Date | Yes | No | No Opinion |
April 2020 | 30% | 60% | 4% |
September 2020 | 17% | 80% | 3% |
"I can hear you!" he declared. "The rest of the world hears you! And the people – and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." The crowd reacted with loud, prolonged chants of "USA! USA!", US News and World Report
The Center for Disease Control said out of the 218,000 deaths to date from the coronavirus in the United States, about 40% have been in nursing homes. (NY Times) True, because of their age, they are more susceptible. But are you comfortable with a bureaucratic moral decision making process that knowingly puts infected people into a living environment in which you know the most vulnerable live? Are we our brother and sister’s keeper in this country or what? Are you comfortable with where American is regarding our treatments of race, gender, poverty, the imprisoned?
In the midst of all of this, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dying of cancer, held on to her judicial seat to the very end, perhaps hoping that time and an election would bring a more favorable regime. What a year. The Senate should be given some credit, in my opinion, that they passed over the secular joy of Catholic bashing in Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing, at least so far. No one repeated that ill-considered line, “The dogma speaks loudly in you. “ My favorite moment, and perhaps yours, was when, after Judge Barrett rattled off a laundry list of relevant legal authorities, a senator asked to see her notepad where, presumably, she had written down the citations. She held up a blank tablet. Can you imagine what a domestic disagreement might sound like with a mother of seven who has that kind of memory? She is a devoutly religious person, an academic, a judge and a mother who opens her home and family to adoption. Seven kids? You know she is a tough lady. Whose image does Judge Barrett hope she bears?“FRATELLI TUTTI,”[all brothers] With these words, Saint Francis of Assisi addressed his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavor of the Gospel. Pope Francis. Fratelli Tutti . Associazione Amici del Papa. Kindle Edition.
Issues of human fraternity and social friendship have always been a concern of mine. In recent years, I have spoken of them repeatedly and in different settings. In this Encyclical, I have sought to bring together many of those statements and to situate them in a broader context of reflection. Pope Francis. Fratelli Tutti . Associazione Amici del Papa. Kindle Edition.
“103. Fraternity is born not only of a climate of respect for individual liberties, or even of a certain administratively guaranteed equality. Fraternity necessarily calls for something greater, which in turn enhances freedom and equality. What happens when fraternity is not consciously cultivated, when there is a lack of political will to promote it through education in fraternity, through dialogue and through the recognition of the values of reciprocity and mutual enrichment? Liberty becomes nothing more than a condition for living as we will, completely free to choose to whom or what we will belong, or simply to possess or exploit. This shallow understanding has little to do with the richness of a liberty directed above all to love.” Pope Francis. Fratelli Tutti. Associazione Amici del Papa. Kindle Edition.
Listen the the Bishops of Arizona address the 2020 election