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Brava Bishop!

Mike


Our heroine for this week has to be Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, leader of the Washington Episcopal Diocese.  At the inaugural prayer service, in the National Cathedral on Tuesday with the newly installed President, Vice President, and other ardent MAGA supporters just sitting within yards of her, Bishop Mariann made what the New York Times called ‘an extraordinary act of public resistance’.


Looking directly at the new incumbent, she said: ‘I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now…I ask you to have  mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away…those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here’. Bishop Budde was asking Trump to reconsider the consequences of some of the strong-man executive orders which he flourished within hours of assuming office.


In an interview afterwards she said she felt that there was now ‘a level of license to be cruel’. And there can be little doubt that in this new vengeful culture in the White House, Budde now has a target on her own back – let’s hope it’s only a metaphorical one.


The President was predictably unimpressed. He said he didn’t think it was a very good service! He is not used to anyone challenging him especially with the world watching. Budde the Brave used this important occasion to challenge his policies on migration and citizenship and, by implication, other controversial positions. We can only hope that her action will inspire others to stand up to this man who is now in a position of unrivalled power.


The new president thinks he is right about everything. A fundamental difference between him and the Bishop is a failure of imagination. She recognises the genuine issues of illegal immigration but she asks the ‘what if’ question. She is curious about what would happen if another, more compassionate approach to problems at the Mexican border were taken. She can imagine other strategies with different outcomes. She does not regard all immigrants coming from the south without proper documentation as actual or potential criminals, drug dealers and rapists, as the president does. By contrast she sees the vulnerable children and women caught up in this situation. She feels the human cost. His ideas are firmly fixed. He is certain that his instincts are right. His world is kept simpler that way.


It is a clash between certainty and curiosity as a magnetic north for our thinking. And certainty is clearly winning that battle at the moment. In the minds of many people both in power and out, thinking in many spheres of life is binary. It’s a very old problem. If A is true then B is not. If B then not A. There is no question of seeking C which takes the best of both.

Pope Francis (also bravely) said recently: ‘If a person says that he met God with total certainty, this is not good...If he has the answers to all questions - that is proof that God is not with him’. Trying to find the middle ground and living with uncertainty means living with tensions and it is invariably uncomfortable. But in the long term it will be still more uncomfortable if we give up on struggling with inconvenient truths.


We all have some responsibility to seek for truth and not simply be content with what is ‘true for me’, though in important matters it sometimes comes down to discerning, opting and so taking responsibility for our choice. We have a responsibility to ask the ‘what if’ questions.

The new US president clearly does not ask such questions. He likes to keep life simple. But human beings are not simple. If we try to insist that they are, it produces a picture of the world which is, first, distorted and then, ultimately cruel. Because we no longer see people but pawns in our game.


So Brava Bishop Budde… Thank you for seeking to speak truth to power!



Photo: National Catholic Reporter








 

 

 

 

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fbshone
Jan 25

Bishop Budde the Bold!

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