In this video Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper are talking about life, death, and grief. This weekend, my coworker and friend passed away. He wasn’t my best friend. We didn’t hang out away from work. I almost always detest when people blow these things up for dramatic effect. He was a good, young kid that was just starting his career. He wanted to be good at what he did and do he leaned on all of us in the office for advice.

This story exists on two levels. There is the overwhelmingly sad human angle. This was a 30 year old kid that had just gotten married. He and his wife hadn’t even been married a year. They both are in their first years as teachers. Quite literally, his life was snatched right out of the starting gate.

You can watch the video over and over again and get choked up every time when you notice Cooper struggling to get through the quote. How could the worst things that happen to us be gifts? How demented do you have to be to express thanks for your own suffering?

On a human level it is is very simple. We are fallible and the moment we admit that, the better off we are. These moments also put our own loss in perspective. How could I possibly compare my struggles with his or his wife’s? Even with my own stuff, I can’t possibly know what to say in this moment. I am speechless. On a larger scale, we can share on our humanity and cherish the time we do have.

When I look at our world, what I see more than anything is a sharp rise in narcissism. In this context, it can best be defined as the excessive concern with self. We are the center of the universe. Everyone exists to meet my needs. Their thoughts, feelings, and concerns are of no consequence to me unless it can be used to meet my desires and my needs.

What has this narcissism wrought? I’d point to the very real situation this couple went through. The people working within the school district were caring and feeling people, but the district itself can’t be. They both ran out of days quickly and whatever benefits that coworkers could pass on also ran out. That includes sick leave banks, disability, and bereavement leave.

I bring this up because it is the norm in our industry and dozens of others as well. You work to serve the company. When you can no longer work you are of no use to the company. So, you are at the mercy of whatever individual managers might feel in the moment. Even then, our capacity for charity is limited.

We work longer and harder than most countries. When you just compare us to the industrialized world we also make less per hour for that time. Our standard of living is lower partially because of the choices we have made. The individual’s ability to make millions or billions trumps the standard of living of ordinary people. Most other countries offer more extended leave to care for a family members, prepare for a baby, or deal with your own illness.

Congress couldn’t pass a bowel movement right now much less landmark employee rights legislation. Maybe that will change some day. What we can do is hug our friends and loved ones a little tighter. We can laugh a little more and a little louder. We can also remember that whatever stuff we are dealing with is not nearly as bad as what others have to deal with.

Sanctity — the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly.

Abortion data can be tricky due to the sometimes secretive nature of the procedure, but the CDC reported over 622,000 abortions between 2012 and 2021. That’s a ten year period. Move the decimal over one space and you get 62,000 per year. I’m not going to mince words. That’s a lot. A cursory search of births from the same year indicates that over three million children are born every year.

Obviously, there are an undisclosed number of miscarriages every year. So, it is impossible to know, but various reports would suggest that pregnancies in general are dropping. There are any number of push and pull factors that would impact that including economic factors, but we could also suggest that sex education and access to contraceptives might also have an impact on that as well.

My fuzzy math skills would indicate that after we allow for miscarriages that abortions would account for about one percent of pregnancies at least through 2021. In other words, they are relatively rare. A hefty percentage of those are due to the health of the mother or child. The idea that women are running out and getting elective abortions on the regular is just plain silly.

Demographic data shows us that gun deaths are not only higher in the United States than anywhere else in the world, but they are on the rise.  The data on gun deaths is pretty close to rates of abortion. We could parse out the numbers and argue that there are more suicides than murders. However, in a discussion about life that is irrelevant. It is perfectly analogous. A woman that wants to get an abortion can find a way to do it legally or illegally if she has the means. A person that wants to commit suicide will find a way whether they have access to a gun or not if they have the means.

If we are acting on a belief that life is sacred (as the definition of sanctity would indicate above) then wouldn’t it make sense to advocate for policies that would promote that? That would be all policies. Obviously, each of these issues are complicated. In cases where the health of the child or mother are at stake we don’t want red tape to block the wishes of a woman and her doctor.

Similarly, there is a certain amount of gun ownership that we can tolerate and most wouldn’t tolerate a world where gun ownership would be completely forbidden. So, we come to the idea that a wise compromise needs to be reached on both counts. Facts are limited on the latest mass shooting in Kansas City. We know there have been some arrests and we have some basic numbers, but we are unsure of the motives.

We know what causes this. We have seen this multiple times. We’ve tried nothing and we are all out of ideas. We have tons of thoughts and prayers. I don’t want to minimize that, but what in the heck are we praying for if we aren’t praying for wisdom and the fortitude to do what needs to be done to help? The Lord works in mysterious ways, but most of the time he works through us. If we aren’t willing to do anything then the prayer is a waste of breath.

The arguments against gun control and assault weapons bans are tortured at best. I don’t give a hoot what AR stands for in an AR-15. Okay, it doesn’t stand for assault rifle. Great. To argue that I don’t get to argue for gun control because I don’t know how that stupid apparatus works is just a creative dodge. It is designed to kill people. It is designed to kill a lot of people in short order. It has no positive utility and doesn’t belong anywhere near polite society.

If you oppose common sense gun legislation and blabber on about the sanctity of life you are a hypocrite.  Get your jollies anyway you want, but if your jollies present a danger to me or my family then you bet your ass I am going to argue for its regulation. If you care about life then you should care about all reasonable efforts to promote safety. Otherwise you are just full of excrement and need to sit down and shut up.

I did not send this direct response to my deacon, but it fits pretty well with how I am feeling in the moment.

I firmly believe anyone that is ordained in any Catholic or mainstream Christian sect has earned authority. You went through an ordination process. In the case of the Catholic church, you were discerned and went through a discernment process for seven years or more. That’s earned authority. All that being said, I have some earned authority as a teacher and a volunteer catechist. My words and deeds have power when I am acting in those capacities.

It is incumbent upon me to exercise that authority with discretion and grace. Certainly, priests, deacons, and ministers are permitted to have their own viewpoints of how the words in our sacred scripture should be lived out in the modern world. Each church teaches its own way and each individual within that framework interprets those words for themselves. While I am acting in a position of authority it is not my place to insert my own interpretations into my teaching. Those in more direct ministry should do the same.

This brings us to the political side of the conversation. Most texts I know define economics as how we distribute scarce resources. There are so many people. There are fewer homes. So, how do we determine who gets the home and who doesn’t? A market economy is just one answer to that fundamental question. Depending on your point of view it might be the best answer.

We can extend this out to nearly every good you can think of. You can extend it out to services as well. If we are looking at the sanctity of life then one needs to determine what that all entails. Are we narrowly defining it as simply allowing someone to be born and to keep breathing? Do we attach any qualities to that? If one were to talk about dignity as it pertains to life then wouldn’t the inclusion of these basic needs be included in our discussion about life itself?

Therefore, any discussion of life must move beyond birth and move towards these more complex questions. What are the basics everyone must have in order to maintain their dignity? Once we agree to these principles then what is the most efficient and effective way to make sure everyone has access to these things? Does that mean everyone has access to three meals a day? Does it mean everyone has a warm bed and a roof over their head at night? Does it mean that everyone is clothed or has access to affordable health care?

I say all of this as a way to illustrate that just the issue of life itself is not easy and not settled. Even if we were to agree as to what dignity and sanctity looked like we would still not agree on the best way to achieve those ends. Therefore, any opinion on the matter cannot be labeled as sin. As long as people are entering into a conversation or dialogue recognizing the issues and making a good faith effort to solve them then they are not committing sin. In fact, the very notion of assuming we have all the answers is committing the sin of hubris.

It is especially sinful if I use my position as an authority figure to shove my views on these debatable issues to the people under my authority. That is an abuse of my authority. Now, certainly private citizens should debate these issues and those in government should as well. It is more that fair to ask us to do more or do our fair share to bridge these gaps in dignity.

Our faith or beliefs on ethics and morals should absolutely play a role in how we answer those questions, but at the heart of it all we must understand that a differing opinion is just that. It is not a sign of moral superiority. Earned or given authority in one domain does not make us an authority in another. It is wrong to use that authority as a way to leverage behavior in another.

These things happen every once in awhile. I was standing in the back at mass when the deacon threw out something that knocked my socks off. In full disclosure, I have considered the process of becoming a deacon. It involves a number of sacrifices which includes nearly a decade of study and an extra masters degree in the process for most. So, when the deacon speaks it carries some weight.

In this case the deacon was talking about venial and mortal sin. There are four key mortal sins which include blasphemy, heresy, and murder. I highlight those three because he did. He said that if you go into the voting booth and pull the lever for someone that advocates policies against the sanctity of life then you are guilty of murder.

He’s a fairly smart guy. He’s not going to mention the specific political party because that would be a violation of the church’s tax exempt status, but anyone paying attention to politics knew what he was referring to. My initial response was rage. Thankfully I was in the back when he uttered that line or I might have been tempted to storm out. He was calling me and most of my family murderers.

My trouble is that we have taken something as expansive as life itself and narrowly construed to focus on the birth. The sanctity of life means so much more. It refers to the refugee looking for safety and being turned away. It refers to that same refugee that encounters barbed wire that endangers her life or the life of her child that the church professes to care about so deeply.

It applies to those that don’t have enough food to eat during the day and may need those two meals at school to keep them healthy. It refers to those adults and children that can’t reasonably afford health care coverage and need the Medicaid to get the treatment they need.

It refers to the prisoner that has committed the worst sins in our society. It governs whether we as a society have the right to take their life because it will make us feel better temporarily. Life is about dignity. It is about dignity from natural birth to natural death. We don’t get to pick and choose which planks we care about and when a life might be worth less to us than it does to someone else. There isn’t a ledger sheet where a brown person’s life is worth less than a white one’s. Someone speaking Spanish is not worth less than someone speaking English.

Our Lord and savior was a refugee. His family fled to Egypt when King Harrod threatened his life. They didn’t put barbed wire on their border. They didn’t consider him a potential terrorist. They didn’t put him on a bus and ship him off half way across the country for a political stunt. They were allowed to stow away and return when it was safe for them to do so. This is in the Bible they profess to love so much.

Which party is kinder to life in general? Which party fights more for the rights of people and for their general safety and welfare? Which party cares more about people? If we answer that question honestly then maybe we can turn that whole notion around on them. Perhaps that tune would quickly change if it became palatable to say that voting Republican is a mortal sin.

The simple truth is that voting is not a sin. It can’t be. It is a choice and like most choices, there are no perfect ones. The choice is whether to simply pull the lever for the party you think highlights the majority of your values or not to vote at all. What is in your head, heart, and what you do with your mouth and hands makes that determination. Do you personally support life? Do you follow the laws and rules that God has laid down? Do you make the world a better place or a worse one? I’m not about to confess for voting for Joe Biden when the choice clearly dictates I vote for an evil man. If that’s the standard then I’ll find the door.