“Love is the greatest force in the universe.  It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. He who loves is a participant in the being of God”  –  Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fr. Malloy’s Midweek Message.  Feb 15, 2023

Friends,

Here we are mid-February.  We continue to celebrate Black History Month.  We also enjoy Valentine’s Day (or feel pressed upon by Hallmark’s marketing of the day…).  And we continue to hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount at Mass these Sundays.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus had much in common, most importantly their challenge to us all to love.  And to love even our enemies.  “Love is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” said King, and Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:44)

Love of those we love is challenging enough.  Love our enemies?  Come on.  Is this realistic?  I say it is.  Very realistic.  It is as real as the Civil Rights Movement whose nonviolent, active resistance of racism did so much to transform the United States of America.  It is as real as the movement Gandhi led in India that so changed that nation and liberated millions from colonial oppression. 

Love of enemies is a real as a woman I knew in Camden, NJ.  Her 13-year daughter Shaline was brutally murdered one hot, August day by a stranger who had no motive for killing the child.  Such murders are hard to solve, but Camden police never let it go.  Several years after the killing, the murderer was brought to Justice.  Lourdes, Shaline’s mother, let it be known that she did not want the death penalty for the murderer.  “It won’t bring my baby girl back,” she said.  She wanted him put away for life so that he could not harm any other people.  But she forgave him.  Her forgiveness helped heal a bit of the pain and agony that threatened Lourdes’s own spiritual and mental well-being.

Love of enemies is a real as those who forgave the sick, warped, hate filled, white supremacist who killed nine beautiful people at a Bible study in Charleston, SC, June 2015.  The day the killer was brought before the court, CNN broadcast live the words of forgiveness offered by family members of the victims.  The Washington Post reported the extraordinarily poignant and powerful expression of Christian forgiveness. 

“The relatives of people slain inside the historic African American church in Charleston, S.C., earlier this week were able to speak directly to the accused gunman Friday at his first court appearance. One by one, those who chose to speak at a bond hearing did not turn to anger. Instead, while he remained impassive, they offered him forgiveness and said they were praying for his soul, even as they described the pain of their losses. “I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, said at the hearing, her voice breaking with emotion. “You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”

This Valentine’s Day, let’s practice transformative love, love even for those who do us wrong.

Peace,

Fr. Rick Malloy, S.J.

Keep Safe.    Keep Sane.    Keep Smiling

 

 

"El amor es la mayor fuerza del universo.  Es el latido del cosmos moral. Quien ama participa del ser de Dios" - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

El Miercoles Mensaje del Padre Malloy, S.J.  15 de Febrero, 2023

Amigos y Amigas,

Ya estamos a mediados de febrero.  Seguimos celebrando el Mes de la Historia Negra.  También disfrutamos del Día de San Valentín (o nos sentimos presionados por el marketing de Hallmark de este día...).  Y seguimos escuchando el Sermón de la Montaña de Jesús en la Misa de estos domingos.

El reverendo Martin Luther King, Jr. y Jesús tenían mucho en común, sobre todo su desafío a todos nosotros de amar.  Y a amar incluso a nuestros enemigos.  "El amor es el latido del cosmos moral", dijo King, y Jesús dice: "Habéis oído que se dijo: Amarás a tu prójimo y odiarás a tu enemigo. Pero yo os digo: Amad a vuestros enemigos y orad por los que os persiguen, para que seáis hijos de vuestro Padre celestial" (Mateo 5:44).

Amar a los que amamos ya es un reto.  ¿Amar a nuestros enemigos?  Vamos.  ¿Es realista?  Yo digo que sí.  Muy realista.  Es tan real como el Movimiento por los Derechos Civiles, cuya resistencia activa y no violenta al racismo contribuyó tanto a transformar los Estados Unidos de América.  Es tan real como el movimiento que Gandhi lideró en la India y que tanto cambió esa nación y liberó a millones de personas de la opresión colonial. 

El amor a los enemigos es tan real como el de una mujer que conocí en Camden, Nueva Jersey.  Su hija Shaline, de 13 años, fue brutalmente asesinada un caluroso día de agosto por un desconocido que no tenía ningún motivo para matar a la niña.  Este tipo de asesinatos son difíciles de resolver, pero la policía de Camden nunca lo dejó pasar.  Varios años después del asesinato, el asesino fue llevado ante la Justicia.  Lourdes, la madre de Shaline, hizo saber que no quería la pena de muerte para el asesino.  "No me devolverá a mi niña", dijo.  Quería que le encerraran de por vida para que no pudiera hacer daño a otras personas.  Pero le perdonó.  Su perdón ayudó a curar un poco el dolor y la agonía que amenazaban el bienestar espiritual y mental de Lourdes.

El amor a los enemigos es tan real como los que perdonaron al supremacista blanco, enfermo, deformado y lleno de odio que mató a nueve personas hermosas en un estudio bíblico en Charleston, SC, en junio de 2015.  El día que el asesino compareció ante el tribunal, la CNN retransmitió en directo las palabras de perdón ofrecidas por familiares de las víctimas.  El Washington Post informó de la expresión extraordinariamente conmovedora y poderosa del perdón cristiano. 

"Los familiares de las personas asesinadas en el interior de la histórica iglesia afroamericana de Charleston, Carolina del Sur, a principios de esta semana pudieron hablar directamente con el pistolero acusado el viernes en su primera comparecencia ante el tribunal. Uno a uno, los que decidieron hablar en la vista sobre la fianza no se mostraron airados. Por el contrario, mientras él permanecía impasible, le ofrecieron perdón y dijeron que rezaban por su alma, incluso mientras describían el dolor de sus pérdidas. "Te perdono", dijo en la vista Nadine Collier, hija de Ethel Lance, de 70 años, con la voz quebrada por la emoción. "Me habéis quitado algo muy valioso. Nunca volveré a hablar con ella. Nunca volveré a abrazarla. Pero te perdono. Y ten piedad de tu alma".

Este San Valentín, practiquemos el amor transformador, el amor incluso por quienes nos hacen mal.

La Paz,

P. Ricardo Malloy, S.J.

Sigamos Seguro.    Sigamos Sano.    Sigamos Sonriendo

"It's a Wonderful Life" and Frank Capra's Catholicism

https://www.ncregister.com/features/frank-capra-earned-his-wings-with-it-s-a-wonderful-life 

National Catholic Register provides us with Jay Copp's wonderful article on "It's a Wonderful Life"

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Frank Capra ‘Earned His Wings’ With ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

Director’s name might not ring a bell with younger viewers, but his timeless movies are full of themes and plots close to his Catholic heart.

Top row: L to R: Donna Reed, Jimmy Stewart and Karolyn Grimes star in the beloved classic. Bottom row: Henry Travers portrays Clarence Odbody alongside Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. (photo: RKO Pictures)

Jay CoppMoviesDecember 11, 2022

This December, millions of Americans once again will gather in front of their TVs to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. The poignant dramatization of an earnest, kindhearted small-town banker saved by a grandfatherly angel is a beloved staple of the Christmas season. On the surface, the 1946 film has all the trappings of a religious movie. It opens with a flurry of disembodied prayers heard in the heavens by celestial beings. “I owe everything to George Bailey. Help him, dear Father.” 

“Joseph, Jesus and Mary, help my friend, Mr. Bailey.” 

“George is a good guy, God. Give him a break.”

Played wonderfully by Jimmy Stewart, George is falsely accused of misappropriating the funds of the “broken-down Building and Loan.” Drowning his sorrows in a bar, he prays desperately to God. That moment of pleading gets him, as he ruefully recounts, “a bust in the jaw.” He could not be more mistaken. To his rescue comes the white-haired Clarence Odbody, Angel Second Class, eager after hundreds of years to at last “get his wings.” The movie is celebrated for its wholesome virtues and old-fashioned American values. Bedford Falls is a stereotypical small town where people know one another and don’t lock their doors. Hard work enables you to buy a home, raise a family and build a community. 

Virtue is ultimately rewarded, and when you are down and out, friends and family rally around you. Even on Christmas Eve. It’s not a film seen as steeped in religion or even as a morality tale. Instead, it’s the story of a decent man who loves his family and Bedford Falls as he faces off against a ruthless business tycoon, Mr. Henry Potter, “a warped, frustrated old man,” as George calls him. Clarence is not set forth as proof of God, but as a fanciful plot device in the drama of an honorable man driven to a suicide attempt before recognizing the value of his life. But the movie actually is steeped in spirituality. 

It’s a Wonderful Life is not only a Christian film — it essentially unfolds a Catholic vision of life.

To appreciate the movie’s Catholicism, it helps to know the story of its director, Frank Capra, and his career in Hollywood. 

Capra’s faith was hard-won. Born in 1897, he was a self-described “Christmas Catholic” as a younger man. His brother was a priest, but Capra felt he needed God only when he perceived he needed him. Early in his career, failing to establish himself, he knelt alone in a back pew of a cathedral. He was there “to remind the Almighty here was another sacred sparrow needing help,” as recalled in Catholic Digest’s “I Remember Frank Capra,” from January 1992, based on his autobiography. His career breakthrough came when he directed the highly successful It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, in 1934. Strangely, certainly to him, his triumph left him anxious as a director and hollowed out as a man. Success brought despair. He was lost and bereft. His conversion, as both an artist and as a person, came after he was told by an anonymous man, “The talents you have, Mr. Capra, are not your own, not self-acquired,” as he recounted years later in his autobiography (and as noted in the same article in Catholic Digest). “God gave you those talents. They are his gifts to you, to use for his purpose. When you don’t use the gifts God blesses you with, you are an offense to God and to humanity.”

If that sounds like a George Bailey-type revelation, well, Capra’s movies unspooled themes and plots close to his Catholic heart. In Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, in 1936, Gary Cooper plays a small-town tuba player who outwits his enemies. It’s one of his many films that shows the power of goodness to change hearts and prompt conversion, according to film critic Maria Elena de las Carreras Kuntz.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in 1939, similarly depicts an idealistic young senator who overcomes villainous political operatives. In the climactic scene, Stewart, playing the fresh-faced senator, stages a one-man filibuster. Sweating and talking for 24 hours, pleading for justice and the American way, he reads from the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the famous “love passage” from 1 Corinthians.

You Can’t Take It With You, in 1938, is an offbeat comedy about a free-spirited family threatened by a rapacious banker. The film closes with a reconciliation. The movie was a “golden opportunity to dramatize ‘Love Thy Neighbor,’” Capra said, as chronicled in Catholic Digest. “Christ’s spiritual law can be the most powerful sustaining force in anyone’s life.”

Meet John Doe, in 1941, is about a man (Cooper) down on his luck who is turned into a hero by an ambitious newspaperwoman and used as a pawn by big business. It’s a dark movie. Yet the power of faith is asserted. “The ‘meek can inherit the earth’ when John Does start loving their neighbor,” Doe says on a radio show during the film.

It’s a Wonderful Life is Capra’s deepest and most artistically satisfying expression of the Catholic faith. The movie opens with prayer, and an angel is a central character. More religion comes when Bedford Falls residents “wept and prayed” on V-E Day and “wept and prayed” on V-J Day. People in Bedford Falls do a lot of praying in Catholic-like churches with grand exteriors and sweeping interiors, too. Still, Capra doesn’t wear his faith on his sleeve in his films. Art conveys truths and values through story. Meanings are embedded in characters and their choices, circumstances and crises. 

Spiritual messages undergird It’s a Wonderful Life. Potter may not believe it, but the people of Bedford Falls, even and especially the lowly and humble, possess inherent dignity. Goodness transforms people and communities. Love, a gift freely given, graces our lives through the lives of others. God is present and active in our ordinary lives. He works through us. 

An instrument of God, George Bailey’s desperate prayer is his “Gethsemane moment.” He finds his way to salvation only when he fully realizes his utter powerlessness. Capra knew what he was up to. He often said that the Sermon on the Mount drove his movies. “Movies should be a positive expression that there is hope, love, mercy, justice and charity,” he said in a 1960 interview.

It’s a Wonderful Life was a commercial and critical failure when it was released after World War II. Americans were in no mood for an uplifting parable. His masterpiece at last began to get its due in the late 1970s, when it entered the public domain, belonging to no one and, as it turned out, to everyone, as matters of faith do. The director’s film legacy continues to speak of God’s love, including in the very last scene of his great Christmas classic, highlighting the love of family and community — and angelic aid. 

Jay Copp is the author of 150 People, Places and Things You Never Knew Were Catholic, published by OSV. This article was adapted from his book.

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   Congrats CRJ Class of 2021!!!

Baccalaureate Homily Cristo Rey Jesuit 

Baltimore  June 2021.

Rick Malloy, S.J.

Remember when you were a little kid, and you did something, and you’d call out, “Look at me!”

Well, we have been looking for you for these past four years.  Today we see you.  Young scholars.  Open to growth; committed to being life-long learners; ready to work hard in all arenas of life; burning with the desire to see a society of Justice; ready to love in ways that will make a world of peace and prosperity, joy and justice, hope and healing, faith and freedom, life and love.

It has been a long and trying year.  Classes online, the never ending Covid crisis, so much of life disrupted and disjointed.  The tragedy and pain of the loss of our beloved Gabby.  But through it all you have persevered.  You have applied to and been accepted by so many wonderful colleges.  From Morgan State to Morehouse, from Notre Dame in South Bend to Notre Dame of Maryland, from Loyola and Johns Hopkins here in Baltimore to Howard University in Washington, DC: on and on!  You are set to go and set the world on fire!

Let me today say something about fires, good fires and bad fires, and something about freedom.

St. Ignatius says, “Go and set the world on fire.”  There are two kinds of fire.  There are fires that burn down and destroy.  And there are fires that transform and give light.  Today, as young men and women for and with others, Go and set the world on fire with the transformative fires of justice and truth, peace and love.

Our faith in liberation begins with the experience of Moses.  He’s out in the desert.  He has run away from Pharoah.  He is living quietly and comfortably.  And he comes upon a burning bush, a good fire that reveals the presence of God.  It is a burning bush that is not destroyed by the flames.

From that good fire comes the communication of our mysterious God.  The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob says, maybe screams, “I have heard the cry of my people.  I have heard them crying out because of the slave drivers.  I am moved by their suffering.  I have come to rescue them.”  And so, Moses knew he stood on Holy Ground.

Holy Ground.  This is Holy Ground today.  Cristo Rey Jesuit, on Chester street, and online, is Holy Ground.  You stand today on the Holy Ground of your future, our future.

Class of 2021, you are poised to go on to college and careers.  You are like Moses.  You are like his sister Miriam.  You are called by God to work today for the liberation and freedom of those who are oppressed and enslaved.

Today, there are a lot of bad fires burning out there.  These bad fires need to be put out.  Some of Baltimore is burning.  Our environment is burning.  Our society is being burned by systemic racism.  Our politics are burning in the fires of polarization, misinformation and outright lies.  The destructive fires of prejudice and hatred directed at LGBTQ persons, Asians, African Americans, and Latinos and Latinas, are burning down norms of civility and truth telling.  There are thousands of fires burning on the Southern Border of the USA, La Frontera.  Thousands of people, many of them little kids, are fleeing for safety.  Their homelands are burning. 

But the good fires, the transformative fires, also burn.  The good fire of the bush that Moses saw still lights the way to God and community.  Out of that burning bush comes the Word.  The Word is transformative fire, the fire of God’s love that lights our paths. 

Go and set the world on fire with the transformative fire of God’s love.  Throw water on the destructive fires of hate and prejudice, injustice and political insanity.  Get busy.  Go and confront Pharoah.  Go and tell Pharoah to let the people go Free.  Go and make a world of Faith and Justice and Reconciliation.  Go and establish Social Justice in the land.  Go and love one another.  Go and worship the God who gives us the grace, the power, to do all these things.

Congressman John Lewis, the great civil rights leader, who was no older than you when he began to work with Rev. Martin Luther King in the early 1960s, said,

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair.  Be hopeful, be optimistic.  Our struggle in not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year.  It is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

That’s what Moses did.  He got into trouble with Pharoah.  That led to setting free the enslaved Israelite people.  The second Moses, Jesus, comes and begins his public ministry with the promise and challenge “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” 

St. Paul tells us “For freedom, Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1).  Us… all of us… not just the few, not just the rich, not just the mighty…. Us…. all of us, free.  Jesus wants us all to be truly free.

Cesar Chavez, who organized farm workers in California once said,

“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Out ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.”  Chavez also said, “It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.”

This awesome opportunity is your story.  Michelle Obama says, “Your story is what you have, your story is what you will always have.  Your story is something to own.”  Own the story of freedom, the story of liberation, the story of Moses and Jesus, of John Lewis and Cesar Chavez. 

Mrs. Obama also says,

“You cannot take your freedoms for granted. Just like generations who have come before you, you have to do your part to preserve and protect those freedoms... you need to be preparing yourself to add your voice to our national conversation.”

Class of 2021, young scholars, you matter.  You are loved.  Go and Be like Moses and Miriam.  Go and be like Jesus.  Go and be like John Lewis.  Go and be like Cesar Chavez.  Go and add your voice and tell the story of Freedom of which Mrs. Obama speaks.  Go and bless the world, for you are blessed.  You have blessed Cristo Rey Jesuit High School.  Thanks for who you are.  Remember: You matter.  Go and make a world wherein we can all grow happy and healthy and holy and free.  God Bless you this day and all the days of your life.

And may our Good and Gracious God grant you all Joy for the Journey, Courage for the Choices, Faith for the Freeing, Hope for the Healing and Love for the lasting.  AMEN.

Will There Be Racists in Heaven?

Will There Be Racists in Heaven?   

Richard G. Malloy, S.J., Ph.D.

Director of Mission and Ministry Cristo Rey Jesuit Hgh School, Baltimore MD

“If you hate black people now, and you get to heaven and meet black people there, you’re not going to want to stay.  And that will be your hell.” 

Whenever I’ve preached on racism, it almost always gets blowback. 

“Father, there’s no place for politics in the pulpit.”

“You’re condemning all white people.”

And what someone said and was then reported to me, “He’s just another N***** lover.”

I was born three months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.  In September of 1955, segregation was legal, lethal and largely unquestioned.  If you opposed racist policies and overt racists, you would not just get mocked on twitter; you would be murdered.  Yes, that’s exactly what happened to three young civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964.  Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner were shot, and then buried in an earthen dam.

Yes, there has been progress.  Yes, two thirds of African Americans are firmly ensconced in the middle class, and Oprah is richer than the Queen.  Yes, we elected an African American president.

But “Yes We Can” has swung back to “No we won’t.” 

Think of the murders of Pastor Pinckney and eight others at a Bible Study in South Carolina in 2015.

Think Charlottesville 2017.  Remember the murder of Heather Heyer. 

Think the massacre in El Paso, August 2019.

And now add the names Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery.

What does the Catholic Church have to say about racism?

Back in 1998 when racial tensions were exacerbated in Philadelphia, PA, the Catholic Archbishop Cardinal Bevilacqua promulgated a pastoral letter entitled “Healing Racism through Faith and Hope.”[1]  Bevilacqua wrote, “Racism a moral disease and it is contagious.  No one is born a racist.  Carriers infect others in countless ways through words and attitudes, deeds and omissions.  Yet, one thing is certain - the disease of racism can and must be eradicated is.  …  In short, racism and Christian life are incompatible.” 

He makes clear that we cannot be united with God if we are not united with one another. “Jesus is clear that this is a matter of holiness and a matter of salvation.  Our attitudes and actions towards others enter the mystery of our communion with God.  Racism is a sin that weakens and diminishes this sacred union....”

Prophetically he teaches, “Racism has been condemned as a sin many times…  For the truth to have an impact on us, for it to really set us free, it must become our truth.  It must be operative within us.  It must penetrate and ignite our minds and hearts.”

Last August, after the massacre of 22 people in a Wal Mart, the Bishop of El Paso Texas issued “Night Will Be No More,” an even stronger condemnation of racism.[2]

Bishop Seitz asks how we are to comprehend the massacre, another shooting that leaves us “feeling dazed, wounded, fearful and helpless.”  He asks, “How should we think about racism and white supremacy?”

He raises to consciousness the mystery of evil and how it seeps into our minds and lives in our hearts.  “This mystery of evil also includes the base belief that some of us are more important, deserving and worthy than others. It includes the ugly conviction that this country and its history and opportunities and resources as well as our economic and political life belong more properly to ‘white’ people than to people of color. This is a perverse way of thinking that divides people based on heritage and tone of skin into ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’, paving the way to dehumanization.”

“In other words, racism.”

He charges that, “If we are honest, racism is really about advancing, shoring up, and failing to oppose a system of white privilege and advantage based on skin color. When this system begins to shape our public choices, structure our common life together and becomes a tool of class, this is rightly called institutionalized racism. Action to build this system of hate and inaction to oppose its dismantling are what we rightly call white supremacy.”

Bishop Seitz calls this the work of the father of lies (John 8:44) “incarnate in our everyday choices and lifestyles, and our laws and institutions.”

“God gave the earth to everyone, not just the privileged.   We must all work together “to ensure all our children have access to quality educational opportunities, eliminate inequality in the colonias, pass immigration reform, eradicate discrimination, guarantee universal access to health care, ensure the protection of all human life, end the scourge of gun violence, improve wages on both sides of the border, offer just and sustainable development opportunities, defend the environment and honor the dignity of every person.”

There is not an option to opt out.  “This work of undoing racism and building a just society is holy, for it ‘contributes to the building of the universal city of God….”

Here in the City of Baltimore, back in the 1960s, Cardinal Archbishop Shehan called for all Catholics to heed our obligation to promote racial equality.  He joined with other faith leaders calling for abolishing discrimination in rental housing and real estate.  For that, he received death threats.[3] 

I hope no one is contemplating violence against those who will build the new Mother Mary Lange Catholic school, a $24 million, 66,500 square foot complex in West Baltimore.[4]

Truth is truth.  Rev. Martin Luther King said, “We must all learn to live together like brothers, or we will perish like fools.”

In 2018, the United States Catholic Bishops forcefully stated that racism and racist attitudes and actions are destructive of human life.  All ways in which life is threatened contradict the love proclaimed by the Gospel.

“It is not a secret that these attacks on human life have severely affected people of color, who are disproportionately affected by poverty, targeted for abortion, have less access to healthcare, have the greatest numbers on death row, and are most likely to feel pressure to end their lives when facing serious illness.”

Our bishops teach that “racism is a life issue.”  They call us “to speak forcefully against and work toward ending racism.”[5]

To put it bluntly, to be Catholic is to be anti-racist.  In Christ, we are all brothers and sisters.  We are preparing ourselves for heaven by the way we live with and love one another now. 

There will be no racists in heaven.  Racists need not apply.

Jesuit Father Richard G. Malloy is the director of Mission Integration at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Baltimore, and author of Being on Fire and A Faith That Frees, both from Orbis Books.

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[1]    Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua.  1998.  “Healing Racism Through Faith and Hope.”  (Philadelphia Archdiocese).

[2]   Bishop Mark Seitz.  August 2019.  “Night Will Be No More.”  https://www.hopeborder.org/nightwillbenomore (Diocese of El Paso, TX)

[3]  Antero Pietila.  2010.  Not in My Neighborhood.  (Chicago:  Ivan R. Dee, Pp. 190-191).

[4]  Archbishop William E. Lori.  “Baltimore Archdiocese to Break Ground on New City School.”  Baltimore Sun October 21, 2019.  Op-ed page.  https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-1021-catholic-school-20191021-3ekun7wpanb3dlj5t523unniaq-story.html

[5]   United States Catholic Bishops Conference.  Open Wide Our Hearts. The Enduring call to Love. A Pastoral Letter on Racism.  Washington, DC, 2018, p. 30.  http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/racism/upload/open-wide-our-hearts.pdf

415 ppm Carbon Dioxide will kill us.

Friends,

CO2 levels reached 415 parts per million in May 2019.  That's the highest levels humans have ever seen.  Read my op-ed in the Scranton times.  Read Pope Francis's Laudato Si.   Pray, and then act to save our planet.

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https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/city-native-first-to-warn-of-carbon-dioxide-danger-1.2484421

You’re from Scranton and you have never heard of Charles Keeling? Don’t feel bad. I’ve lived here for almost 10 years and never heard of him, either.

You might have missed the recent news that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has climbed to 415 parts per million. Not knowing that could cost your grandchildren’s lives.

Keeling and CO² are both things about which you really want to know.

Scranton-born Keeling (1928-2005) was a geochemist. After getting a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, he went to work on how the Earth “breathes.” Trees, with all their leaves, and billions of plants take in CO² in sunlight and exhale oxygen.

When too much CO² is around, it overwhelms the green lungs of our planet. Unable to inhale it all, CO² builds up in the bubble of air surrounding Earth. Our planet begins to get warmer — and not in a comfortable way.

Scranton’s superb geochemist is credited with being the first to find ways to measure how much CO² is in the air. Figuring out how to know levels of CO² “is one of the great underappreciated scientific accomplishments of our time.” Most of the credit goes to Scranton’s Charles Keeling.

In the 1950s, it was well known that CO² molecules trapped heat. What Keeling proved was that carbon dioxide levels were rising, dangerously. Much of that increase is due to us. The main culprit is our burning of fossil fuels, which produces greenhouse gases that everyone has heard about in school science classes for the past 50 years.

James Hansen, of NASA, notes Keeling “altered our perspectives about the degree to which the Earth can absorb the human assault.”

Keeling measured CO² levels on Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. His son, Ralph, continues the work.

Which brings us to 415 ppm. Recently, CO² levels reached their highest point in millions of years. Humans have never lived on a planet with 415 ppm.

In 1900, we were at 300 ppm. Environmental expert Bill McKibben has been preaching for years that we need to get CO² down to 350 ppm. We were at 383 ppm in 2007. Instead of cutting back, we headed in the wrong direction. The hockey stick- shaped “Keeling curve” is not some talking head’s opinion on cable news. It is fact. It is truth. It means your grandchildren are going to suffer weather like never before unless we make major changes now.

A recent New York Times article, “Time to panic,” said a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is “a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen.”

Pope Francis, in Laudato Si, teaches about climate change and more. He appeals “for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.”

Pope Francis offers challenge and consolation, healing and hope: “Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change. … All is not lost. Human beings … are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start … and embarking on new paths to authentic freedom.”

In 1962, author and conservationist Rachel Carson asked in “Silent Spring,” “Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?”

Let’s make America, and our world, good again. Check out 350.org and NASA’s website https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/. Learn about the fragile condition of planet Earth. Whether or not you like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old congresswoman from Queens, she’s right about the fact that we don’t have much time to stop disaster.

This isn’t rocket science. It’s Earth science. And we need to learn it and get it right. Or we, or our children and grandchildren, are going to die. If Earth is not fit for human habitation, it is over.

It’s a reality: No people-friendly planet, no people.