A Leaven In The World… The Strength That Comes From God
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
“We don’t need you guys anymore.” Dick Cheney’s devastating comment to CNN’s Barbara Starr on the sidelining of old, conventional media like TV and newspapers brought the house down on a recent televised interview.
He was referring to Donald Trump’s penchant for firing off Twitter commentary on political issues and public events, enabling him to go around the filtering and outright deceit of the “mainstream” media and communicate with his supporters directly.
“ ‘I think one of the reasons people get so concerned about the tweets is it’s sort of a way around the press,’ he said. ‘It’s modern era, modern technology. He’s at the point where we don’t need you guys anymore’.” (Source: rawstory.com.)
Then he paused for laughter before apologizing to Starr.
The Trump election both revealed the grand deception and the delusional liberal or progressive agenda of vast portions of the fourth estate. Some, like The New York Times, apologized for their slanted coverage after the election results caught them with their pants down. The proverbial emperor indeed has no clothes.
But it seems as though many of the establishment purveyors of what’s happening now are backsliding into their old routine of politicking instead of reporting.
This is a bracing and fascinating time in which to live. Suddenly huge portions of the American public are no longer disenfranchised. “The guy at the top” does not depend on a protective media filter to deceive the American public and canonize a leftist and weakening agenda.
Now people are talking directly to each other in online public forums such as Twitter with easily verified “likes” and “retweets” to indicate the metrics of agreement or consensus among like-minded citizens. Because of this alternative, the twisted agenda of the press and TV pundits no longer operates in a vacuum to hoodwink the typical American consumer of news.
These are fascinating times for some, but ominous and foreboding for those whose livelihood has depended upon conventional major news media. Television still seems to be insulated from significant erosion of advertising revenue thus far, but the growth of Internet-based entertainment will increase the temptation to vend smut to divert to prurient appeal.
The illusion for some Americans that strength is bad continues. Shrill and hysterical reaction to the courtesy call from the president of Taiwan to President-elect Trump is a case in point. Those on this continent who are hyperventilating because Trump accepted the call may have more in common with Beijing than with America.
A weakened America that would concede power over its foreign relations to China is not a sovereign nation and not able to advance the needs ands demands of its own citizens. But don’t try to explain this to The New York Times.
God does not hate strength. The Lord is the most powerful of all beings and thus is called the Omnipotent One. The glorification of weakness is a misplaced mission and certainly not the job of the U.S. government. God is opposed to evil as the Holy One and sometimes being holy means appearing weak in the eyes of the world. Martyrs are a case in point.
Elected leaders, however, are not joining a monastery to withdraw from engagement with the world or running a soup kitchen where success means giving away the farm. The role of those elected to govern us is to ensure the strength of our defense, to seek justice for all, and to advance our nation’s cause in the world. If they aspire to weakness in the ways of the world, then they should enter a monastery instead.
Likewise, it is not the job of government to redistribute wealth. Churches exist for God’s charitable purpose in using the largesse of the wealthy to aid the poor and downtrodden.
Very often you will hear people excoriate priests who mention anything related to elections or government as “mixing church and state.” The reality is that only when the politicians finally stay out of religion for good will priests and other Christians be able to stay out of politics. As in the case of legal slaughter of the unborn, the Church has the duty to cry out against this miscarriage of a fundamental principle of justice.
No doubt much of the passion in the press comes from the fact that many who get their living that way no longer believe in or worship God. He has been replaced by the idols of power, money, and influence over popular opinion by any means fair or foul.
Many Americans, on the contrary, continue to worship God and to love their families in what’s known as “flyover” country among the elites. But as we found out, there are still enough of us around to influence a presidential election.
Perhaps what we’re beginning to see is the wages in death of the abortion culture. It has now been well over four decades since access to abortion was vastly enlarged through legalization via Roe v. Wade. This has been time enough time for those who love God and babies to raise a generation of pro-life and pro-America voters.
The pro-abortion presidential candidate was a markedly joyless woman, as noted by Trump’s Catholic campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. Joylessness goes along very well with the hatred necessary to support the premeditated execution of innocent unborn children.
Maybe the self-satisfied pundits will learn from the newly invigorated America to try love of God and country as the path to happiness. And the idea that God calls us to be strong in defense of the weak should also find more support among those who will soon go to work for the new Commander in Chief Donald Trump. Let’s continue to pray for him and the conversion we all need to love God and seek His strength in all we do for Him and our neighbors, both strong and weak.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever. @MCITLFrAporism
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(Join me on pilgrimage to Fatima in October 2017 for the 100th anniversary of the apparitions. Visit proximotravel.com for more info. To find our tour itinerary and sign up use the search function and type in “Father Kevin M” and then refine your search by typing in the state of Maryland.)
