Leveraging Our Influence in Service of the Gospel
by Mary Pellegrino, CSJ -- LCWR President
There’s an unread note on my desk, half-folded with the elderly man’s determined handwriting visible but not quite legible unless I were to pick it up to read . . . which I don’t want to do. I already know what it says – generally. It’s a follow up to four voice mail messages from a retired doctor and former donor who was irate with our Leadership Team’s statement in response to the administration’s first executive order in January closing our country’s borders and establishing a travel ban on persons from particular countries.
He was irate for a long list of reasons illustrated to him by the fact that the dental clinic provided through our local Catholic Charities began to treat Bangladeshis and Indians and Pakistanis, while the people he was supposed to be treating – uninsured Americans – weren’t allowed to come there anymore. They got insurance through the Affordable Care Act. So he quit in disgust and anger. And our support of refugees and immigrants coming to this country now is naïve. We, the Sisters, should stick to schools and stay out of politics, especially with our liberal agenda.
I have to admit that there’s some truth to what he says, not the part about sticking to schools, but the part of about being naïve. There really is a certain naïveté about the Gospel. It’s those simplistic imperatives that do it. Love one another as I have loved you. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. You cannot serve two masters. . . Read more by downloading the newsletter below
