I have long held the highest respect and gratitude for Matthew Fox.
Powerful. May the highest good prevail. - Molly
by Matthew Fox
Dear Speaker and Congressman Paul Ryan,
As a priest who commemorates his 50th year in the priesthood this year (28 as a Roman Catholic and 22 as an Episcopalian), and as your elder, I am writing you this letter because I am worried about your soul.
We all know you take good care of your body, working out frequently in the congressional gym we taxpayers provide for those in Congress, and that is a good thing. But I am concerned that you are neglecting your soul. It too requires work-outs and practice to stay healthy.
You claim to be a good and a practicing Catholic Christian but I have serious doubts that you are. Our Christian beliefs include these words of Jesus after all: “What does it profit a person if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” These powerful words are surely important for anyone serving in public office or any other places of responsibility, whether in government or business or church or wherever. Yes, they even apply to your close buddies the Koch brothers, upon whom you depend so fully for your income and ideas and campaigns and job.
You see, another passage that grounds Catholicism and Christianity is found in Matthew 25: “Do it to the least and you do it to me.” Not to mention the Golden Rule which is found in Matthew 7:12 and is reflected in some form in every world religion since the time of Hammurabi: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Now I want to ask from a spiritual and theological perceptive how you can possibly reconcile these basic teachings of the Gospels with your continued efforts to create budgets for our entire nation that do the following:
- Threaten to privatize and thereby destroy Social Security for elders and disabled people.
- Destroy critical health support systems for the sick, handicapped, mentally disabled, and homeless by effectively scuttling Medicare and Medicaid.
- Dismantle the EPA so that the rest of God’s sacred creation is imperiled by human narcissism (Pope Francis’ words). Have you not read Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si that teaches everyone—believer and non-believer alike—that we humans are not here to destroy but to support creation for the good of all beings on earth now and in the future? If you have studied this great document—as you must as a thinking believer—where is it to be found in your legislative agenda?
Another Biblical teaching is the warning that we are not to worship idols. But Wall Street is a purveyor of the idolatry of money. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in that system. Pope Francis has spoken to that truth also when he speaks of the “savage capitalism” and the “god of money” that dominates so much of decision-making in western culture.
Your naked efforts to give more and more tax breaks to billionaires like your supporters the Koch brothers is proof that you have up to now chosen to be on the side of the savage capitalists and the gods of money. Have you no shame? Have you no conscience? Do your faith and Jesus’ teachings mean nothing to you because you are mesmerized by power and the powerful? Do you not know—or do you simply not care—that when the uber-rich do not pay their fair share, the struggling poor and middle class must pay from their meager resources to subsidize the rich? And when the uber-rich get still more tax breaks, the poor and middle class are forced to make up the difference?
I am worried about your soul. It is not too late to repent and start over. It is time to examine your commitment to the values that drive your heroes the Koch brothers, who want to worship the idols of Wall Street instead of caring for God’s sacred creation, and who refuse to pay their fair share of taxes to contribute to the common good. And who buy the loyalty of politicians like you to commit sins against the poor and creation itself to make their fat wallets even fatter. Shame on you!
Yours are not the values I learned growing up in Wisconsin (indeed, my godmother lived in your hometown of Janesville) and growing up in the Catholic Church. How have you wandered so far off track? Was it the ridiculous narcissistic writings of atheist Ayn Rand that enticed you to surrender Gospel morality for Mammon? (Let me add that I admire many atheists for their ethics and morality but Ayn Rand is not one of them. Not by a long shot. She has rendered selfishness a virtue.)
I wish through this letter to awaken your soul. Your sweet Wisconsin smile and gym-toned body notwithstanding, through your choices you are dancing with Evil.
The gospels teach such truths. So too does Pope Francis who, as a Roman Catholic, you supposedly respect and listen to. Have you listened to his warnings and his teachings lately? Allow me to remind you of some of them.
The Pope minces no words when speaking of the divergence of wealth and poverty today. He speaks to globalization this way: “The globalization that makes everything uniform is essentially imperialist…it is not human. In the end it is a way to enslave the nations.”[i] Is globalization enslaving the nations? It seems to me that much of Trump’s success as a candidate was built around this very idea—only his solutions seem to me to be dark indeed. What is your agenda, Mr. Speaker, about this “inhuman” globalization that is hurting so many citizens of our country and beyond?
Pope Francis says: “Christianity condemns both Communism and wild capitalism with the same vigor”[ii] and one needs to reject the “wild economic liberalism we see today” and “seek equal opportunities and rights and strive for social benefits, dignified retirement, vacation time, rest, and freedom of unions.” [iii]Are you on board with this set of values? Or are you in the camp of “savage capitalism?” Why do you want to destroy the dignified retirement of American people by diminishing Social Security instead of building it up? And to destroy social benefits for the very poor and working classes while giving tax gifts to the super rich and corporations? And to eliminate a current health insurance program that provides assistance for many millions of people instead of improving it?
The Pope praises St. Francis because “he contributed an entire concept of poverty to Christianity against the wealth, pride, and vanity of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the time” and for this reason “he changed history.”[iv] Are you putting obstacles in the way of the wealth and vanity of the powerful in our day? Given your responsible position as Speaker of the House, why don’t you try to change history for the poor and neglected instead of for the 1% who are already over their heads in favoritism and success and (too much) power?
The Pope takes on the neocon preoccupation with “world terrorism” and the fear such language arouses when he declares that “human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities.”[v] How important is that? He equates economic structures with terrorism. Yes, he is telling us that Wall Street terrorizes. Ask any Main Street citizen: we all feel the effects of this terror and that is why many in Main Street voted for Trump, out of fear of this terror from Wall Street. But your buddies the Koch brothers are those very terrorists the Pope is speaking of. Yes, how does it feel to be in bed with terrorists? And of course, Trump has turned his back on his promises to the working people and has appointed an unprecedented number of billionaires (terrorists) to head his cabinet positions.
Please continue this letter here: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/tik20170315.html
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