Progressive Catholic - Liberal Democrat

A friend wrote a short note about power and politics and the rule of law. I set this to him in gratitude.

This is good. Very good. You say in one paragraph what I struggle to come out with in five pages. I am grateful and proud to know you and have you as friend. You give me hope.

It’s not because taking a position on abortion, or when life began, is the measure of a person. It’s because, in both church and state, all others are my equals and I am equal to them, provided we enjoy rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, along with the religion of our choice or none at all. Without excluding anyone from that freedom. Without allowing anyone to exclude us. We can then accept and live the gifts of faith and love and hope, with all, for all, ourselves included.

For a long time I felt hope losing its grip in my soul. The endless incidents of control and discipline and denunciations from conservatives, the ones righter than those on the right, were wearing me down little by little. Pope John XXIII and Vatican II had filled hope to its brim in me. Pope John Paul II and now Benedict XVI have been dribbling it down.

Being a progressive Catholic earned no acceptance, no respect, just belittling, condemnation, and for some excommunication from a Church they loved. As do I. That never waned. Nor did my love of country.

In America, where autochthony is home, similar right wingers in the political sphere, the one supposedly separated from church, have been at it for the last 25 years: favoring the mighty, disdaining the many, intent on destroying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. By spying on us, torturing prisoners, launching preventive strikes on countries far smaller and weaker than ours. Militarism tossed diplomacy out, excommunicated it, as it were. I saw little difference in church and state, where conservatives ruled both and demanded we obey or get out.

Lately, with people like you and others, hope began to grow strong again. Bishops like Eugene Robinson were standing and speaking truth to power, along with Hans Küng and Jacques Dupuis and Roger Haight. The last three were charged without indictment, tried without hearing, and censured or removed from positions of teaching and writing. Father Pedro Arrupe, the head of the Jesuits, in whose eyes I had looked and whose words I heard live and whose hands had blessed me, was attacked on his deathbed by a man who treated the papacy as his own little sandbox and crushed anyone who dared take away his toys.

In 2002, the sex abuse of minors broke wide open. The veil on the tabernacle was rent. We saw the abuse of absolute power, just as clearly as we could see the abuse of civil power after 9/11, in Iraq, at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, hurricaned New Orleans. We knew our phones and mail were tapped, our library cards checked, that our privacy had been shattered. We saw what we feared, the slow and persistent growth of a police state. And we were dismissed as anti-American, unpatriotic; just as we had been as anti-Catholic, dissident.

Last night and tonight, I watched the Democrat Convention in Denver, capitol of the state I love so much, where we lived for such a long and wonderful time. As Senator Joe Biden was giving his speech tonight, I cried, unable to hold back the tears of emotions rarely felt for years and years. Alone in the living room, I jumped to my feet, again and again, and applauded wildly, tears flowing freely.

Emotions, welcomed emotions, ran out of control a lot these last two nights, as I listened to Michelle Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton. And I felt not only hope, strong and willing, but also gratitude and pride. I hadn’t felt pride for a long time.

I am grateful for being an American and proud to be one. I am grateful for being a Catholic and proud to be one. I will vote in this election, despite the lack of hope and gratitude and pride I showed when I said I would not vote.

And I will continue to be proud to be a liberal Democrat and a progressive Catholic. Nobody present in my life today, in halls of power at state and church, or here in New Hampshire where home now is, can take away that hope. I pray for the grace to continue as I began in 2002, dedicating the rest of my life to both church and country, in the only way I can. By being me. With friends like you.

Thanks. We are not alone.