In this Cristmas season, an infant is found in a Walmart trash can: "Where ox and ass are feeding"

Why lies He in such mean estate,

Where ox and ass are feeding?

William C. Dix

What Child Is This?

On the Friday before Christmas--the eve of Christmas eve--an infant was found in a Walmart restroom trash can in the town of New Roads, Louisiana. Kyandrea Thomas was arrested, and she faces charges of attempted second degree murder. Police say Thomas gave birth to the child in a Walmart bathroom and deposited the baby in a trash can.

A local district attorney believes Thomas is the same woman who pled guilty to negligent homicide in 2011 for the death of a three-year old who was left in a day-care center van for nearly six hours in "scorching heat." 

In this Christmas season, it is hard not to compare the birth of a baby in a Walmart restroom to the birth of Christ more than two millennia ago. Surely a Walmart trash can is the modern day equivalent of a stable where ox and ass were feeding. Surely a child born in a Walmart restroom lies in mean estate equivalent to the manger of the Christ.

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining. Til he appeared and the soul felts its worth."

I embraced Catholicism more than 20 years ago. I was attracted by its beauty, its rigor, and the glorious witness of the saints. I see it now in simpler terms. 

When all the bishops and priests, cathedrals and theological tomes are set aside, my Catholic faith is simply this: God entered the world in the form of a child and affirmed the dignity of humankind. That child is the Christ, who continues to be present to us in the sacraments.

Our politicians and pundits assure us we live in "the best of all possible worlds," a world of rising prosperity and increased devotion to human rights. After all, transgender people can urinate in the restroom of their choice. Isn't that a sign that the trajectory of secular humanism will bring us to the Promised Land?

Indeed, some us do live in a kind of ersatz Promised Land. The people who read the New York Times and buy the luxury goods the Times advertises may think they live in the best of all possible worlds. 

But less than a week ago, an infant was found in a trash can in a small-town Walmart restroom. And this child, unlike Jesus, did not have Mary to nurse her, did not have Joseph to protect her and keep her safe.

Surely this is still a world where the soul does not yet feels its worth. 

References

Newborn found in trash at New Roads Wal-Mart in stable condition Monday. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, December 27, 2016, p. 1B.

Which sin is worse--divorce or child rape? Let's ask Monsignor Richard Mouton

Awhile back I posted a letter I had written to Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel, reporting that I been treated rudely by Monsignor Richard Mouton in the confession booth. After asking several shocking sexual questions, Monsignor Mouton refused to confess me because I was divorced.

I delivered the letter to Bishop Deshotel on September 14, 2016. It is now December, and I have yet to receive Bishop Deshotel's response. I don't expect one.

Since that experience, I have learned that Monsignor Mouton was one of the priests in the Lafayette Diocese who figured in the the sexual abuse scandal involving Father Gilbert Gauthe, who was eventually convicted of sexually abusing children. In 1984, the Lafayette Diocese settled claims by nine child victims for more than $4 million, with the children's attorneys getting about a third.

Father Gauthe's hellish behavior, which included anal intercourse and oral sex with children, first became public in 1983, but it came to light in the course of litigation that Monsignor Richard Mouton had received reports from parents in 1976 that Father Gauthe had kissed two boys.

Monsignor Mouton was the pastor of the Catholic church in Abbeville at the time, and Father Gauthe was the assistant pastor. According to reporter Jason Berry, who wrote a book about the Gauthe tragedy, Monsignor Mouton responded to this news by "ordering [Gauthe] to move to an upstairs bedroom in the rectory."

Seven years later, Gauthe's sexual predations came to light; and parents of some of the victims contacted  a lawyer.

 Monsignor Mouton, apparently hoping to quiet things down, invited Roy Robichaux, father of three of Gauthe's victims, to come to the rectory for a little chat. Robichaux told Monsignor Mouton that he was notifying other parents whose children might also have been victimized by Gauthe.

According to reporter Berry's account, Monsignor did not approve. "Should anyone get hurt, Mouton admonished, the guilt would rest on Roy [Robichaux] for making it public."

Monsignor Mouton then said something that shocked Mr. Robichaux profoundly: "Think how Gauthe's mother would feel."

Robichaux responded as any good Cajun father would under the circumstances. "How in the fuck do you think the mothers of these kids feel?"

But Mouton continued to downplay what happened to Robichaux's three children. "The boys were young, Mouton said gently. They would bounce back and get over these things."

Later, Mouton telephone Robichaux and offered to hear the three children's confessions. Robichaux reportedly said no. "My sons do not need confession! They did nothing wrong."

So here's a theological question. In the eyes of God,who is the worst sinner--a priest who puts his penis in a child's rectum  or a divorced Catholic who seeks the consolation of the sacraments?

I'll ask Monsignor Mouton that question the next time I see him, but I think I already know his answer.

Father Gilbert Gauthe

References

Jason Berry. Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. New York; Doubleday, 1992.

Jason Berry. The Tragedy of Gilbert Gauthe (Part 1). Times of Acadiana, May 23, 1985.

Mary Gail Frawley O'Dea. Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007.

Open Letter to Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel and complaint about Msgr. Richard Mouton of the Lafayette Diocese: The Jubilee of Mercy

202 LSU Avenue

Baton Rouge, LA 70808

Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel

Lafayette Diocese

Lafayette, Louisiana

HAND DELIVERED

Re: Complaint about Msgr. Richard Mouton

Dear Your Excellency:

Today I went to confession at the Cathedral, where I met Msgr. Richard Mouton, who refused to confess me. I am not complaining about being refused confession. Rather I am complaining about Msgr. Mouton’s rudeness.  When I left him, I felt as if I had been stripped of all my human dignity.

I returned on Monday from a 12 day pilgrimage to Rome, where I attended the canonization Mass for Mother Teresa and visited many of the great holy sites of Italy. This trip was sponsored by the Catholic Press Association; I am a member of CPA through my editorship of a Catholic history journal.

This is the Year of Mercy, and I walked through several Holy Doors and received instruction about how to apply for a plenary indulgence. Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe accompanied our pilgrims group, and I attended Mass almost every day of our journey.

By the end of my pilgrimage, I had collected 5 plenary indulgences, and I resolved to give them to five people who had injured me many years ago when I was young. I realized of course that I needed to go to confession in order to receive a plenary indulgence and I needed to do this quickly.  Although I live in Baton Rouge, I work in Lafayette, and I decided to go to confession at the Cathedral today.

I became a Catholic almost 20 years ago after I married my present wife.  Against many obstacles, we managed to raise and educate four children. All are now in their 30s, all are married, and all are working and own their own homes. We have six grandchildren.

I entered the Catholic Church in a rural parish in Louisiana and was told by my parish priest that there was a “local solution” regarding my divorce.  It wasn’t until later that I learned that many priests believe my parish priest was wrong on that issue and that I am not entitled to go to confession or communion or even to call myself a Catholic.  I attempted to get an annulment but abandoned that process on the advice of my spiritual adviser, a devout Sister.

I disclosed my divorced status to Father Mouton. He refused to confess me and harshly told me not to go to communion until I got my status straightened out by my parish priest in Baton Rouge. Before he did this, however, he questioned me closely about sex.

I left the confession booth feeling stripped of my dignity. My Catholic faith has been deeply shaken, and I do not know whether I can even call myself a Catholic.

Now I would like to make a couple of points. First, I have considered myself a deeply committed Catholic—although certainly imperfect. I served seven years on the Texas Catholic Conference Accreditation Commission, the body charged with accrediting Catholic schools in Texas; and I was president of the Commission for three years. I am Editor of Catholic Southwest, a regional Catholic history journal that has won several awards for excellence from the Catholic Press Association. My wife and I were chaperones for a group of Catholic young people at Catholic World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany; and I participated in a five-week Catholic mission to Tanzania in 2004.

In addition, I have served as a formal RCIA sponsor for eight people who came into the Catholic Church as adults, and I volunteered at a Catholic Worker Hospitality House in Houston when I was living in Houston years ago. For ten years, I have sent monthly contributions to two Tanzanian Catholic priests—sending them a total of more than $10,000 to assist them in their ministry.

I do not tell you this to say I am a good person. I am not. I am deeply flawed.  And this brings me to the final point I wish to make.

I grew up in a Protestant household in southwestern Oklahoma under conditions of extreme physical and psychological abuse. My father suffered from PTSD due to his experience as a prisoner of war in a Japanese concentration camp. He was in fact a survivor of the Bataan Death March. My mother had severe psychological problems for which she received no treatment.  I was repeatedly beaten quite severely by both my mother and my father when I was a child and experienced psychological abuse as well. 

For a host of reasons—including my own sinful nature and my parents’ pathologies—I did not understand the Catholic view of marriage as a young person. I am a divorced person. Through the grace of God, my wife and her family, and my Catholic faith, I have gradually healed over the years, although I am still a deeply flawed man.

I have accomplished a few things in life; I have a law degree from the University of Texas and a doctorate in education policy from Harvard University.  But the center of my life is my devotion to the Catholic faith and to my family—my wife, her parents and siblings, my children, my stepchildren, and my grandchildren.

Over the past 20 years, I have taken communion over a thousand times in Catholic churches on four continents.  If I have committed a mortal sin by receiving communion, which Father Mouton may believe, then I am surely damned.

So I am registering this protest and complaint against Msgr. Mouton. Msgr. Mouton brutally disregarded my dignity. In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, he showed me no compassion, no mercy.

I would like you to tell me whether Msgr. Mouton's treatment of me accords with these words of Pope Francis, which I found posted outside the door of the Shrine to Saint Rita of Cascia in Italy:

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, God forgives sins, which are really removed; yet there remains the negative imprint that sins have left in our behavior and in our thoughts. 

The Mercy of God, however, is even stronger than this! It becomes indulgence on the part of the Father who, through the Bride of Christ, his Church, reaches pardoned sinners and frees them from every residue left by the consequences of sin, enabling them to act with charity, to grow in love, rather than to fall back into sin.

Can Msgr. Mouton’s judgmental assessment of me really be the view of the Catholic Church? And if it is, please tell me how this view can be reconciled with Pope Francis’s papal exhortation, Amore Laetitia (which I have read).

In closing, I will say that I may take my status up with my parish priest in Baton Rouge as Father Mouton directed, or I may not. I do not wish to be stripped of my dignity again as I was by Father Mouton—even if I am required to do so to become fully reconciled to my Church.

Sincerely,

Richard Fossey, J.D., Ed.D.,

Paul Burdin Endowed Professor of Education

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Note to Blog readers: This letter is slightly modified from the letter I hand delivered to Bishop Deshotel last September. I added the passage from Pope Francis that I found outside the Shrine to Saint Rita of Cascia. I have received no response from Bishop Deshotel.

Msgr. Richard Mouton, Lafayette Diocese

Divorced Catholics in the Jubilee Year of Mercy: No Mercy for Catholic Survivors of Broken Marriages

I came across this lovely quote from Pope Francis last September while visiting the Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia in Italy.  Appearing on a large poster were these words:

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, God forgives sins, which are really removed; yet there remains the negative imprint that sins have left in our behavior and in our thoughts. 

The Mercy of God, however, is even stronger than this! It becomes indulgence on the part of the Father, who, through the Bride of Christ, his Church, reaches pardoned sinners and frees them from every residue left by the consequences of sin, enabling them to act with charity, to grow in love rather than to fall back into sin.

Did Pope Francis intend for these powerfully reassuring words to apply to divorced Catholics? To divorced people who wish to become Catholic?

I believe he did. As the Pope said in Amoris Laetitia, his recent Apostolic Exhortation, "No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!"

As Pope Francis pointed out in Amoris Laetitia, the Synod Fathers have reached a general consensus with regard to people living in irregular situations, which he quoted:

In considering a pastoral approach towards people who have contracted a civil marriage, who are divorced and remarried, or simply living together, the Church has the responsibility of helping them understand the divine pedagogy of grace in their lives and offering them assistance so they can reach the fullness of God's plan for them.

This was possible, Pope Francis added "by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Of utmost importance to divorced Catholics, Pope Francis wrote that divorced and remarried Catholics "need to be fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal." Indeed, Pope Francis emphasized:

Such persons need to feel not as excommunicated members of the Church, but instead as living members, able to live and grow in the Church and experience her as a mother who welcomes them always, who takes care of them with affection and encourages them along the path of life and the Gospel. This integration is also needed in the care and Christian upbringing of their children, who ought to be considered most important.

Tragically, these powerful and holy words, written by Pope Francis during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, have been explicitly rejected by many Catholic priests and bishops.

How ironic. The Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal--this catastrophic episode in the life of the American Church--is a stain on the Bride of Christ that may never be wiped away. Certainly, the priests and bishops who participated in this scandal or who covered it up are in urgent need of mercy.

And yet so many of our priests and bishops offer no mercy whatsoever to divorced Catholics, even in this, the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Msgr. Richard Mouton, Lafayette Diocese

References

Pope Francis. Amoris Laetitia--The Joy of Love. (2016)

Pilgrimage to Rome: Stalled soul on the Scala Sancta (reflections on minor sufferings of American commuters)

According to Catholic tradition, St. Helena, mother of Constantine, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the years 326-328, where she recovered the True Cross. Evelyn Waugh's fictional account of Helena's pilgrimage, simply titled Helena, portrays her as a late comer to faith and spiritual kin to the three Magi, who arrived tardy at the manger of Christ.

A less well known tradition holds that Helena also discovered the actual stairs that Christ walked for his meeting with Pontius Pilate, who condemned Christ to a horrible death. Those stairs, called the Scala Sancta, are now in Rome, where pilgrims can crawl up all 28 steps in remembrance of Christ's suffering.

I creeped up those steps myself when I was in Rome earlier this month, somewhat reluctantly I confess. Pilgrims surrounded the stairs by the hundreds, and I had to wait in line for the privilege of my holy crawl.  I was aware of course that I should spend my time in contemplation as I ascended the stairs on my knees, and I resolved to reflect on the last terrible hours of Christ's life.

But as I waited for my opportunity to ascend the Scala Sancta, I observed a woman half way up the stairs, who wasn't moving. She would kneel for a time in prayer, pull herself erect occasionally to stretch her legs, and then sink to her knees again--always in the same place. In short, she was blocking traffic, forcing other pilgrims to veer around her, exactly like motorists veer around a stalled car on the freeway.

"How inconsiderate," I thought to myself. And that led me to think back on all the years I have spent commuting to work, all the minor traffic accidents I have witnessed, all the times I got stuck in traffic because someone's car broke down on the freeway, slowing the flow of traffic--sometimes for hours.

And that is what I thought about as I crawled up the Holy Stairs--all the years I've spent commuting to work in my car and all the millions of other Americans who spend so many hours of their lives simply driving to and from work. I thought of the collective boredom of all those commuting Americans sitting in their cars with nothing to divert them but their radios and their mugs of coffee.

And why do we do it? We do it to get to our jobs--our boring, uninteresting, unimportant jobs: the jobs we do simply to get a paycheck to pay our home mortgages. Most commuters drive to jobs in the cities but they live in the suburbs, where the schools are better. They sacrifice 2 or 3 hours of their lives every working day simply to live in a town that has decent schools for their children.

These are small sacrifices that commuters make--certainly small compared to the sacrifice Jesus was prepared to make when he walked up the Scala Sancta to meet Pontius Pilate. But I devoted my holy crawl to American commuters who suffer the minor inconvenience of driving to work every day for the sake of their children and for no other reason. Surely the Holy Family looks down on them in their daily commutes and sends them a blessing.

Cardinal Bernard Law, Saint Maria Goretti, and the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal: Would Saint Maria Goretti forgive a priest who put his penis in a child's rectum? Would she forgive an archbishop who protected child rapists?

The Story of Saint Maria Goretti: Virgin Martyr

Saint Maria Goretti, a virgin saint of the 20th century, died on July 6, 1902, murdered by Alessandro Serenelli, who had tried to rape her. Maria fought off Serenelli's sexual advances, but he stabbed her 14 times.  She did not die immediately; she lived about 20 hours. And before she died, Maria forgave Alessandro and expressed the wish that she would meet him in Paradise. She was only 11 years old.

Alessandro was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was initially unrepentant, but Maria appeared to Alessandro in a dream while he was sleeping in his prison cell. In that dream, Maria offered Alessandro 14 candles as a symbol of her forgiveness--one candle for each stab wound.  He then repented his terrible crime and became a different man.

After 27 years, Alessandro was released from prison. He became a Franciscan lay brother and died at the age of 87. He was still alive when Maria was canonized in 1950.

Would Saint Maria Goretti forgive Catholic priests who raped children?

A few days ago, I visited the Shrine of St. Maria Goretti, which is located in Nettuno, Italy, not far from Rome. I found myself pondering what Saint Maria's views might have been about the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal. She is the patron saint of rape victims, but she is also the patron saint of forgiveness. Would Maria Goretti forgive the Catholic priests who rammed their penises into the rectums of little boys? Would she forgive the bishops and church administrators who shielded child abusers from prosecution--evil men who introduced little children to oral sex?

Would she forgive Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, who covered up a massive sexual abuse scandal in his archdiocese and allowed predatory priests to have access to children? Would she forgive the lawyers who effectuated Cardinal Law's cover-up by drafting confidential settlement agreements? Would she forgive the psychiatrists who got paid to treat abusive priests and who certified that these priests were cured of their sexual pathologies?

Almost all the abusive priests were serial abusers. They raped a lot of boys, and they raped them multiple times. Would Maria forgive a priest who raped a little boy more than once? A priest who raped a lot of boys? Would she forgive Cardinal Law for every priest he protected?

Perhaps she would. But I think she would expect these sinners to make some act of penance. Alessandro, after all, spent 27 years in jail and lived a holy life after he was released.

But Cardinal Law is in Rome. In fact, he may have passed me in the streets of the Vatican last week. Perhaps he was among the VIPs who motored by me in their black luxury cars with tinted glass, accompanied by their smartly dressed body guards. The cardinal may have passed me as he was going to dinner at one of Rome's fine restaurants.

Perhaps Maria Goretti has forgiven Cardinal Law and all the bishops who closed their eyes to child rape. But I doubt it; I seriously doubt it.

Note

For other commentary on Cardinal Bernard Law or the sex abuse scandal, see these sources:

Abuse Enableng Bishops Who Were Resigned or Removed. Bishopaccountability.org. Accessible at http://www.bishop-accountability.org/bishops/removed/

Rev. Kenneth Doyle. How Can the Catholic Church Allow Bernard Law To Remain a Priest? Crux, December 14, 2015.  .Accessible at https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/12/14/how-can-the-church-allow-bernard-law-to-remain-a-priest/

Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests.  Web site: http://www.snapnetwork.org/faqs10215

Pilgrimage to Rome: Labor Day Mass at St. Peter's Basilica where I heard people singing Pescadore des Hombres

On Labor Day, I attended mass at a side chapel of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A priest from Iowa presided--a man in his mid-forties, humble and earnest. He told us we should ask God to bless the work of our hands and to be thankful for the work that God has given us to do.

An enormous painting of The Presentation of the Lord loomed over our side chapel, and the splendor of St. Peter's Basilica gave the mass a special power. But I was touched more profoundly by music I heard coming from another mass--a Spanish-language mass taking place somewhere beyond my sight at another side chapel in the vast basilica.

Somewhere people were singing a song I had often heard while attending mass in northern New Mexico--Pescador des Hombres. People were singing in Spanish, and they must have sung all four verses, because the singing continued for quite some time.

Immediately, I was taken out of St. Peter's Basilica. In my mind's eye, I was in the upper Rio Grande Valley of northern New Mexico. I saw the pure, unpolluted waters of the Rio Grande River, dappled by sunlight and teeming with trout. I saw the simple adobe churches of the villages in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Hearing that familiar and humble tune, I became aware of the long heritage of my Catholic faith in my own country. The Spanish came up the Rio Grande River from El Paso in 1598. By the early 17th century, they were farming the thin soil along the tributaries of that great river as far north as modern-day southern Colorado. They built their simple adobe churches and prayed the mass a good twenty years before the Puritans landed in Massachusetts Bay. They forted up in their churches and their homes against the Apaches and the Comanches.

As I listened to Pescador des Hombres echoing through St. Peter's Basilica, I was reminded that my faith is an ancient faith and a simple faith.  Although I was surrounded by the great splendor of Roman Catholicism--its art, its statuary, the Pieta of Michelangelo--I am sustained by the simplicity, the  humility, and the childlike faith of my Catholic ancestors.

I believe because my ancestors believed. I embrace the mystery of the Eucharist because the saints embraced this mystery and willingly died horrible deaths in defense of a mystical truth--that Christ is present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

I am proud to share in the patrimony of Catholicism--its literature, its beautiful art, the soaring architecture of its cathedrals. But when I am overcome by doubt--which I often am--my faith returns when the Holy Spirit reminds me that the Catholic faith is the faith of the poor and the humble. It is the faith of people who suffer.

Lord, When You Came To The Seashore/Pescador Des Hombres

by Cesareo Gabarain

Lord, when you came to the seashore you weren't seeking the wise or the wealthy, but only asking that I might follow. 

REFRAIN (English): O Lord, in my eyes you were gazing, Kindly smiling, my name you were saying; All I treasured, I have left on the sand there; Close to you, I will find other seas. 

REFRAIN (Spanish): Señor me has mirado a los ojos, sonriendo has dicho mi nombre, en la rena he dejado mi barca, junto a ti buscaré otro mar.

We don't need no stinkin' family (until disaster strikes): More notes from Redneck Katrina

Children can be such a nuisance. They're noisy. They're expensive. They have absolutely no appreciation for Thai food. It's a good thing we have a constitutional right to abort them.

There was a time when people needed children. Someone had to milk the cows, feed the chickens, and churn the butter.  And children would be such a comfort to us in our old age--remember that quaint old observation?

But now we live in cities. We get our food at the grocery store. When we are too old to live alone, we go to a Golden Age retirement home to play checkers with the other geezers. We rely on Medicare, pensions, and Food Stamps to see us through old age or hard times.  If we do have a couple of children, they most likely live on one of the coasts--far away from Mom and Pop.

And that's just fine until the Amite River starts flowing through the wall sockets of our lovely ranch-style homes, and the power goes out while we're watching CNN News.  And when we call 911, the Emergency Dispatcher puts us on hold with 150 other people.

And so we decide to wait for the National Guard to arrive in their big trucks to rescue us from the flood, but the Guard doesn't know where we live.  And when the National Guard finally shows up, their truck drops us off at an emergency shelter where we can sleep on a cot with 200 other flood victims; and some of those people snore.

That's when it would be nice to have a family. Or more particularly, that's when it would be nice to have a relative with a boat.

Believe me, I know. My wife Kim and I were trapped by flood water last week along with thousands of other people. A lot of those people were milling around on Route 16 hoping the water would subside or a National Guard truck would rescue them.  And the National Guard did rescue a lot of people.  But some people waited a long time before being evacuated.

Our family was more fortunate. My stepson Charlie has a shallow-draft boat, and he rescued my wife Kim, her brother Jim, Kim's parents, and me. And he didn't dump us off at an emergency shelter. He delivered us to my brother-in-law's house in Baton Rouge, where we celebrated our escape by eating jambalaya and drinking Crown Royal on the rocks.

So families can be handy when you need to be rescued from a flood.

Families can also be handy when you are cleaning up after a flood. My wife's parents lived in a subdivision of around 40 homes.  With one exception, every home in the subdivision was flooded.

People who have been through this know that it is vital to "gut" a home as soon as possible to remove all wet sheet rock and insulation. Mold appears incredibly fast after a flood. In just two weeks, a flooded home can become permanently uninhabitable because of mold.

My wife's parents have a big family; and at least ten family members worked four full days to gut their house.  Four generations participated: Ivy and Kitty, the home owners;  all five of their children; at least a half dozen grandchildren; and three great grandchildren.

The home flooded on Saturday night. By the following Friday, Kitty and Ivy's home was completely stripped of all wet sheet rock and insulation; mold treatment had been applied; and the house was ready for a contractor to install new flooring and sheet rock.

Most of Kitty and Ivy's neighbors were not so fortunate. Some were able to do nothing themselves and had to hire demolition contractors. Others had relatives and friends dribble in to help, but not enough volunteers to get the gutting job done quickly.

As debris piled up in front of Ivy and Kitty's home, I could see we were far ahead of the rest of the neighborhood in the demolition process.  By the end of the week, more than half of the homeowners had no debris in their yards, an indication that the demolition process had not even started.

At first, I reveled in my family's progress compared to the neighbors, but as the week wore on it made me sad to see so many homeowners who had absolutely no one to help them cope with the tragedy of this historic flood.

Most of my family are Catholics or lapsed Catholics; and for Catholics, family is a sacred concept. After all, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family on the first Sunday of every year; and the Church itself is understood as being part of a family--she is the Bride of Christ.

Blah, blah, blah! How I run on.  If you live in a city and have no family, you will do just fine in postmodern America.  After all, you've got insurance; you've got your pension; you've got your golf buddies; you've got President Obama.

You'll do just fine until you experience a major disaster of some kind--like a flood or a fire, the loss of a job, a serious illness.  And then you might wish you had a family.

Of course, we love our family members, whether they live close to us or far away. My own children live on the East Coast, and I love them dearly. But I often wish I lived closer to my children, not because they could help me, but because I would like to help them.  The older I get, the more I appreciate how hard it is to be young in the United Sates; and I wish I could help my children more.

A white ex-Dallasite reflects on the killings of 5 white Dallas police officers by an African American: "We do the things that come to hand"

A few years ago, while living in Dallas, I had a harsh encounter with a Dallas police officer--an encounter that scared me and made me angry. I had gone to DFW Airport to drop my wife off for her flight, and I pulled into the designated parking area for my wife's departure gate. A Dallas police officer blocked the entrance and told me to drive to the next parking area--about a half block away. I asked if I could stop just long enough to allow my wife to get out of the car, and the officer screamed at me. "Get out of here right now," he bellowed.

I was shocked by the officer's menacing rage, and it made me mad. I thought about confronting him and getting his name so I could file a complaint, but I knew if I did I would probably wind up in handcuffs with my face on the pavement.

In the months to come, I continued thinking about this incident, which I internalized as an assault on my human dignity. Why was the cop so irrational? Why did he block me from parking where I am normally allowed to park? Was he reserving the parking lot for a VIP? Was he on edge because of an oncoming crime? I didn't know.

And I recall thinking how much angrier I would be if I were a young African American or a Hispanic. I think I would have assumed the officer's rage was triggered by my race.

Then a few months later, I had another encounter with a Dallas cop--this one in downtown Dallas. I was driving to St. Jude's Chapel on Main Street for noon Mass and I inadvertently made an illegal left turn right in front of a Dallas cop in a police car.

I didn't wait to be pulled over. I immediately parked at a curb and waited for the officer to approach me. Before the officer said anything, I apologized, telling him I recognized that I had made an illegal turn.

The officer's response surprised me. "Are you OK?", he asked. I told him that I was. "Do you know where you're going?", he asked me next; and I told him I was headed to St. Jude for noon Mass.

Then he asked a final question: "Do you know how to get there?" And I told him that I did.

The officer then wished me a good day and waved me on.

This brief exchange completely neutralized the smoldering resentment I had harbored toward the Dallas cop at the DFW airport. I felt like the Holy Spirit had intervened on my behalf to heal a small but festering wound I had been nursing.

I realize of course that the second friendly cop was asking me questions to determine if I was drunk or otherwise impaired. But he did it in a courteous and respectful way. He had no way of knowing that his demeanor restored that part of my dignity that a DFW cop had deprived me of when he yelled at me a few months earlier.

This brings me to the terrible shooting incident that took place in Dallas not long ago when Micah Johnson, an African American, killed five white Dallas police officers who were guarding a peaceful protest demonstration. What prompted Johnson's insane rage? Had Johnson been treated rudely by a white cop sometime in his life?

And this caused me to ask myself what I can do to reduce racial tensions in my own home town--Baton Rouge, where a white police officer shot and killed a black man just a few days before the Dallas shootings.

The troubles of this world seem overwhelming. In spite of all the public rhetoric, racial tensions are getting worse in the United States, not better. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing in this country. Terrorism can strike anywhere: in a movie theater, a nightclub, a seaside promenade. What can I do to help make the world a better place?

Dorothy Day asked herself this question while locked up in jail, and this is the answer she came to:

When I lay in jail thinking of these things, thinking of war and peace and the problem of human freedom, of jails, drug addiction, prostitution, and the apathy of great masses of people who believe that nothing can be done--when I thought of these things I was all the more confirmed in my faith in the little way of St. Therese. We do the things that come to hand, we pray our prayers and beg also for an increase of faith--and God will do the rest.

So, like the kind Dallas police officer, let us do the things that come to hand. Let's treat everyone we meet with respect and courtesy, let us look for opportunities to perform small acts of kindness, let us follow the little way of St. Therese and Dorothy Day.

That's really about all most of us can do to make the world a better place; but, as Dorothy reminds us, we must trust that God will do the rest.

___________

Note: My quotation of Dorothy Day comes from Loaves and Fishes. I italicized part of the passage for emphasis.