6/30/10

We visited the Wind River Indian Reservation last night, home of the Arapahoe and Shoshone people.  If ever there was living testimony to the evils of forced conformity, it is a reservation. Everybody, Catholics included, wanted to force the Indian into a mold of existence, a manner of being,  of which they knew nothing,  as if the American Indian had never  been visited by the grace of God, or as if the Holy Spirit had somehow overlooked this group of ancient peoples. What bunkum. What tragic bunkum. That historical trauma is still being lived today on the reservation with very high rates of suicide, crime, alcoholism, and unemployment. Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of Peter and Paul, two leaders who put aside virtually all of their own traditions so that those traditions, ancient and holy as they were, would not be a stumbling block to the Gentile. What horrors we Catholics have produced by forcing the Indian to pray in Latin.

If we are ever going to significantly reduce poverty in this country, we must look at those practices that produce poverty. One of those harsh realities that contribute mightily to abject poverty is the despair caused by a lack of respect for the whole human person. Human beings must know that they are respected and not with the kind of respect often demonstrated in the pro-life movement, it is very easy to respect an embryo who cannot voice an opinion or belief contrary to our own, but the kind of respect that entails love and acceptance of already-born human beings who believe differently than we do, as Christ did, as Saints Peter and Paul did.  If you doubt the reality of these words, I dare you to visit any reservation or any poor inner-city neighborhood. Crime, drugs, violence, alcoholism all prosper in direct proportion to the lack of respect and dignity historically demonstrated to so many of God’s children.

One of the reasons I so respect Catholic Charities is owed to the simple fact that Catholic Charities makes no distinctions between persons. They help people in need. No questions. No holy hoops such as forced Bible study before getting a bowl of soup. Catholic Charities, more than any other Catholic agency I know, lives the kind of love demanded of by Christ in the story of the Good Samaritan. And that is why I ride for Catholic Charities. If their kind of thinking had been prevalent long ago, our reservations and inner-cities would be different places today.

-Fr. Matt