despair and fury.  Both stories are the triumph of political fealty over the reality.

I understand why the Gosnell trial is not being covered. It is icky and it goes against the political winds of the day that authorize every insurance to pay for abortions and the new policy by the FDA to allow any 15 year old to pop a RU486 faster than a tic tac.  There is no news about the shameful conditions of the Gosnell clinic. There is no story about the woman who died or the infants born alive who were then ruthlessly killed.  There is no story.  Why?  Because there is no story if it disrupts those who favor abortion. There is no story if it portrays those seeking to be reelected in a less than perfect light.  As Hillary said, "What's the big deal?" or more currently, as Jay Carney said, "That's old news." 

But there are dead people as a result of decisions in both cases.  There are families destroyed because people were allowed to go on pretending that what was happening, was not happening.  The Gosnell trial is the manifestation of the logical/rational outcome of believing in abortion on demand. If a person is not a person until thinking and willing makes it so, then geography and size become irrelevant.  If the mother wants the child dead and she goes to this man, he will make it so. 

One can only deaden one's soul so much before the sin of committing murder starts to feed itself.   If you want to know how a clinic like Dr. Gosnell's could exist, it is because the society as a whole allowed it, sanctioned it, refused to see it as what it was, a place that preyed upon the desperate, despairing, the fearful and the selfish and the poor, for money.   It put forth the lie that if the child were destroyed, life would be better.  People paid for that lie to be whispered in their ears, and children wound up in the freezer and in the toilet, and chopped up.  The ugly truth is abortion is the fruit born of a lack of charity in the hearts of all involved save the baby, and lack of charity leads to deadened eyes and deadened hearts.   We become blind to what is evil and call it good.


Willful blindness abounds in the Gosnell trial. 

It is also the hallmark of the dust up over Benghazi.  Truth keeps running into the various trial balloon possibilities that have failed to gain traction in the months since the attack. The assault on our embassy was not because of a video on Youtube. Though I remember how the administration indicated this film posted in July was the reason for the spontaneous decision on September 11th, 2012 to throw maltov cocktails and drag Ambassador Stevens through the streets.  I remember them speaking about this over and over again, at the UN, at the coffins of the four men, that they would get the people responsible.  But we had assets there who were told to stand down.  We had calls to indicate proper people knew, we have knowledge that people defied the orders to stand down to help those in the embassy, and thus lost their own lives.

Has the man who made that stupid film been released?  No.  He the Stan Shunpike of our current Ministry of Magic;  A symbolic arrest touted as proof of doing something about the death eaters that killed four Americans including our diplomat to Libya.    That arrest and the subsequent fallout has vanished from the news narrative. So Nakoula sits in jail even though there has been plenty of evidence that the film had nothing at all to do with the terrorist attack.  Releasing him would verify that reality so he sits in jail to save the face of our government.  It is an inconvenient story.  

The people testifying that Hillary knew it wasn't a video, that the order to stand down when help could have been given and had been called for, could only have been given from someone at the very top, are being smeared as GOP tools, as part of the vast right wing conspiracy.  Apparently the collective press is suffering from a dearth of curiosity with respect to anything that might indicated the "incident" in Benghazi was the result of systemic incompetence, indifference or shallow calculations that before it happened, it still didn't matter and afterwards, even moreso. 

 That the talking points were rewritten to varnish history as it happened to pretend there was no error, there was nothing that could have been done, and that there is no cover up, nothing

to see, nothing to be upset about, matter.  It is not old news. It is an active story.  Our government failed in its first responsibility, to safeguard the life, liberty, laws and values of our nation.  There should be an investigation, there should be consequences.  People who made the call made the call wrongly. People who made the call, lied afterwards to cover up  their errors and pretend there was no moral culpability or political fallout.  People who cover such things for a living, covered it up by not covering it.  

Again, narratives that are icky to the ideology, are not covered.  The 4th estate now no longer covers anything save what reinforces its own sensibilities.  Truth is not the objective.  The objective is to preserve the power we deem worthy, and to discredit, disown and destroy any objections to the recasting of reality to suit the agenda.   Truth is deemed unknowable and thus never pursued unless it suits the political interests of the day. 

But truth matters even if no one believes it. Truth matters even if it is not popular.  Truth is reality, unvarnished by politics or ideology, and sometimes, it is inescapable because it resonates beyond what spin and manipulation can manage.   (The reporter changing his mind about abortion while covering the Gosnell trial is a perfect example).  Truth can break through.

Why? 

Because it is real. Truth matters.   It matters that our nation pretends killing children is not killing children. So also, it matters that our nation ignores its own mandates, its own laws and gets away with it if those gifted with the charge of watch dogging our government deem the story to go against their own world views.   So when our leaders ask quite directly, "What difference does it make?"  I have an answer.

It makes a difference. It matters.  What is the difference?  Only the difference between good and evil, life and death, freedom and fear, a world that isn't simply run by the rule of force and a world that will allow anything to happen as long as it doesn't happen to them.   Yesterday a story broke about three women being freed from ten years of imprisonment by men who used them as sexual things.  They were free because one man heard crying out and acted on it, his little actions while sitting at home eating brought about an end of a ten year evil.  He could have looked the other way.  He didn't.  Why?  Because when you see evil, if you ignore it, you enable it.  If you hear evil, and you do not stop it, you embolden it.  If you refuse to recognize evil, you will become blind to the pain and suffering you could stop.  So it matters.  It always matters.  So what difference does it make?

All the difference in the world.  

Religion and Politics, Politely Discussed

I kind of gave up writing on politics on this blog a while ago with only occasional tips of the hand as the spirit moved me.  Part of it was personal, the irritation I felt was not worth the time it took to craft pieces.  Part of this was, I did not wish to fall into snark, it wasn't me.

But we're one year from the election and so, I return to the fray not to tear down candidates, but with a plea for all my readers, particularly those who are Catholic and hold their faith dear.  Vote.

The world as always, sets up a false dichotomy: help the poor/end war and save the unborn.
We must act. But that begs the question: when we vote, how can we, how should we, if our vote would be informed and guided by faith?   Poor, war, and the unborn shall always be with us.  How do we weigh this?  How do we choose?

What we must do with our vote, is view it as the starting point of our witness in public life, not the exclamation point that only need be dusted off every four or two years. 

So if you must vote for the DNC for any reason guided by your conscience, say, trying to improve the lot of the poor, you must remember not to overlook the unborn or justify overlooking them by the fact that the GOP at least pays lip service to not paying for or enabling the killing of children in utero.  You have the challenge to pray for the end of abortion, to be a witness to life from natural beginning to natural end, and to encourage the leaders that come from your vote to do the same.  It's hard to go against seemingly popular will and objecting to a law of the land, but it is the essence of what we are called to be; to speak out for the defenseless, the speechless and the helpless, not because it is easy but because it is right.

Likewise, if you vote for the GOP, you cannot rest, pat yourself on the back as a good little Catholic and be content with the status quo.  There are people who will be less served, who need you now to show that you will extend yourself for the least of these, just as much.  You will also need to hold the elected officials feet to the fire to care for the sick and the poor in a just and ethical manner. You must work for peace. You must stay involved and invested in peace, seeking it in your lives and those around you to start. You must also pray for peace and fast for peace with the same fervor you hold for hoping that all human life will be considered precious.  And you must surrender some of that autonomy you cherish, by giving of your time to those for whom autonomy is either not possible at this point, or a dream they haven't yet reached.  You must serve the poor, the needy, the homeless and the sick.  You don't get credit for this, you just get to do it because it is right that you sublimate your time for them.  It is part of being Catholic, to surrender all to follow; and that surrendering begins with little surrenders, done via service, done via generosity, done via time. 

No one gets a pass.  No one gets to say, I did my part, I did enough, I do enough.  We have to remember, whatever we've done, is always baseline, it is only expected.  We cannot love beyond God's love or sacrifice beyond God, we can only hope to approach and improve our imitation of God's love.  This is probably making lots of people uncomfortable.  Politics do that, but Catholicism, living Catholicism, should do that even more.  To be Catholic is to be uncomfortable except in the presence of the sacrament or receiving one. Our hearts and minds should be restless, until they rest in Thee. 

In this country in particular, we have allowed political blinders to limit our vision of the other, to divest our faith from our politics or to switch our political allegiance for our faith.  It is a poor substitute, like aspartame for sugar; it causes a cancer of the soul, it is unnatural and unhealthy.  If we would be more than the convenient voting block of local color enthusiasts for whatever political machine we follow, we must recognize that neither party has a lock on virtue or vice; that both are as severely limited as we individually are, and that serving the whole of the world through thoughts, words and deeds, with charity and good humor, zeal and generosity, is a day in, day out process that does not end with election day, indeed, there is no end.   There is no "winning" there is only our next step towards holiness or not.  (Cue Yoda voice).   

Now, for those who then think the third option of not voting is the most Catholic.   To not chose between two evils, to do no harm, to not be engaged in things of this world, it sounds very high minded and sophisticated to opt out. 

It isn't. 

It shows a lack of courage and commitment.  It demonstrates an unwillingness to embrace the cross, to cut away perpetually at whatever serves ourselves first, and resistance to the weeding that our public realm, our government, our society, needs if it is not to become overgrown with self oriented interests, warring factions and increasingly polemic bromides that only satisfy the echo chamber choirs that already exist.

Catholicism requires we not be comfortable in our thinking, our votes, or our lot; it requires we engage, we be involved, we invest in being those lights to the world and salt to the earth.  We can't do that by being coy, by pretending that our non participation is anything but a symbol of despair; that we cannot affect the world, that we cannot be part of the world.  It is ivory tower in the worst possible way, pretending to be contemplation, when it is capitulation. 



For my state:
http://www.elections.state.md.us/get_involved/index.html
For both parties:
http://www.gop.com/index.php
http://www.democrats.org/
For Issues:
http://www.catholicvote.org/index.php

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
― St. Catherine of Siena

and if you need further encouragement, because you're thinking, how can I possibly do more?

“Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.”    ― St. Catherine of Siena

Which means, we don't have any more excuses. Now is the time, to start the big push.