We live in an emotional time.  Our culture is increasingly shaped by those whose voices are the loudest and whose emotions are the strongest.  Loud voices and strong emotions are fine, but only if they are governed by reason and truth.

Immigration is a topic that triggers a strong emotional response for many people. Previously, Bishop Golka addressed “The Both/And of Immigration.”  In this issue he writes about the Church’s take on the common good. I’d like to share how Catholic Charities of Central Colorado works toward the common good and to dispel some myths about the work we do.

At the end of the new Ridley Scott biopic “Napoleon,” the director lists the total number of French soldiers killed under Napoleon’s command. As if the three hours of 19th-century warfare were not enough to remind you of the brutality of war, Scott drives it home as a last indictment of Napolean.  The numbers are sobering, but the disregard for human life seems to be his message. 

I was reading at a Starbucks on the northeast side of Colorado Springs one morning last month when a teenage couple walked into the cafe. The girl was pulling a large suitcase and was wearing a baggy beige Cabela’s sweatshirt with pictures of deer and oversized grey sweatpants. The boy was similarly unkempt, wearing jeans three sizes too big and a dark, zip-up hoodie with pictures of marijuana leaves down the sleeves. His black hat was pulled low across his forehead so that his eyes disappeared behind the bill. The girl ordered and they went onto the patio to smoke as they drank, leaving the suitcase inside.

Let me just get this out of the way:  the band Black Sabbath is not for everyone.  If their choice of band name is not enough to turn off good and proper people, the anecdotes of their excessive living are sufficiently dissuasive.  It is an infamy that stems, in large part, from their lead singer Ozzy Osbourne who, for those of my generation, was the subject of playground legend for biting off the head of a live bat during a concert in 1982 (which is not fiction, by the way).

This month marks the eight-year anniversary of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter, “Laudato Si’” (On Care for Our Common Home).  When it was initially published in May 2015, it received both praise and criticism from Catholics and non-Catholics alike.  In a somewhat less politically polarized world than the one we are living in today, Francis’ plea for environmental consciousness and care became linked with partisanism.  Progressive, non-Catholics for whom much of the Church’s moral teaching is objectionable, nonetheless praised the letter, while some conservative Catholics took exception, mostly to what were regarded as critiques of capitalism.