Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Here is some information received from the bishop of Phnom Penh about the conflict on the border between Cambodia and Thailand. Caritas Cambodia, the church relief agency, is organizing tent cities, water, food, toilets, and other assistance. They are probably the main positive force in the renewal of this century-old dispute.
• The rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman.
• Stoking rage against cultural elites.
• Nationalism based on superior race ideas and historic bloodlines
• Extolling brute strength and heroic warriors.
• Disdain of women and LGBTQ+ people.
(from Robert Reich)
A draft document from the chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on African American Affairs defended diversity, equity and inclusion, saying, “Diversity reaches out to all people. … Equity is the truth of the justice of God applied to everyone. … Inclusion is living the law of the Lord as one.”
180. Recognizing that all people are our brothers and sisters, and seeking forms of social friendship that include everyone, is not merely utopian. It demands a decisive commitment to devising effective means to this end. Any effort along these lines becomes a noble exercise of charity. For whereas individuals can help others in need, when they join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the “field of charity at its most vast, namely political charity”. [165] This entails working for a social and political order whose soul is social charity. [166] Once more, I appeal for a renewed appreciation of politics as “a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good”.
Tonight a group of political activists gathered at a local pub to write postcards to potential voters in a special congressional election in Tennessee next month. The postcards urged people to vote without mentioning any candidates or parties by name.
Six of us from the larger Dittmeier family turned out to write postcards.
For a healthy relationship between love of one’s native land and a sound sense of belonging to our larger human family, it is helpful to keep in mind that global society is not the sum total of different countries, but rather the communion that exists among them. The mutual sense of belonging is prior to the emergence of individual groups. Each particular group becomes part of the fabric of universal communion and there discovers its own beauty. All individuals, whatever their origin, know that they are part of the greater human family, without which they will not be able to understand themselves fully.
Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti
If you believe that our democratic values and American way of life are being challenged, please participate in a No Kings Rally on Saturday, October 18.
If you believe that our democratic values and our system of government are under threat from our present administration, please participate in one of the thousands of No Kings rallies being held around the U.S. on Saturday, October 18. These rallies are not Democratic or Republican. They are political but non-partisan. They are peaceful events with people expressing their opinion about our government.
