A Blessed Thanksgiving To All
By CHRISTOPHER MANION
We’ll all be celebrating Thanksgiving come Thursday, and clearly there’s a lot to be thankful for. The country certainly celebrated. For more than a fortnight, America has been peaceful. The transition to the second Trump Administration is going smoothly, with the usual suspects supplying the necessary chatter.
Yes, America has a lot to be thankful for, and so do our shepherds. Their border state “charities” alone have received over half a billion taxpayer dollars a year under Joe Biden. They also received some $3.5 billion in 2020-2021 in COVID Relief Funds due to an “unprecedented exemption,” the AP reports.
Our bishops know all this, of course, but they don’t like to be asked about it. Perhaps that’s why, at their annual meeting a couple of weeks ago, they didn’t bother to thank the voters for sending “Catholic Joe” Biden and his “abortion czar” Kamala Harris to the dustbin.
Instead, they expressed fear that Donald Trump could cut their border funding. Of course, they didn’t put it that way. When addressing the USCCB’s immigration programs, bishops don’t mention the government money. Instead, they routinely insist that their position is Magisterial — “the Catholic Church teaches”; that claim apparently gives them grounds to insult their critics with the usual epithets.
And they’re pretty nervous about it. When members of Congress inquired into the spending of taxpayer dollars by the border operations of Catholic Charities last fall, New York Timothy Cardinal Dolan simply branded them as “bigots.”
Apparently, requesting the possible misappropriation of taxpayer funds constitutes a violation of “religious freedom.”
Does that mean that putting the “Catholic” label on a federal grant might be construed as a “license to steal?”
Of course not. But as Catholic Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) once told me, the bishops might well brand any inquiry into that spending as an “attack [on] the Catholic Church.”
But let’s look at the bright side.
What Ever Happened To Gratitude?
“In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thes. 5:18).
“St. Augustine taught: Gratitude is the beginning of faith. When we’re grateful to God, we’re people of faith and generosity. Happy Thanksgiving!” — Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, Thanksgiving 2013
Some 50 years ago, Dr. Karl Menninger penned a tome with an intriguing title: “What Ever Became of Sin?” Sin was something everyone knew about, of course, but suddenly no one was talking about it. And Menniger wondered why.
Today, it’s fair to ask: whatever happened to gratitude?
Bishop Michael Sis of San Angelo wrote last year about the ongoing habit of gratitude: “Gratitude is more than a one-time response to a one-time gift, it is a virtue that is learned, strengthened and perfected over the course of a lifetime.
“Gratitude is not just a spontaneous feeling that comes over us,” he writes. “Gratitude is a choice we make, an act of the will. We choose to be grateful. We’re not born grateful. We have to learn it. This is why parents have to teach their children, constantly reminding them to say ‘thank you.’
“St. Paul expresses this beautifully in Colossians 3:15-17,” Bishop Sis continues: “Be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, … singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
In Through the Eye of a Needle, Peter Brown describes “euergetism — the practice of the wealthy to distribute part of their wealth to the community.” Its purpose “was to gain glory, honor, and gratitude — pompous and prideful.
“…[G]iving to the poor tended to be presented as an act of altruism in its purest and most challenging form. We should not underestimate the imaginative impact of such altruism. Late Roman society (like any other ancient society) was a world held together at every level by intense networks of reciprocal gifts. These ranged from the friendly exchange of services in neighborhood associations to the euphoric dialogue between civic benefactors and their “people,” by which the gift of civic pleasures was instantly repaid by the countergift of honor and acclaim. It was a world that appeared to be ruled by iron laws of reciprocity,” Brown writes.
In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas asks, “Whether thankfulness is a virtue, distinct from the other virtues?”
Dr. Michael Austin explains: “For him, the answer is yes, because thankfulness is ‘a special part of justice.’ Giving thanks to our benefactors, those who have given us a particular and personal favor, is an issue of obligation, or justice. We owe gratitude to them, and this is different from the related virtues of religion (owed to God), piety (owed to parents), and observance (owed to those who excel in dignity). We are left with thankfulness as a virtue distinct from these related excellences of character. Thankfulness, or gratitude, is a matter of justice.”
Aquinas continues: “Accordingly, since what we owe God, or our father, or a person excelling in dignity, is not the same as what we owe a benefactor from whom we have received some particular favor, it follows that after religion, whereby we pay God due worship, and piety, whereby we worship our parents, and observance, whereby we worship persons excelling in dignity, there is thankfulness or gratitude, whereby we give thanks to our benefactors” [ST II-II, Q. 106, (1)].
We must give thanks, then, to our benefactors. But how?
“Now it is evident that a benefactor, as such, is cause of the beneficiary. Hence the natural order requires that he who has received a favor should, by repaying the favor, turn to his benefactor according to the mode of each. And, as stated above with regard to a father, a man owes his benefactor, as such, honor and reverence, since the latter stands to him in the relation of principle; but accidentally he owes him assistance or support, if he need it” [ST II-II, 106 (3)].
Whom Do We Thank? And How?
Nobles in fifth-century Rome practiced generosity “to gain glory, honor, and gratitude — pompous and prideful.”
Could that be possible today? Of course, back then, at least it was their money. But today?
Could our politicians today be handing out billions of someone else’s money to gain glory, honor, and gratitude? Are they, too, pompous and prideful?
And what about our bishops? It’s not their money, either.
Do the politicians ever thank the taxpayers for our money that they use?
And whom should the bishops be grateful to when they spend it? The politicians, of course; they’re certainly pompous and prideful.
Imagine José, an illegal immigrant who just succeeded to cross the border into Texas. He’s so fortunate — the local Catholic bishop is there to greet him!
“Thank you, thank you, Your Excellency,” says the ebullient traveler.
How should the bishop respond?
“You’re welcome?”
Or, “Oh my goodness, don’t thank me, it’s not my money we’re spending on you, it’s the government’s.”
So he should thank Joe Biden?
Maybe somewhere José will meet a bishop who tells him, “No, José, thank the American taxpayer. It’s not our money, and it’s not Joe Biden’s money either. It belongs to the American taxpayer.”
Maybe some day our bishops will even muster the gratitude to thank us themselves.
Just maybe.
