9-23-19<\/p>\n
My friend Gail Torman recently noted that the \u201cShe Built New York\u201d project has denied an honorary statue to Mother Cabrini. Saint and Sister Francesca Xavier Cabrini was America\u2019s first ordained saint, summoned by the Pope to help the flood of Italian immigrants pouring into America in 1889.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile in New York City, she opened 67 social service agencies as well as orphanages, missionaries, day schools, classes in religious education, a nursery, a hospital, and much more across the city,\u201d Gail quotes the National Italian American Foundation. Many parks and monuments and hospitals and projects in New York bear Mother Cabrini\u2019s name yet today.<\/p>\n
The stated mission of the \u201cShe Built NYC Project\u201d is to create more statues of women to be installed around the city. A public vote was held to select the top female candidates to have honorary statues. Mother Cabrini obtained the most votes with 219 votes, winning by a two-to-one margin and clearly defining her as the winner; the runner-up polled 93 votes, the Foundation notes. The wife of Mayor Bill diBlasio, Chirlane McCray, leads the project. After the poll was taken, McCray formed a panel to review the results and make its own recommendations on the seven winners to be memorialized. Exit Mother Cabrini.<\/p>\n
The project is funded by about $5-million in taxpayer money. So \u2013 my opinion, putting words in no other mouths \u2013 this is a taxpayer-robbing scam to pander to minorities, feminists, and sexual deviants (LGBT \u201ccrusaders\u201d popped up on the winner list).<\/p>\n
More clearly, this is the latest example of our culture\u2019s war on Christians and white people. Confirmation that, sadly, America is a post-Christian society.<\/p>\n
In this New York City situation, we can feel sure that if Mother Cabrini were, say, Haitian instead of Italian, she would lead the pack. Or if she had been a very public atheist. The same might attend the situation of Mother Teresa, with whom many comparisons might be drawn \u2013 a European whose mission field was Calcutta. She has entered the language as the embodiment of charity\u2026 but contemporary liberals have been ambiguous and uneasy about her since she scolded Clinton and Gore to their faces in Washington about the sin of abortion.<\/p>\n
Way beyond the politicization of charity, and racializing public service, is the new definition of Doing Good. Charity (whose roots as a word are shared with \u201clove\u201d) once was regarded as the impulse that moves us to care for those around us. Now, charity is what the government does; no one else need apply\u2026 nor ask questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharity\u201d is a box to check on tax forms. Charity is performed by the government, and enforced by the Compassion Police. Political Correctness precedes acts of charity. To qualify you must be of the proper group; to administer you must not be of proscribed groups.<\/p>\n
As St Augustine pointed out, recognizing that \u201cthe poor ye shall always have with you\u201d is not a warning of futility, but rather God\u2019s reminder that He wants us to develop, and exercise, a spirit of compassion, of charity, of love, at all times. No pre-conditions.<\/p>\n
And about the poor \u2013 and sick and persecuted \u2013 whom we serve, I have been impressed by something while praying over these things.<\/p>\n
A message to those brothers and sisters too: Some people are imprisoned behind bars; some feel bound by virtual<\/em> chains. Some people are resigned to being poor forever. Some people feel doomed by illnesses, prejudice, abuse, and other circumstances.<\/p>\n The truth is that these factors might keep you in<\/em> certain situations, for a time.<\/p>\n But a greater truth is that nothing can keep Jesus out<\/em>.<\/p>\n This should be an encouragement to the oppressed and needy\u2026 also to those among us who are spurred to exercise charity\u2026 and should be a rebuke to those dictatorial bureaucrats and thought-police whose obsessions are applying, and removing, definitions of our compassion.<\/p>\n As Christians, we will keep our own consciences, thank you. And by the way, the sick and poor among us, as they are served, will be statues enough, in their own way.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n