Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
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.
Fratelli Tutti’s spiritual basis for the Palooza rally (described in the post after this one).
“Social love” makes it possible to advance towards a civilization of love, to which all of us can feel called. Charity, with its impulse to universality, is capable of building a new world. No mere sentiment, it is the best means of discovering effective paths of development for everyone. Social love is a “force capable of inspiring new ways of approaching the problems of today’s world, of profoundly renewing structures, social organizations and legal systems from within”.
Pope Francis in the Fratelli Tutti encyclical
We are living in difficult, tumultuous, important times. If you believe our government and way of life as a nation is seriously threatened, as I do, I encourage you to learn about the demonstrations for true democracy set for October 18th, and to participate in a huge peaceful demonstration in support of the values and beliefs on which our country was founded.
With better wording than I am capable of, I post here part of a recent e-mail from MoveOn. I am most interested in your becoming aware of what is happening and hopefully joining the resistance. This is from a MoveOn request for financial support, but I seek not so much your money but your participation on October 18. MoveOn is sending the e-mail asking members to donate. If you can do that, I’ve left the last paragraphs, about donations, on the e-mail.
Dear MoveOn member,
On June 14, we did what many claimed was impossible.
In partnership with hundreds of organizations, we peacefully mobilized more than 5 million people to take to the streets in every corner of the country and declare with one voice: America has no kings. It was one of the largest single days of nonviolent mass protest in U.S. history—and it mattered.
The world saw the power of the people. Donald Trump’s outrageous birthday military parade was drowned out by protests in every state and across the globe. His attempt to turn June 14 into a coronation collapsed, and the story became the strength of a movement rising against his authoritarian power grabs.
But Trump has doubled down since. And he has teetered our country into authoritarianism, causing grave harm to many people already and threatening the safety of all of us.
His administration is sending masked agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities. They’re targeting immigrant families, profiling, arresting, and detaining people without warrants. They’re threatening to undermine free and fair elections. Gutting health care, environmental protections, and education. Rigging maps to silence voters. Ignoring mass shootings at our schools. Driving up the cost of living while handing out massive giveaways to billionaires, as families struggle.
Trump thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings—and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.
That’s why we’re coming together for No Kings Day on Saturday, October 18, the next nationwide day of protest and defiance.
As Trump escalates his authoritarian power grab, the No Kings nonviolent movement continues to rise stronger. On October 18, we’ll unite once again to make crystal clear: America has no kings. The power belongs to the people.
But organizing a nonviolent mobilization of this scale—bringing together millions of Americans in cities and towns nationwide—takes significant resources. We need to support thousands of local organizers, provide materials for protests, ensure safety and security, coordinate across all 50 states, and ensure the protests are plastered everywhere in the media.
