Dear Parishioners:
That sound of silence you hear is the Annual February Winter Break! Students and teachers are off this week for a well-deserved winter vacation. We wish them well and pray for their safe travels and return to OLM School. I hope it will be a relaxing time of renewal for them.
Monday, we celebrate President's Day. It is a federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February. It was originally established in 1885 to recognize President George Washington's birthday on February 22. In 1968 the birth of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on February 12 was added as part of the holiday. The holiday became popularly known as Presidents' Day in 1971 to create more three-day weekends for the nation's workers. Presidents' Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents, past and present.
In an age when statues of past Presidents of our nation are removed and their character questioned by contemporary standards and virtue signaling, it is important to stop and acknowledge all of our Presidents and their service to the nation. We remember and honor them with prayer, gratitude, and thanksgiving.
President George Washington, the Father of the Nation, said: "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
Sadly, many of our government officials and elected politicians do not accept his words. They wish to remove morality and religion from the debate in public policy. Religion is a quaint social custom, and morality is all relative. Their understanding of political prosperity is far from President Washington's.
Hence, today we live in a nation with abortion on demand up until birth, assisted suicide and euthanasia for the terminally ill and suffering, neglect of the poor and homeless, the false notion of gender, and the continued undermining of family and marriage. Washington was right to be cautious to "indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion."
Our Catholic faith and our Church's vast social teaching should inform our understanding of public policy issues. Without the truth of Christ and His teaching, we will be doomed to believe anything popular, convenient, and trendy as true. Without the truth of Christ and His Church, children are but a choice to exterminate and not the children of God to be welcomed and cherished. The sick and the suffering are nothing more than an emotional and financial burden to be lifted through assisted suicide or euthanasia. The poor and needy are nothing more than freeloaders who drain the public expenditures rather than brothers and sisters deserving dignity, support, and assistance.
Catholic social teaching is a central and essential element of our faith. Its roots are in the prophets who announced God's special love for the poor and called God's people to a covenant of love and justice. It is a teaching founded on the life and words of Jesus Christ, who came "to bring glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind." Christ identified himself with "the least of these," the hungry and the stranger. Our social teaching is built on a commitment to the poor, the oppressed, the suffering, and the marginalized.
Catholic social teaching is inseparable from our understanding of human life and human dignity. Every human being is created in the image of God and redeemed by Jesus Christ and therefore is invaluable and worthy of respect as a member of the human family. From the moment of conception to natural death, every person has inherent dignity and a right to life consistent with that dignity. Human dignity comes from God, not from any human quality or merely human institution. Pray for our President and elected officials. May they, as Washington did, embrace those indispensable supports of religion and morality. Be well. Stay safe. Do good. God Bless! God Bless America!