The life of a priest includes countless conversations with parishioners, friends, neighbors and all who come seeking sacraments or assistance. As an extrovert from a large family, I love talking with people.
Those conversations are usually about what’s going on in our specific lives, but it’s not uncommon to chat about fun things like sports or the weather and about more serious topics like politics or the Church. I’ve noticed that it’s gotten harder to discuss those more serious issues without sparking passionate and even combative responses.
For example, mention either President Trump or President Biden and you may be in for a prolonged conversation that can develop into arguments that tear us apart more than they bring us together.
Our nation is also involved in armed conflicts that people disagree about. The war in Ukraine continues to be a concern to us all. Russian President Vladimir Putin thought the 1-1/2-year old war would be over in a few weeks, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expected a major offensive this year. Instead, it has turned into a long and tragic struggle that has become a real quagmire all around.
Early last month, violence in the Mideast tragically burst out once again. While these issues are thousands of years old and people have all kinds of perspectives and opinions, none of us likes what happened when Hamas fired rockets into Israel, attacked citizens with fighters on the ground, and killed more than 1,400 people while taking about 240 people hostage.
Israel’s military response – which according to the health ministry in Gaza has as of Nov. 6 killed more than 10,000 people there – also sparked disagreement. Some feel it is appropriate; others do not. No matter what “side” you are on, we know that more lives have been lost in Gaza, and more than a million people have suffered without basic human needs like food, water and electricity.
In the midst of these conflicts, our own government seemed unable to function for a time. The House of Representatives was unable to elect a new speaker for three weeks, bringing government business to a halt when it needed to be leading us toward a new budget and dealing with funding issues including humanitarian aid for the Mideast and proposed military aid for Israel and Ukraine.
As a priest, I also hear a lot of passion and worry surrounding Church issues. The recent Synod is finished, and, while the discussion and openness were excellent, no major issues were acted upon. Going into the meeting, there were a lot of concerns and disagreements about which issues would be discussed, what might change, and how it would impact the Church’s mission to spread the Gospel of Jesus.
These heavy issues are talked about every day, especially with the proliferation of social media and the seeming freedom to say anything you want. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to many of these serious challenges.
This can make some of us sad or angry if we feel the world is falling deeper into sin, chaos and darkness. Others might retain a sense of hope that we will find our way through these problems because God created us in his image and that truth, justice and love will prevail. We all sin and we all know that bad things happen to good people, but we continue to hope that God’s will is done even amid the darkness and that our goodness can ultimately bring resolution to these issues.
Let me offer one thought that I hope may help some of us. In our discussions, let’s do our best to stay focused on the supreme values that we cherish as Christians and Americans. As Albert Einstein is reported to have said, “The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.”
For example, Pope Francis recently said about the situation in the Mideast, “We all long for peace.” He spoke not favoring one side or the other but about peace being the ultimate objective – peace in the world and peace in ourselves.
Here at home, we all believe that our democracy is never perfect but remains the best way to govern while guaranteeing our freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, the press, and more. We can, hopefully, all agree on that, and we should do our best to support it, pursue it and bring it about. The issues are real and complicated, but if we agree on the basics of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we work our way through the struggles together. We won’t always agree on everything or get everything we want, but if we no longer agree on the basic values of democracy, everything else falls apart.
The most important value and goal of all is living Jesus’s call – command actually – to love God and neighbor. We disagree on many issues in the Church, but everything is secondary to what our Lord himself called the first and second greatest commandments. We are to share with others that same love God and Jesus have shared with us, which will lead us ultimately to peace and justice.
I wish I had specific answers to the world’s biggest problems, but I don’t. My role as a child of God is to pray about them, and to stay focused on those supreme values: democracy, peace and, ultimately, Jesus himself. We can discuss, debate and disagree on other things, but always keeping in mind these highest values might help make our discussions respectful, loving and more productive.
As I’ve looked back over my 50 years of priesthood, I realize more and more that God is in charge. In the end, it’s not about what I want but what God wants. As Jesus asked us all 2,000 years ago, “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8: 36)
May the God of love help us to always love one another, and may the Prince of Peace bring that peace to our world, our nation and our hearts.
(Msgr. John Enzler serves as the mission advocate of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and is a chaplain at his alma mater, St. John’s College High School in Washington. He writes the Faith in Action column for the archdiocese’s Catholic Standard and Spanish-language El Pregonero newspapers and websites.)
