Letting the Church Off the Hook

In April, local television station WBZ featured a story on an upsurge in attendance at area Catholic churches with the Boston Archdiocese reporting a 50% jump in people joining or rejoining the Church over the last four years. Apparently, this trend is driven mostly by younger adults. Parishioner Caroline Connly felt the scary political climate of today's day and age had young people longing for a sense of peace and community where they could put their trust in a higher power and feel more centered.

Archbishop Richard Henning noted the number of baptisms, confirmations and young people actively participating at Mass was “way up” in Boston. He said there wasn't one single reason for this since it seemed to be happening independently in so many places across the country. Archbishop Henning did speculate, “So I think this generation just seems open to the call of the Lord in a way that we've not seen in a while.”

Those words stung a bit because as a young person, I too was just as open to the call of the Lord but as the years passed, I felt more and more distant from my faith since there just wasn't a sense of community to be found in any of the parishes I belonged to. For me, being young and single meant feeling alone. Now that I'm older, I no longer matter in the eyes of the Church because they're too busy trying to court this new generation of worshippers.

Shortly after this WBZ report, the news program 60 Minutes aired a segment called Inside the Catholic Church's Quiet Revival. Again, it was stated the faith was seeing an increase in converts and packed churches with mostly Millennials and Gen Z leading the charge. Three prominent cardinals were interviewed for this story but none of them were sure why this sudden shift in attendance was happening. One cardinal speculated the Church's moral leaders might be inspiring young people and then he suggested Pope Leo was the right man for these times. Another cardinal felt young people had a deep hunger and they were turning to the Church for help with the meaning of life. He also thought there was a sense of "woundedness" with this generation and they were seeking healing. Whatever the reason might be, these cardinals said they were going to conduct surveys to better understand this trend.

60 Minutes reported that fewer and fewer adults were joining the Church in the early 2000s and the faith even saw decreases in weddings, baptisms and funerals. This downward spiral started to reverse itself around 2022 as more and more people joined the Church in record numbers. While the priest sex scandal certainly drove many people away, one of the cardinals interviewed said a number of other factors contributed to the Church's decline like increased secularization. He explained all religions saw a dip in attendance because there are so many more options on Sundays.

As someone who spent a great deal of time and effort trying to call attention to the plight of young adult Catholics without much success, I thought it was typical that these cardinals were pretty clueless about the root causes of this sudden surge in attendance. For decades, the leaders of the Catholic faith did very little to help young people find their way but now we're letting the Church off the hook because the problem seems to be fixing itself.

Before the hierarchy pats itself on the back, I think we need to see how this surge in church attendance will play out over the long haul. That WBZ story showed footage from two popular Boston churches: the relatively new Our Lady of the Good Voyage located in the trendy Seaport District and of course, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, which attracts many faithful parishioners anyway. I can tell you with complete certainty, my parish has not seen an uptick in Mass attendance and there are no new young people in the pews either. If there's one church Archbishop Henning needs to visit it's mine so he can see for himself that not all parishes have benefited from this resurgence. WBZ also recorded their footage during Easter which is a time when even sparsely attended churches see large crowds.

The 60 Minutes report said according to the Pew Research Center, converts to the Catholic faith represent only about 8% of all Catholics so I'm not quite sure just how significant this revival will be in the grand scheme of things. As someone who was once a young adult Catholic, I've heard all the theories before. “The pendulum will swing back and young people will return to the Church.” “Teens are looking for morals in a secular world.” “Young people know something's not right with society and they're seeking moral clarity.” None of these comments ever panned out during my young adulthood. I also think we need to refrain from speaking for Gen Z because society often gets it wrong. In the 1990s, members of Generation X were labeled slackers. Now we're supposedly one of the most self-reliant age groups of all.

Unfortunately, the reason for this upward trend in church attendance is largely anecdotal and there's no shortage of opinions on the subject. Some say the internet is playing a big part with digital influencers convincing young people to give Mass a try. Other speculate Covid caused young adults to reevaluate what's important in their lives. Others still believe young people are fed up with dating apps and want to meet people at church. A few online comments even cite an exodus from the Evangelical faith for its support of Zionism. More than a few people say loneliness, particularly the loneliness of men is a factor. Some feel the Church's more conservative beliefs are behind this trend with a few people claiming, “If the Latin Mass returned, attendance would really take off.”

I'd urge caution when trying to make sense of all these theories because we know very little right now and if the Church proceeds in the wrong direction, it might alienate many of those young adults who have recently returned to Mass.

Where Is Everybody?

The month of May wound down with a good friend from high school returning to the area for an eight day visit. He talked about doing some fun things like going out to a bar or nightclub, attending a concert, hiking a trail in New Hampshire and treating my mother and me to a nice dinner at a local steakhouse but I knew not to get my hopes up. Experience showed that despite his best intentions, plans often got derailed by the demands of others and I'd be lucky to hang out with him for just a few hours.

While my friend might believe a week off from work should best be spent visiting loved-ones and relaxing, his elderly father views vacation time as a chance to put his son to work fixing longstanding problems around the house usually caused by deferred maintenance. Two days into this year's trip, my friend did drive up to New Hampshire to see some of his relatives but that only caused his dad to grumble, “He wastes time running around when he's supposed to be here for me.” It's pretty astonishing to hear a parent declare so bluntly that he's entitled to all of his son's free time. My friend is stressed enough dealing with a marriage that's on the rocks and a special needs son. Now he has to give up his whole vacation to be a handyman?

Unfortunately, my friend's dad is bad with money and instead of building up an emergency fund to maintain the house, he buys DVDs, collectible coins and other frivolous trinkets. After being forced into an early retirement many years ago, he refused to get a part time job to make ends meet and incurred a lot of credit card debt. Now with each visit, he expects his son to pay for everything and being a good son, my friend reluctantly complies whether it's to replace a 70 year old mattress or a set of worn out tires.

By day five of his vacation, I suggested attending a nearby restaurant's trivia night but after spending much of the day running errands with his dad and son, my friend was too tired. He decided to stay put and grill up some steaks but his dad forgot to buy charcoal briquettes. I grabbed a half empty bag of Kingsford from our basement and dropped it off. We did get together later that night for about two hours but had to put up with his dad's television viewing choices which included terrible episodes of NCIS and NCIS: Origins.

When I returned the next night, my friend and I looked online for something to do because he was eager to get out of the house for a while. Of course, the tavern I suggested which was famous for local music didn't have any performances scheduled. Other restaurants and bars we looked up closed in less than an hour. I mentioned mini golf but there wasn't anything nearby. It was now after 9 PM so we decided to drive to Salem, MA and see what we could find.

Granted, it was a Thursday but for a “happening” city, the streets were pretty quiet. We drove by one bar but the crowd inside was definitely college-aged. Feeling a bit nostalgic, we then traveled to the Salem Willows but the place was dead. There's nothing so inviting than businesses locked up tight with metal shutters. I turned the car around and after driving down Derby Street, we noticed Bit Bar. I explained to my friend that it was a bar featuring many vintage arcade games. The place's concept seemed to have a nerdy cool vibe so we decided to check it out.

I had warned my friend that the bar scene in greater Boston left much to be desired and this place did not disappoint. The handful of patrons skewed too young and their fashions were so casual, I felt overdressed wearing a nice collared shirt. On stage, an overweight couple belted out an annoying karaoke song. One entire room full of arcade games was empty except for a lone guy playing. This was why I just didn't go out all that often. After a very short time, we decided to leave. The hostess told us to have a goodnight and once we were outside, I joked to my friend, “Thank you. I won't.”

Despite all the talk of how trendy some suburbs of Boston are, most of them are overrated. I told my friend about a YouTube video where a single woman decided to patronize different restaurants in my hometown each night of the week. She mostly wound up talking to couples and didn't meet anyone she wanted to date. That sounded about right.

We then walked around the city hoping to find something to do but all we encountered were empty streets. I told him it reminded me of The Twilight Zone episode Where Is Everybody? We eventually walked back to the car feeling defeated. I complained about how people in this part of the country lauded diversity but it was a failure of diversity when you couldn't find anyone else with similar sensibilities and tastes. My friend wasn't too keen to return to his dad's house so we closed out the night by aimlessly driving around the winding streets of Marblehead. I loved catching up with him but the scene outside the car was yet another portrait of isolation.

The next day, my friend planned to visit Cape Cod with his dad and son to make good on a 2017 trip that had been thwarted by a blowout on the highway due to the junky condition of his dad's car. I had been a passenger back then because my mother encouraged me to go but this time around, her growing health problems prevented me from tagging along.

On the morning of his last day here, we all went to breakfast and my mother and I treated everyone. Then my friend scrambled to finish a few projects for his dad before leaving for the airport. I was even drafted to finish up a few of these tasks which included dropping off a package that had been accidentally delivered to the house back in December. The dad's social anxiety prevented him from driving to the correct address to drop it off.

As expected, it was another vacation filled with lofty plans that gave way to a parent's demands and the one night I really needed to find something fun to do only led to dead ends and empty streets.

A Hand Not A Handout

Last month, our local newspaper printed an editorial pitching a caregiver tax credit. They ominously stated that there was “a reckoning coming” because the state's (and country's) population was growing older and with increased longevity came higher levels of infirmity. Older residents required more medical care as well as more help with daily living and in the vast majority of cases, that care fell on family members.

The editorial further stated that the emotional, physical and financial burden of providing that care was weighing heavily on generations of residents. As a caregiver for my elderly mother, I can certainly confirm that fact. In the past year, my mother's chronic pain has only gotten worse and doctors offer few realistic solutions to improve her quality of life. As a result, I have to spend more and more time staying home to care for her instead of having a life of my own. Then there are the many trips to the emergency room that last for hours on end.

My mother always goes to bed late but is an early riser so I might get four hours of sleep and that causes fatigue for most of the day. She's very bored with life and instead of working on her hobbies or doing something productive, she'll just sit in front of the television. Lately, my mom asks to tag along whenever I run errands just so she can get out of the house. The trouble is, she sometimes suggests going to a restaurant or store during our trip so I'll have to spend money unexpectedly. I do all the cooking and cleaning around the house and this year, I've had to manage her finances because she kept making mistakes in her check book. My parents were never that great with investing their money and my mother is still burdened by a large equity loan they never should have taken out in the first place.

Needless to say, all this leaves me very little free time. I last got together with friends four months ago and whenever I'm away from my mother for long, worry sets in because she's a fall risk. While my brother enjoys being married and raising a family, I'm treated to hearing my mom cry out in pain at all hours of the day and night. For her birthday, I took her out to a nice restaurant while my brother just gave her a phone call. Yes, caregiving does have quite a lot of burdens that average people never even think about.

The editorial also mentioned caregiving's cost to employers by making the case that many people wind up having to quit their jobs to care for a family member and that can cost businesses productivity especially when they lose great workers. At my job, the higher-ups could care less about us because they think we're all replaceable no matter how productive and efficient we are. They have no problem seeing good workers walk out the door because they can always hire a goof-off for less money. Since the company is owned by a private equity firm, the short term bottom line is far more important than retaining dedicated employees who ultimately save the company money in the long term.

At the crux of the editorial is a proposed tax credit for $1,500 and a respite voucher for another $1,500. They admit that's not a lot of money but say it could go a long way for the people who need it most. Actually, that kind of money is insulting because it really doesn't do much to alleviate the real cost of caregiving but legislators often propose measures that don't measure up. The real issue is how much of our hard-earned money we lose in taxes to begin with.

When looking at my old pay stubs, 2020 was my best year by far. For a few months during Covid, our company gave us hazard pay and since our industry was deemed essential, we could work any hours we wanted to. I'd routinely work 11 hour shifts 6 days a week and the overtime bumped my measly hourly wage up to something that was more respectable. Unfortunately, all that extra money meant my taxes went up too and since I was single with no dependents, the government taxed me into poverty. It was money I could've used to buy a new roof for the house or a new car or to get my mom a stair lift. What our legislators propose for caregivers certainly doesn't buy any of those things but buzz words like “tax credits” and “relief vouchers” sound positive and it gives the citizenry the impression that our state is doing something.

An AARP study cited in the editorial claimed most residents support the tax credits and relief vouchers along with paying spouse caregivers. Once again, singles don't rate as important as married folks. For now, the proposal is stuck in committee but instead of a handout, what I need the most is a helping hand. In light of that, how about the state of Massachusetts allow me to keep more of my money and let me decide how best to be a caregiver?

Reality Is Reality

Recently, I watched a documentary about a music video television station from the Boston area called V-66. The man behind this venture felt he could do a much better job than MTV and thanks to a lot of hard work and innovation, V-66 started to make a name for itself during the mid-1980s. Of course, it helped that V-66 was a free over-the-air station at a time when some communities in New England still lacked cable TV.

For all the buzz V-66 generated, it only lasted about a year and a half before being sold to the Home Shopping Network. The station's owner explained V-66 was losing money and if he wanted to avoid going into debt, he had to make the hard choice to pull the plug on his creation while there was still time. In his words, “Reality is reality.” While the station's demise was sad news for Boston area music video lovers, V-66's investors still made a tidy profit.

Sometimes in life you can have all the hope in the world but it doesn't get you very far when your good intentions smash right into the brick wall of reality. The words from V-66's owner echoed in my mind when I thought about my current situation as a Catholic single.

Reality: I just don't know where to go to meet other singles. Bars and nightclubs are actually terrible places for meeting people especially if you're shy and looking for someone who shares certain core values that mainstream society rejects.

Reality: The part of the country I live in tends to be very liberal politically and most residents have a local quirkiness that just turns me off.

Reality: I encounter a heck of a lot of elderly people in my travels but eligible women close to my own age are a rarity. Sometimes several months will pass before I even see someone that's attractive (and I'm not looking for a perfect 10 either).

Reality: Almost everyone my age carries a lot of baggage with them which means I won't likely find a significant other who is equally yoked.

Reality: Much younger women are off the table. There's too much of a generation gap and at my age, they remind me of the daughter I never had.

Reality: Online dating is a joke. It's very difficult to get to know someone when you're not talking to them face-to-face but the selection found on some dating websites leaves a lot to be desired.

Reality: Getting to know someone in real life takes a long time and unless the person is very open and honest, you'll never know how a relationship might turn out. There are plenty of miserable married people who say they'd be much happier if they were single and alone.

Reality: Even if I found a woman who shared the same values, goals and desires, it is personality that makes all the difference.  The people I get along with most in life actually have very different values and religious beliefs.

Reality: I'm getting too old for the married life I used to dream about. Is raising a family even possible when statics show very few men in my age bracket have kids? Would I even have the energy?

Reality: I've been alone for so long, someone entering my life would need to be very patient and understanding but when I look at most of my friends' relationships, there's only disharmony and resentment as they get older.

Reality: While I'm good at saving money and avoiding debt, I've only worked dead-end jobs. That's a big red flag for the vast majority of women. Unemployment is even worse and there are times when I've quit a job with nothing to fall back on.

Reality: Caregiving for my elderly mother continues to take an enormous toll. I can no longer up and go somewhere whenever I feel like it. Dating someone who lives far away is pretty much off the table and I have so very little free time to begin with.

Reality: I just don't seem to fit in anywhere. I'm too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals. I'm not a cafeteria Catholic but don't fit in with trad Catholics either. While I enjoy certain hobbies, music, movies and TV shows, their fans just annoy me.

Reality: It's hard enough to make and keep friends so how am I supposed to find a wife? I've been burned by a lot of people I've cared about while other friends just quietly disappear.

Reality: There might be a great woman out there that I have a lot in common with but because she lives thousands of miles away in a place I've never heard of, there's no way we'll ever meet.

All these realities don't give me much hope that I'll ever find a wife or even a girlfriend and while a miracle could still happen, I think it's highly unlikely...and those are pretty bad odds.

Valentine's Day Reflections On Ten Years Later

This February marks the ten year anniversary of Long Lost Black Sheep. I created this blog out of frustration for the way the Catholic Church treated its singles who wanted to get married. After reading other blogs on the subject, I felt it was time to share my perspective knowing full well that what I had to say might not be embraced by many traditional Catholics since I refused to shy away from being critical of our clergy. They had neglected people like me for far too long and if singles weren't being given bad advice, they were treated as if they were invisible. I wanted to challenge our spiritual leaders to do better and help out whenever they could. After all, the future of the Catholic Church depended on it whether they realized it or not.

Over the past ten years, I did manage to meet with our regional bishop and spoke to him at great length about the subject. I also hand delivered a letter to Cardinal O'Malley but sadly, not much of anything ever came of it. The bishop recommended I join a Catholic dating website, and the Cardinal sent me a form letter that failed to address anything I talked about.

I also used this blog to chronicle many of my personal experiences growing up in the Catholic faith. I especially wanted to highlight some of the different parishes I belonged to and share stories about my days in Catholic school. I figured capturing these moments in time from long ago might provide valuable lessons but unfortunately, this aspect of the blog has fallen by the wayside over the years.

Interestingly, the most popular entry on this blog by far is the one about disgraced former Bishop Fenwick chaplain Fr. Jim Nyhan. A Google search about this ex-priest usually leads most people right to this website. All of the other content on Long Lost Black Sheep doesn't have anywhere near the numbers as that particular blog entry.

Lastly, if there were any subjects that had nothing to do with Catholicism or being single, I'd still blog about them just to get my observations out there. Over the past ten years, many of those other Catholic singles blogs have disappeared but Long Lost Black Sheep soldiers on even if it's become an increasing struggle to find the necessary free time to write. Working the night shift for many years has ruined my sleep patterns and the demands of caregiving for my elderly mother grows with each passing year.

I know I can be judgmental and divisive at times but I hope there are readers out there who get something useful out of this site. Most blog entries generate no feedback whatsoever. Every once in a great while someone will post a thoughtful comment but more often than not I hear from the “peanut gallery” who make snarky remarks or ask intrusive questions. Keep in mind, I moderate all comments and if someone crosses a line, their words never see the light of day.

Over these past ten years, I followed the bishop's advice and joined a Catholic dating website but the experience was not that great and a portion of this blog highlights some of the drama. Long Lost Black Sheep would never have been popular on the now defunct CatholicMatch forum but to my surprise, a couple of my biggest critics grudgingly agreed with me that the Church needed to do more for it's younger singles who seek marriage.

During my time on CatholicMatch, I only dated one woman for a few months and what began as a wonderfully hopeful experience ended very abruptly. It's left me confused, wary and highly doubtful that I'll ever find anyone to be in a relationship with.

This Valentine's Day, I pondered all the words of encouragement people have given me over the years. “God will answer your prayers.” “You'll eventually find someone.” “There's someone for everyone so it's only a matter of time.” Such sentiments seem very hollow right now even if they were well-intentioned.

So much time has been lost that my dream of falling in love and getting married feels all but dead. If only there had been some kind of help for Catholic singles when I was in my 20s or 30s or 40s.  If only the people I talked to about being single had actually taken me seriously.

A New Liberal Mascot

Each weekday, a Boston-area college radio station that I regularly listen to pauses their musical programming for an hour to air the syndicated show Democracy Now! What's labeled as underground journalism or alternative news free from corporate influence is actually nothing more than far-left propaganda. Host Amy Goodman (whose gravelly voice is unbearable) pushes a liberal agenda by not only selecting topics and guests that further her favorite causes, she manipulates the very language of her reporting so that it's biased against conservatives.

While talk show host Rush Limbaugh clearly stated his political leanings, Amy Goodman pretends to be nothing more than an objective investigative journalist just doing her job to uncover the truth. Like a coward, she often lets her guests make some of the more inflammatory statements that push her agenda while she simply nods in agreement.

Ironically, Amy Goodman's disdain for what I'd call western capitalist values regularly places her in the same camp as those who would like nothing more than to destroy many of the freedoms she supposedly fights for. Her early reports on America's involvement in the Ukraine War had her siding with Vladimir Putin because how dare the west try to secretly influence a former Soviet republic.

Of course, the biggest target of Democracy Now! in recent years has been Israel. Amy Goodman's sympathy for oppressed people is so strong, that she allies herself with those who embrace radical Islam. In her warped left-wing mind, white western people must be wrong and brown people from exotic lands must be correct. She disproportionately criticizes free western nations like Israel and the United States because she can. There's not as much zeal when it comes to highlighting the atrocities of oppressive dictatorships or intolerant Muslim fanatics, however.

Amy Goodman also links the rhetoric of President Donald Trump to an increase in hate crimes. Of course, she talks with various “experts” on the subject to hammer that point home but would the shoe fit if it were on the other foot?

In May of last year, Yaron Lishinsky and Sarah Milgrim were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washinton D.C. by a gunman who shouted, “Free, free Palestine!” upon being arrested. The young Jewish couple had just left an event that was focused on building a coalition to support Gazans. Clearly, this was a hate crime and all the rhetoric the left had spewed against Israel played a part in their deaths but would Amy Goodman take any sort of responsibility for this shooting? Of course not. Democracy Now! featured a Jewish guest who briefly offered condolences but then proceeded to blame the shootings on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Several comments on left-wing websites were more blunt saying Yaron and Sarah got what they deserved and more “Zionists” needed to die.

Right after this shooting, I thought a new liberal mascot could be “Not Me” from the comic strip Family Circus. When the parents in that comic accused their children of mischief-making, the little ones denied it by saying, “Not me!” and an invisible phantom by that name was drawn as the cause of all the trouble. My idea seemed to gain even more relevance with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.

I never heard of Charlie Kirk before September 10^th of 2025 but news of his murder really bothered me. Firstly, it was surprising to see the large audiences he attracted on college campuses because I had long written off academia as being too liberal. Here was a man who often spoke of moral values that sometimes aligned with the Catholic Church's most controversial teachings and he was actually changing hearts and minds. Secondly, the shooting was all about silencing a voice that liberals didn't agree with. How the left reacted to the death of Charlie Kirk was very telling.

In the immediate aftermath, everyone seemed shocked and saddened but very quickly, the left's ugly side would be revealed. Some mockingly asked, “Charlie Kirk who?” With the identity of the shooter still unknown, more than a few liberals took joy in posting comments and memes that said conservatives were now sweating because the shooter might be white. Then they began to cherry-pick Charlie Kirk's comments to paint him as a white supremacist, anti-woman and anti-gay. No doubt some of these statements were taken out of context and this prompted gay YouTube personality Amir Odom to create a video that debunked the biggest lies told about Charlie Kirk. In fact, Amir credits meeting the conservative speaker for inspiring him to launch his own YouTube channel. I wasn't sure what to believe since I was unfamiliar with Charlie Kirk's views, but it became clear that many on the left abandoned decorum in order to celebrate this man's death. Since he was killed while talking about gun violence, they called it poetic justice. A few people on YouTube were so disgusted by the celebration of Charlie Kirk's death, they pledged to give up being liberal.

Some on the left engaged in “what-about-isms” by noting the right's lack of sympathy for the June 14, 2025 shootings of Melissa and Mark Hortman and John and Yvette Hoffman. I think a big reason for this disparity was the fact that Charlie Kirk was nationally known and his murder was captured on video in front of a large crowd but if we are to engage in what-about-isms, what about Yaron Lishinsky and Sarah Milgrim? Their deaths were quickly forgotten by the media because it didn't fit a certain narrative.

As a clearer picture of Charlie Kirk's shooter started to emerge, the left continued to twist the facts. They claimed since Tyler Robinson was raised in a pro-Trump household and even dressed up as Trump for Halloween once, he must be an extreme right-winger. They gleefully asserted Charlie Kirk was killed by "one of his own" and that it was an inside job even though children routinely rebel against their parents' moral beliefs.

Soon they concocted a cockamamie theory that Tyler Robinson was a far-right “groyper” who followed the teachings of Neo-nazi Nick Fuentes. Amy Goodman loves to criticize many of Trump's statements by prefacing his quotes with the words, “Without proof, Donald Trump said...” In the case of the Charlie Kirk shooting, this so-called underground journalist reported that Utah's Republican governor claimed the shooter had leftist ideology but did not share any evidence then she stated, “There's also been speculation Robinson may have been influenced by a far-right movement known as groypers which is tied to the white nationalist Nick Fuentes.”  We should rename her show Hypocrisy Now! for having such double standards about things not proven.

This outlandish groyper theory was starting to fall apart as more information emerged about the shooter but that didn't stop late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel from promoting it during one of his anti-Trump monologues. With the prompting of the FCC, he was suspended by the ABC Network. Liberals saw this as a freedom of speech issue with many feeling Jimmy Kimmel did nothing wrong. The talk show host returned to the airwaves a few days later to cry crocodile tears without ever acknowledging how inappropriate his groyper remarks were. Some liberals even accused conservatives of behaving like the “snowflakes” the right often criticized. In other words, “It's okay for the left to be overly sensitive and employ cancel culture tactics but how dare the right stoop to our level.”

Society seems more fractured than ever because two incredibly large groups of people hold dear very different values but in my experience, liberals tend to think they're so much more enlightened than conservatives. When complaining about this divisiveness, they refuse to look in the mirror and consider that maybe, just maybe they're part of the problem too. “Not me!”

The Church's “Useful Idiots”

One story that's made the rounds in the local news this holiday season concerns a controversial nativity scene outside St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts. Replacing the baby Jesus is a sign in the manger that reads “ICE was here.” Another sign lists a phone number for reporting ICE activity in the area. Also missing are the figures of Mary and Joseph but a note says, "The Holy Family is safe in the Sanctuary of our Church."

The display was created in part by St. Susanna's longtime pastor, Steven Josoma who said he wanted to highlight the fear of separation among immigrant families adding, “It's to get people thinking about how immigrants are treated, especially during the holiday season.” Many have shown their support for this nativity scene but many others have condemned it. The Boston Archdiocese has even called for its removal but Fr. Josoma said the display will remain until further notice.

My first impression of the situation? I didn't totally disagree with what Fr. Josoma was trying to do BUT (and this is a big but) I wondered if he has ever fought so passionately for the Church's more conservative moral beliefs like choosing life or practicing abstinence until marriage. After a little bit of online research, I found my answer.

Father Josoma actually has a history of creating provocative nativity scenes. One manger on gun violence featured signs with the death tolls of specific mass shootings while another on the environment showed a manger flooded by rising sea levels. A previous display on immigration placed baby Jesus in a cage. Fr. Josoma has stated such displays weren't political statements but “a moral call to arms.” CJ Doyle of the Catholic Action League strongly disagreed saying this year's nativity scene was sacrilegious political theater from a dissident priest with a long history of crackpot publicity stunts adding that he is using his position as a pastor to promote his left-wing political ideology. The website Boston Catholic Insider largely falls in line with this assessment.

Whatever the case may be, I think Fr. Josoma's recent attempt to get people "to think" has sown the seeds of division and discord more than anything else as evidenced by the many online arguments regarding this nativity scene. Detractors claim the display is inaccurate because the Holy Family were not refugees but rather returning to their hometown for the census as required by law. Supporters argue the nativity embraces Christ's call to care for the very least of us. Detractors say we need to render unto Caesar by not ignoring illegal immigration. Supporters accuse detractors of being MAGA elitists who only care about white people. And it goes on and on with each side digging in.

There are those among us who want to water down the Catholic faith to just two phrases: “love thy neighbor” and “don't judge.” Even though some of these people have rarely set foot in a church, they're quick to cherry-pick certain Bible passages in order to make the detractors of this nativity scene look bad. Disagree with Fr. Josoma's message and they'll call you a Christian hypocrite even though immigration is a complex issue.

This controversy reminds me of a Facebook post from one of my cousins who was raised Catholic but then turned her back on the faith. She forwarded the following from the Facebook page Occupy Democrats:

Right off the bat, this post is very deceptive. They place a photo of the Pope directly above a letter he didn't write to make it appear as if Leo XIV himself were publicly criticizing Donald Trump. In actuality, the letter was written by a bishop...but nowhere in the post will you find his name. They do say this bishop was appointed by Pope Leo so they make the leap that this must be a “HUGE rebuke” of the president and ICE.

At the bottom, they thank the Pope for “standing up for true Christian values.” Now I'm not the smartest person in the world but I suspect a Facebook page called Occupy Democrats wouldn't be so kind if Pope Leo promoted some of the more conservative values of the Catholic Church.

It's been said that Vladimir Lenin coined the term “useful idiot” which means a naive person who is manipulated into supporting, promoting, or defending a cause, ideology, or leader without fully understanding the harmful, hidden, or self-defeating consequences of their actions. By only showing the more liberal side of the Catholic faith and ignoring other aspects of its moral teachings, our religious leaders are playing right into the hands of those who want to see the Church weakened or destroyed altogether. Courting these people certainly won't change their negative opinions of organized religion but it will cause confusion among devout Catholics who have already sacrificed so much for their faith...and that will ultimately hurt our Church.