Category: Government and Society

A compassionate, constructive approach

I often think, myself, that we need to do a lot better job in the church to explain what the “common good” entails, and I would argue it’s not good for society if you are separating families. Regardless of whether or not they’re documented. If they’re peaceable families, and people are working, you need to find another way to kind of address the fact that they’re in an irregular [document] situation, like an expired tourist visa which could be addressed rather than just simply deporting the father, because that causes a rupture in what is a basic good of society, which is: You keep families together, you allow them to work to feed their families, and you address whatever legal issues are there within the context of the least disruption possible.

Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas (quoted in the NCR)

U.S. Democracy

A few hours ago the U.S. Supreme Court voted to block the administration’s attempts to limit voting in federal elections by manipulating mail-in voting. SCOTUS said that cannot be allowed.

Attorney Marc Elias has been instrumental in seeking to support the Constitution and the freedoms Americans have enjoyed. He has an online presence called Democracy Docket in which he updates the legal challenges facing the American electoral process. I recommend you sign up for Democracy Docket. More to come on that….

Kentucky Democracy

One of the positives of my returning to the United States is that I can do more in working actively to preserve our Constitution and promote democracy. Distance was a limiting factor when I was in Cambodia.

Tonight I went to a meeting of the Clifton (the Louisville neighborhood where I live) Community Council. Members of the council turned in their ballots for the governing board and then we heard from a member (L) of the metro group working on homelessness and from a deputy mayor (R) focused also on housing. Added to the main agenda items were various recommendations and suggestions for keeping democracy alive in the midterm elections 50 days away.

Fratelli Tutti

Here is another teaching from the encyclical of Pope Francis, about respecting each other-all the others.

#191 At a time when various forms of fundamentalist intolerance are damaging relationships between individuals, groups and peoples, let us be committed to living and teaching the value of respect for others, a love capable of welcoming differences, and the priority of the dignity of every human being over his or her ideas, opinions, practices and even sins. Even as forms of fanaticism, closedmindedness and social and cultural fragmentation proliferate in present-day society, a good politician will take the first step and insist that different voices be heard. Disagreements may well give rise to conflicts, but uniformity proves stifling and leads to cultural decay. May we not be content with being enclosed in one fragment of reality.