TO THE EDITOR:
Since Monday, January 20, 2025, many people have experienced shock and awe to say the least at the evisceration of services and resources to aid the poor (including the working poor), the sick, the homeless and the vulnerable with its numbing effect on so many in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Pope St. John Paul II said that the poor and most vulnerable should be a primary consideration in society’s priorities and decisions. He used the term “preferential option for the poor” in his 1991 Encyclical “Centesimus Annus,” composed on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (on capital and labor). Let us hope and pray that the words and aspirations of JP II will supplant what for now seems like a preferential option for the super affluent.
Tragically the federal budget of July 4, 2025, leans very heavily further in the direction of inequality.
The Mass deportation of immigrants by persons whose identity is concealed and whose credentials are questionable is both cruel and evil to a grave degree. Such treatment has been the cause of a fear that can be very paralyzing for the captives, their family and friends.
Inflation in such necessities as groceries and utilities is a heavy burden for many who are just scraping by. Their plight can only worsen if it continues.
Given all that has happened there are things we can and need to do:
— Share our concerns with others and listen as well, the more difficult of the two.
— Check in and dialogue with people, mindful that some may be suffering in isolation.
— Join with people at gatherings where concerns about these matters are being discussed.
— Pray, walk and meditate individually and with others. Try to cultivate personal and communal wellness.
— Contact and seek to meet with elected officials.
— Write a letter or a blog.
— Consider additional actions by joining with others to name evils and foster goodness. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice’s sake....
— Look for possible ways to further the common good in both the short and the long term.
— Try to be informed about and understand that what has been taking place since January 20 could pursue for some time but doing nothing can be disastrous. Evil thrives when good people are silent.
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