Denver Newsroom, Apr 20, 2020 / 06:05 pm (CNA).- Chris Arnade is the author and photographer of “Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America.”
His book is a look at how many Americans – in rural and urban communities across the country- live. Chris got to know people who often lack a voice in American public life, and his work aims to give them a voice, and a face. He talked with CNA about his book, his faith, and “Back Row America.”
Below is an excerpt, edited and condensed, from CNA’s interview with Arnade. The entire conversation can be heard here.
Chris, what is “Back Row America?”
“Back Row America” describes, in my simple framework, American communities that don’t necessarily define themselves by their resumes or their education.
It’s the part of America that has traditionally gone from high school to, to a job, a lifelong job that gave them the stability to build a family and then attend church regularly and stay in their community. That isn’t a red state or blue state thing. That’s true all across the country.
It’s African-American communities in northern cities, it’s working class rural communities in places like Iowa and Nebraska.
It’s in contrast to what I think is the much more powerful group of people, which I would call, using the classroom analogy, “the front row.”
The elites, if you will, who have spent their career or chasing building a resume, going to all the right institutions and ultimately ending up probably in a few handful of neighborhoods across the United States.
They generally have very large influences in academics, the media and politics and the business world. And I think so much of how we think about America is defined by the front row, when in fact the bulk of Americans would probably find themselves to be more familiar with the back row.
How did you get to know “Back Row America?”
While working on Wall Street in finance, I spent time walking in neighborhoods across New York City. Those walks became a way to meet people I might otherwise never meet. Eventually, I quit my job and spent three and a half or four years in one neighborhood in particular, the poorest neighborhood in New York called Hunts Point in the Bronx.
It was a wonderful neighborhood, I was immediately drawn in by the strong sense of community. At an artistic level as a photographer and it was just simply a great place to photograph because it faces the south, it has good light.
And then it just drew me in.
I spent time with a group of, to use a derogatory term because there’s no other terms, of homeless addicts, who lived in cars or lived in abandoned buildings, under bridges and spent their time making their money by either being a prostitute or stealing things or begging. And many used that money to buy heroin.
And they became the community that taught me for three and a half years.
And then from there I went in my car across the United States, I’ve put roughly about 400 000 miles over four years, just driving all the, around the United States, visiting places that people would tell me not to go to.
Visiting as much of the United States as I could, the parts that I call “back row America” that are not in the news in any other way other than negative. Towns that have lost their industry, inner cities that have never had industry, all sorts of places.
What I try to do in my book is both show what is common in this condition, but that there are variations, so to speak, on the theme and how people reflect their frustration and attempt to find dignity in different ways.
What were the things that you had found in Hunts Point and wanted to look for in other places?
One theme of my book is that the most salient and the biggest division in America right now is the educational divide. We all talk about class divide. We all talk about the racial divide. But I think the education divide is as important, if not stronger currently.
And that division is not just about how we vote, but it’s about how we view the world, and how we think about what is valuable in this world, and how we think about what gives us meaning. So, at a very deep level, what’s our philosophy? And what is our worldview?
And then that, if you are in the back, and that the front row controls things now. They generally are the “in” group. They define stuff. And it’s the back row who is the one who is suffering from the decisions made by the front row, who have a very narrow worldview that they can’t seem to think beyond.
If they do think beyond it, it usually means they either want to study the back row as sort of a scientific specimen or they want to pity them and save them without questioning their worldview.
And people know when they’re being laughed at. The front row isn’t directly laughing at people. But there is this sense of, again, when they view the back row, it’s often viewed as people who are wounded, to be pitied and helped, as opposed to people to be listened to as equals.
Your book talks about some values that exist more clearly in the back row, a sense of place, a sense of obligation to the family, and people, and connectedness. Even a different sense of what matters in life; what it’s for.
Yeah. I mean, I always use the example of the young woman I met in a McDonald’s in East L.A. And, if you read the book, you’ll know that I spent a lot of time in McDonald’s.
Because a lot of people who don’t have a lot of money spend a lot of time in McDonald’s because it has free wifi, and inexpensive food, and cheap.
So, I would see this young woman at McDonald’ss. I would be there each night to type up my notes and she was there because… I had seen her all over the country, variations of her, she was there to use the free wifi because she didn’t have wifi at home. She or her family was too poor.
So, she would come in every night with her Game Boy and her computer, and charge both of them, and play on the internet, or do homework, or mostly just play her Game Boy, or her Switch, or whatever she had.
And so, eventually she got curious about me and asked and said, “You’re from New York City.” I told her I was from New York City.
She said she would love to go there. And I said, “Well, you’re college age.”
She said, “Well, I’m going to college here at East L.A. Community College. And I need to stay here because I’m my mother’s translator.”
Her mother was a Mexican-American immigrant. And, like a lot of immigrants, the oldest child is the one who speaks both languages and is necessary to fill out forms, navigate the country.
So, she was making a decision that I think we as a broader culture should applaud. She was staying there for her family.
But I think we look at people’s decisions in what I would call a “resume arms race.” Everybody has to be building a resume. And, in that process, which is a very narrow way of thinking about success, it’s all about getting credentialed so you can make more money.
It’s a very, very material definition of success.
For people who don’t value that, who don’t want the value of that very narrow framework, you have to give up the non-material forms of meaning like place, family, and faith, because those are considered to be in opposition to this arms race of building the best resume. And so, I think it’s particularly an elitist view.
Being materialistic is very much an elitist view of the world because one of the things we’re all gifted at birth is these values and these meanings that don’t require a resume to have, like family, like place, and like faith. You don’t need a resume into the church. You don’t need a resume to find beauty in your local community or to be a member of your family.
Chris, could you talk about faith in the back row?
I came into this project an atheist. I certainly wasn’t a nasty atheist. I was very always respectful of other people’s faiths and views. But, in the back of my mind, I would have laughed at somebody who was religious, or at least thought maybe they should learn a little. And then, certainly by the end of the project, I wouldn’t call myself religious, but I do go to church.
In the project I spent a lot of time in McDonald’s because that’s where the people I was learning from spent time. And likewise with churches, I spent a lot of time in churches because that’s where the people I spent time with went.
I went to every denomination. I tried to try to go to the denominations that were most reflective of the community I was in. I tried to go to the churches that I guess, I think, theologically would probably be considered in the back row.
Places that had improvised spaces. So, there was one that was a former… I think it was a former Kentucky Fried Chicken, had been turned into a church. Another was an old gas station that had been turned into a church. Another was an old furniture store in a strip mall. Another was someone’s house.
I came away personally moved by the experience… this was a very important part of people’s lives. It was just wrong of me at many levels to dismiss it as nothing more than just a silly way of living, but also, at a personal level, I came away realizing that there was a lot there that I didn’t appreciate.
What is important when churches minister to back row America?
I mean, I think from a purely pragmatic standpoint, I think the most important thing about the church is that they get people they’re preaching to.
You go into a nonprofit in these communities or you go into these secular institutions, and they’re not made up of people from the community. They’re often outsiders who are well-intentioned. There’s nothing wrong with that, being an outsider who’s well-intentioned, but with a few exceptions, most of them haven’t gone through a rough life, haven’t experienced a lot.
You go in the churches, and it’s their people. It’s their community. They get them, at not just at an intellectual level but a lived reality level.
Also, that faith is a way to live that gives people guidance. Answers that give people a structure.
The first level of academica getting religion is pragmatic. They’ll simply view it as something that’s useful. I think the second level, which is much deeper and much more real, is to see it as something that isn’t just useful but also so powerful and true. My own intellectual journey was getting beyond the first level of, “Oh, it’s just a useful thing,” a scientific solution, like, “Oh, these poor people have religion. That’s good for them because it’s useful,” and moving on to the next, which is to see a religious worldview as equally valid to how I think about things.
—
I think to a large degree that the Catholic Church has done a pretty good job of understanding the people it serves.
I often went to Catholic churches as well, because I consider myself Catholic, and when traveling, I would like to go to different churches, and I think one of the things that did frustrate me is I can walk into a church and within half a minute tell you how wealthy the neighborhood around me is. You can just see by the amount of donations given. I mean, the donation differences are just staggering. You get some churches that collect $7,000 a week and others that collect $35 a week.
I think some outreach between [rich and poor Catholics] would be helpful. I think… and certainly, the people in the wealthier congregations and parishes having a little more understanding of their privilege and how the experience of being a Catholic might be different if you’re in El Paso, for instance.
Do you have expectations for how things might change for the back row as a result of where we are right now, in terms of the pandemic and the resulting economic collapse? I’ve hoped it will lead to a greater sense of solidarity among people.
I’m probably about as cynical as I’ve ever been about it right now. I hate to try to throw water on your fire, but I mean, I’m looking at how the pandemic’s playing out, and it’s becoming a disease of the poor. All the solutions we proposed, as much as I agree with them, are pretty comfortable for the wealthy and pretty uncomfortable for the poor.
Sheltering in place, I think the word “place” covers a lot of ground there that we tend not to think about, but I certainly hope at a philosophical level that we come out of this, that people who can shelter in a nice place maybe understand that that’s a privilege and that it’s much easier for them to do that — come out of this with a greater awareness of how hard this is for a lot of people.
What can people do?
I mean, that’s the problem is, with a pandemic, there’s not much we can do right now other than recognize privilege and hopes going forward that we take that into account when we think about judging other people for not doing what we’re doing, or scolding them for taking walks outside, or wanting to go to church in some capacity when the pandemic eases going to some sort of limited service.
I think we need to get back to being social again, probably before the credentialed experts tell us is a good time. I respect people enough to believe that they can make their own choices and see what’s right.
I think, in the longer term though, one of my biggest frustrations with my book, and I think a lot of readers’ frustrations is I don’t offer solutions, because I’m not sure I know them.
I don’t know how you get people en masse to start saying, okay we need to value things differently. I think, one person at a time. If somebody in a comfortable suburb recognizes that their parish or their congregation is well off and others aren’t, I mean that’s the first step. Make a personal decision about how you think you can best address that.
I think it’s important to treat people, everybody you meet, with respect, and again not pity them. I think many people look at those who are in the back row as people who need to be saved or changed, and maybe the best thing to do is just listen to them and give them the dignity of actually treating them like an equal.
That means sometimes not liking them. You don’t have to like everybody. When people ask “What can I do with the homeless person?” And I say like, “Have a conversation with them. Treat them like a normal person. If you don’t like them, you don’t like them.”
Chris, if you don’t mind my asking, having gone through this experience, what do you pray for and what do you encourage other people to pray for?
What I pray for changes. I still hear from a lot of people who I wrote about in the book, who have my phone number and text me all the time. I pray for them, and for my family.
I guess, my greatest hope from this whole thing is that the reader comes away with an understanding that, in very rare instances, almost everybody who reads this book is going to have more privilege than the people in the book. And so, a little perspective. When it comes down to it, it’s the old phrase, “Before you judge somebody, walk a mile in their shoes.” I pray that message gets into people, that they can see that they themselves probably have a lot better than they realize.
And before you judge somebody, again, know what they’ve gone through.
This was an edited excerpt from a longer conversation between Chris Arnade and CNA. The entire conversation can be heard here.
[…]
Another broccoli haired boy who should not have had access to guns. Instead of addressing the actual problem everyone and their mother will wring their hands and say he was “such a nice boy if not a lone wolf and mental illness is to blame.” And the “male loneliness epidemic” Because America loves letting teenage white boys off the hook when they commit violent crimes. Nothing matters. Nothing will change. But thoughts and prayers will really, really be what fixes it this time I’m sure. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄x a million
Yup. Another “trans female”. Oh, wait, that’s not the narrative you want to advance, is it, Timmy?
But Robert Westman needs our prayers now, as do the two innocents he murdered.
So much hate, Timmy. You should seek help.
Part of the problem may be the effect on the brain of those sex change drugs that our “health” doctors give to “help” the young (not to make money of course…).
That’s an interesting idea, but I suspect we were dealing with a mentally ill individual even before the drugs.
There is a lot of profound sadness in many people who go down that path. I don’t mean depression; I mean something more akin to despair. The whole bit about such lifestyles being “gay” is a lie, sort of like whistling past a graveyard. At the very least, the gaity is a veneer, meant to distract the individual as much as to deceive others.
@Timothy Finn:
Rolling your eyes at the notion of prayers being efficacious?
Pray tell, what are your actual beliefs? (And why are you larping as a Catholic on a Catholic news site?)
Also, re: your racist statement–just what are you proposing?
I’m glad you are referring to the shooter as male, Timmy. We can agree on that.
Timmy: Name the occasion, just one, when any jurisdiction allowed a “white boy” off the hook for violent crimes. And name the occasion of a collective American response that praised the event.
Among the many sorrows, it is sad that the local mayor took the occasion to shout his beliefs about eliminating gun ownership. It requires active mental resistance to not reflect on the consequences of a national culture that treats objective morality with venomous contempt and the amoral responses of the depraved.
That has been the status quo for many years. Remember Bill Clinton trying to blame the NRA for the Oklahoma City Bombing?
I don’s remember that specifically but it sounds about right, considering.
I do remember the “it depends on what your definition of “is” is.
The left has been disassembling longstanding societal norms for generations, without any evidence whatsoever of the effects such wholesale rupturings might have on individuals or cultures.
Well, we’ve been living with those effects for decades now — destroyed lives, destroyed families, destroyed communities, destroyed cultures.
Recreational drugs, the celebration of gay, the acceptance of sex without commitment, a majority of children raised in single-parent families, abortion by the millions, “transing,” vilifying males — no previous human society has ever experienced such upheavals, so there is no way to predict their effects.
Well, now we’re seeing that individuals subjected to these failed societal experiments are driven to desperation and despair on a level humanity has never seen.
Unfortunately, thanks to the diabolical left, we are stuck with those effects until the insane progressive genie can somehow be coaxed back into its vile, dispiriting bottle.
Edward: Guns kill people, A bombs kill people. People use guns and bombs to kill people. Should people have guns and bombs so they can kill people? Is it wrong to try to limit access to weapons that can kill people? Why demonize those who are trying to prevent meaningless violence? You can work on other means to curb this violence, and this is good; but don’t knock those who are trying to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.
James Connor: Just look at all the nitwits who have weighed in against augmenting the police in Washington DC with National Guardsmen. And then take note of all the hundreds of guns being confiscated. Then take note of all those woke cities run by the Democrats who made a campaign of defunding the police. Then take note of the nitwits in our culture who insist on normalizing very obviously deranged thinking such as “I am a woman in a man’s body”. Take away all the guns you want but when you conspire with insane thinking the results will always be predictable.
No, guns do not kill people anymore than hammers, wrenches, kitchen knives, motor vehicles, jumping off buildings, or intentional overdosing legitimate medications. Only people perform murder, including their own.
I do not “demonize those who are trying to prevent meaningless violence.” I try to avoid lowering myself to the lies they seek to live with, and I don’t judge people. I do judge evil behavior, as Jesus called us to do, and stupid thought that falsely identifies what is evil in the human condition.
Stupid things include willful acts of moral displacement, affecting a phony display of moral concern as a way of continuing to repress a conscience, individually and collectively, that ignores the realities and causes of evil. Have you never noticed how frequently the most fanatical pro-aborts display a need to thump their chest over their love of animals, a desperate sort of act that the repression of conscience requires. Murderers always contrive ways to identify themselves as blamelessly good. And it is doubly ironic that self-proclaimed “animal lovers” are frequently abusive of their pets.
I don’t “demonize” the purveyors of panaceas,I demolish their childish arguments.
People have been killed by planes, trains and automobiles, knives, clubs, bottles, saws and pitchforks, water, prescription and nonprescription drugs.
We can’t ban everything, because then we’re back to rocks and spears.
Yes, it’s a he. Not much of a man, but he was born XY. The media will soon be referring to him as Robin Westman and using female pronouns. After all, in today’s society it’s considered bad to shoot and kill kids in a church, but even worse to refuse to use the killer’s preferred pronouns.
Waiting to hear the identities of the murderers of the innocent.
This will happen again and again as long as we don’t identify mental illness as such and provide treatment. If the truth be known, the carriers of this mental illness is our culture at large.
Those who are sane and who should have been speaking out (especially Catholics) have remained silent. What’s needed in our society is people who seek to know the Truth and speak it aloud…unabashedly.
Cowards need to go find and hole and crawl in it.
Yes, and thank you. The mental health system has been a failure for much too long. Those who have tried to bring attention to this have been practically silenced by the media, certain professionals, and one small but vocal group of so-called democrats. This is one aspect of the problem, and the trans movement should have been stopped at the beginning by the medical, psychiatric and psychologial professions. Problems have escalated as a result. Whoever evaluated this young man ought to have their licenses revoked – at the least. I cannot at present recall the rationale for closing most of the state mental institutions during the 1970s, but that was another profound mistake. There is likely a national secular/atheistic undercurrent pushing for anything goes. This is one of the horrific things that happen when anything goes: two children are dead and others are bruised physically and/or mentally, all the families are traumatized and trying to find meaning, a young man who didn’t know who he was is also dead, and the mayor saw fit to share his useless ideology in his speech. Throughout the day he continued on cable programs – adding to this horrific tragedy instead of helping. He did the usual focus on guns only, so unwise and unhelpful! The Archbiship’s and the Pope’s messages offered some hope. I can’t wait to see how this gets played out in the secular world – not really! Prayers for everyone involved in this tragedy. I include the mayor who might need more prayers than anyone else!
Trans children are mentally abused children. They are being abused by adults who should be punished for abusibg children.
What is not included, or maybe unknown, when this was posted is that the man changed his name Robin, had created a manifesto that was pulled off the web. The media will be silent on this. The truth will be hushed up. Questions like was he or had taken drugs for transition from boy to girl and did these drugs in any way impact his brain. What therapy was he given, who gave it and should be know about his mental treatment etc. But the media will hype the fact that he had guns, so it, the media, will push gun control.
In the meantime 2 small children are dead, my heart breaks for the parents and family. This should not have happened, but it did. It did because essentially the trans movement, the meds given to support etc are immune from any real examination.
The individual was a trans woman, as the Wall Street Journal alone has reported in plain language. Watch carefully how this story is covered in mainstream media.
If the WSJ is calling Robert Westman a woman, it is not describing him honestly either. There is no such thing as a “trans woman.”
Remember, “trans” should be pronounced “not a”.
A “trans woman” is of course a construct and not an actual woman. The WSJ made it plain that the shooter was a natal man who had “transitioned.” (No indication if drugs or surgery were involved.) The Minneapolis police chief referred to the perp as a man. Mainstream feeds such as one from the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis ever so carefully avoids using any pronoun. The trans angle on this story will be conveniently buried lest it disturb the Narrative. But coverage of this ghastly tragedy is an important example of how news is distorted. I think that angle is worth studying.
“natal man”
Which is pronounced “man.”
I am pleased to note than the UK newspaper “The Telegraph” has not made a single error in this regard. The article on the front page today, titled “The transgender gunman who opened fire on praying children”, does not have even one instance of the word “she”.
Every single adult who practiced or promoted any “trans-sexual” psychological, pharmaceutical or medical services in this “man-pretending-to-be-a-woman” case should be brought to civil court and sued for every cent snd every piece if property they own, and the “medical” and “psychological” and “pharmaceutical” companies involved should be sued into bankruptcy, and the buildings bull-dozed.
And that goes for all of the attorneys and law firms making their trans-sexual-abuse possible.
And which political party is responsible for supporting these hideous “transing” procedures?
And for promoting “gender” dysphoria by inserting gay literature into primary school libraries and curricula?
And for spreading their intense hatred of the Catholic Church and Donald Trump?
The Democratic Party is a death cult. Democrats and the Catholics who vote for them are responsible for this monstrous act.
Can we take a break from singing doxologies to your favorite politicians for a bit? We’ve been through this before, and the politics isn’t going away, but no politician is actually trustworthy, and even if one were, he could not solve the spiritual problems of this country.
Trump was on one of the three firearms, I believe.
brineyman, time to start calling a spade a spade. It’s time for feckless woke Catholics to come to terms with truth. (But I have little hope we’ll see much truth emerging from the Church these days).
Do you know, of your specific knowledge, that his medical treatment caused his actions Wednesday morning? My speculation would be a lack of proper medical treatment was more likely the underlying factor that led to his spiral into such a state that he could commit such a heinous crime. How else could a person assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, small children (and the elderly) at Mass?
Do you follow the news? People kill all the time for reasons that could not be corrected with drugs or therapy. Just look at what is happening in Nigeria, among other places.
This tragedy is almost unbearable: two innocent children, slain at the very moment of the Mass, and a soul lost in suicide. We can only grieve with their families and commend them to the mercy of God. Yet we must also face what violence really is: the most despicable form of evil, irrational and opaque, that humiliates, enslaves, and even seeks to objectify the creature made in God’s image. Contemporary culture tries to substitute remorse with “complexes,” as if guilt itself were blindness; in truth it is the decision for evil that is blind. Only the Father remains when every human support collapses; we turn to Him last because we know He will still be there when all else fails. The Church is His ark in the shipwreck of existence, the guardian of hope, truth, and love. But she often appears harsh or lifeless to those coming from the wilderness of despair. And yet it is only in her house that the children of God find the arms of the Father waiting.
How very beautiful.
Thank you, Rebecca — I’m glad it touched you. I was in fact inspired by a work written at the age of 23 by the one who, years later, would become Cardinal Giacomo Biffi — the very man who was said to have received the solitary vote of Cardinal Ratzinger in the conclave that would instead elect himself.
The real problem is the evil that has infected our nation. Our churches are empty. Locked up tight after every Mass. When, as a nation we deny God,the Enemy prowls about seeking the ruin of souls. Lord, have mercy.
To Kathy Donnelly – AMEN!!!
I find myself in complete agreement with this author, so will not duplicate his commentary, but rather provide the link (below). Fr. Andrew.
https://hildifons.substack.com/p/repost-the-truth-about-transgenderism
Good post
Yes. The media’s reporting (or non-) will be revealing.
The manifesto of this he/she substantiated that he/she hated God, that the he/she hated his/her neighbors as he/.she hated herself/hissle in a complete and total rejecting of the Greatest Commandment which IMHO is the defintiaion of total depravity which is unfortunately the glide path of aberrant sexual behaviors the least of which is defined as an abomination for having rejected God’s gift of your sexuality.
Transgender imposition on the human body and psyche is a violation of their nature. A transgendered person is prone to react to this violation with violence. The UK, which previously supported transgender procedures, of late based on medical psychological findings now prohibits transgender transition as barbaric.
Every cell in your body has either XX or XY chromosomes. You cannot change this. Surgical removal of genitalia does not change this. You wonder why this “sexual reassignment surgery” ever took hold, but perhaps like so many other things in our for profit health care system, the motivation is financial.
I cannot imagine the pain and anguish that transgender people go through that would motivate them to subject themselves to sexual mutilation. Perhaps we should take the profit out of this by having insurance refuse to pay for it? The money wasted on this would be better spent providing basic health care for poor children.
Indeed.
We live in strange times. Today, many people will claim that they do not believe in the existence of the soul, yet those same people are apt to agree with someone claiming he is a female soul in a male body, or vice versa.
Somehow related to this, we live in an unprecedented period of hatred for our own bodies. Sex-change surgeries and hormone treatments are among the more extreme measures, but rampant tattooing seems to be a milder expression of the same self-loathing. For crying out loud, if you want to support a team or a cause or whatever, BUY A T-SHIRT. When you are inevitably disappointed that your team crashes or your cause betrays you — or you just outgrow the cartoon — you can throw away the shirt. Hats work, too. https://youtu.be/WCEZXJYsFVw?t=54
Seriously, look at our science fiction. It mocks the idea of God, angels, and demons, but it also has human souls “downloaded” into computers. There is something weirdly Gnostic going on — different than, but just as weird as, the Gnostics of old.
William: It is not about money. Don’t blame economic freedom for everything demonic. This is about a culture dedicated to self-worship, and this would include support from more compassionate than thou Christians, worshiping themselves for “heroic tolerance,” uncaring of the consequences. Trans ideology is simply a more grotesque expansion of homosexuality, which might have begun as a coping mechanism for shameful concessions when young, then habitualized to dulling the moral senses to become a way of life.
If health insurance companies refused to pay for transgender procedures, there would be less of them, so money does matter.
You don’t know that. You don’t know that if insurance companies refused such surgeries, that it would not result in provoking political and social forces compelling them to provide more.
Only moral responses can resolve moral problems, never politics. Liberals turn to government worship as their first and last line of refuge because they do not want to think of how the necessary demands of moral courage might impose sacrifice and discomfort in their own lives to address problems with personal involvement and commitment. It’s easier to sit on the couch and complain that the government is not doing enough to control the singular forces they project as the source for all evil. And governments can never put an end to moral evil. Sin can not be engineered.
I understand what you’re saying but the argument is valid; stop paying for birth control, abortion-on-demand and slice and dice and infuse our confused youth and a lot fewer mistakes and worse will be committed – mathematics.
No reply button to Knowall, so I make it here. No, it is not simple mathematics. As I implicitly said. a social ethos can not be engineered. You cannot affect a socil force to do what even God cannot do. You cannot alter collective evil human behavior. It people experience pressure to end one sort of evil, their evil corruptions of suul will simply be forced to find another sort of evil to replace the former evil. Social engineering cannot work. Are you really oblivious to how contraception indisputably leads to more abortions?
William writes: “I cannot imagine the pain and anguish that transgender people…”
William, there’s no such thing as a transgender person. Personhood is not defined by psychotic thinking.
Jesse waters states the facts (link to be posted next)…DEMO PARTY LEADERS DEMAND SILENCE…the cost of their “TRANS-PSYCHOSIS” must be paid by the normie children of the breeder class…because DEMO-TRANS-PSYCHOSIS = VIRTUE, and their “heroic” medical and legal TRANS-ABUSERS must be allowed to monetize their new TRANS-ABUSE enterprises, because…country club dues are high, and a vacation in St. Barts in on the line.
Jesse Watters on DEMO-KRAT-MEDIA TRANS-PHILIA to rage against school children:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/08/27/jesse_watters_the_trans_clan_has_a_militant_wing_fake_compassion_is_getting_people_killed.html
Oh, how cute. You’re pretending that the GOP is still the party of Reagan. Would that it were!
But no, ISLAM is more correct on this than your chosen party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t3OjuGqa9g
Islam is not the answer. Episcopalianism is not the answer. The GOP is not the answer. Unless … the god you truly worship is Ganesha, because “Elephants are always good”?
Let’s give up on that. YOU WILL NOT FIND THE TRUTH IN ANY OF THESE PARTIES, BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL WILLING TO TRADE TRUTH FOR POWER, however short-lived that might be, and however much a curse it might prove in the future.
You will not find a prophet in politics. Saying that the other party will be in a lower circle of hell than your own is not enough. Let’s try to miss hell altogether.
So your “answer” involves insulting sociological determinist categories, and rejecting the souls of individuals?
This man, Robert Westman, realized that his parents lied to him about his sexuality by not speaking the truth to his insane notions that he was woman and not a man. Once he realized he’d been let down, he became enraged and acted out.
This man, Robert Westman, realized his Catholic Church, his priests, his bishops lied to him by not telling him the truth about his deranged notions that he was a woman. Once he realized they’d let him down, he became enraged and acted out his rage.
This man, Robert Westman, realized his society, his culture, his government, the media he was exposed to, his friends they all lied to him by going along with his deranged notion that he was a woman. Once he realized that he’d been snookered by everyone, he felt a fool, became enraged and lashed out at anyone and everyone.
To everyone listening: Continue lying and not confronting what you see around you and know to be false. Continue your path of “going along to get along.” Continue placating the deranged notions that dominate our culture. If you continue to do these things, it just might be your own family members who get mowed down in the next massacre. And then we can all go about our merry way after we’ve complacently blamed it on “those guns.”
And this should include speaking out forcefully against high prelates, including the highest of prelates, who side with leftist nonsense and lie to us. Calumny is not speaking out.
In this tragedy, are their complicit parents, are ther complicit clergy who want to accompany rather than teach?
Fr Ratzinger wrote that the early Church opted for the God of the philosophers against the gods of the zeitgeist.
The Church Fathers opted for the truth of Being itself and nothing else.
How long must the faithful wait for our Church shepherds to teach tough love and recover the option for faith and reason and not milquetoast faith and mawkish empathy?
Sad, indeed. We may never overcome the gun violence mentality. The powerful NRA gun lobby sets the stage for continued violence. They argue that gun legislation will outlaw all weapons. Not true.
We just received an email from my sister, whose US Senator, John Barrasso is the Republican Whip. He said, “Trump’s BBB will remove restrictions on silencers, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns.” He demonstrates the NRA gun ideology. He mentions nothing of the military style weapons like the AR-15 and the high magazine Glock that were touted as the killer’s rifle and pistol of choice.
Robin Westman was identified as the killer. He carried three weapons to the church where children were attending Mass. What must we do to detect this mentality early? Offering condolences and prayers has been discounted since it is reactionary. The Red Flag Law attempts to have some proactive protection.
Reuters: “Red Flag laws specifically address parents and other family members by giving them a legal way to intervene when a loved one is in crisis.” I ask, might the parents be held accountable if they ignore the Red Flag law? Is the age of the offspring a negating factor?
I prepared an email for Cindy to be forwarded to Barrasso detailing our serious objections to his stance. Maybe you should approach your elected officials.
More cut-and-paste NPR/DNC talking points. Par for the course for MorganD. The shooter was a deranged transgender progressive. Guns have nothing to do with it.
Athanasius, at least some of us are sane.
Guns had nothing to do with it? This twisted person could not do this much damage with a knife. He should not have been able to purchase firearms.
Mentally ill transgender progressives who want to do harm don’t need guns to hurt people. In the absence of guns, they’ll make use of something else. Access to guns isn’t the problem; that’s a lie and an NPR talking point. Being a disturbed transgender progressive is the issue.
Do you really think that this sick, twisted person should have been able to buy guns?
Should convicted felons and mental patients be able to buy guns? Should private citizens be able to buy automatic weapons?
By the way, the 2nd Amendment does not prohibit the States or Federal Government from enacting reasonable gun control.
Actually, in this case he could have effected as much tragedy with a knife. Regardless, your entrenched liberal reflexes appear to lead you to avoid appreciating that liberal “plumbing solutions” do not and can never resolve human problems. Ethics do. A social ethos is improved or weakened in accord with the character of its people, what they value and what they tolerate. You do not end abortion with birth control. You increase it. You do not protect children from predators by trying to indoctrinate them to adopt “tolerance” with “story hours” given by sexual deviants. You do not create more effective uses of energy by having ignorant and childishly spiteful bureaucrats penalize energy producers, conducting research to make energy usage more efficient, simply out of hatred for economic freedom.
As much damage with a knife? Really? Why then did the Marine Corps issue me an M-16 and not a switchblade? Your logic is flawed.
No reply button below yours William. Your logic is flawed. I clearly did say “in this case.” There wasn’t anyone strong enough to stop him if had done the same thing running wild with a knife. My opinion has no relation to your premise of noting obvious qualitative differences between knives and guns.
people are in love with what they can do with firearms; look at what that accountant did at that concert
“The powerful NRA gun lobby sets the stage for continued violence.”
Really MorganD? How? First, the most savagly and culturally insulted free association group is “powerful” only in the minds of those with an interest in distorting history.
With what little influence they have, they have supported mandatory gun safety and supported background checks. The second Ammendment was conceived to protect the God given right of self-defense, including defense from a tyrannical government, for which you’ve created the impression, over time, you would prefer.
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
No, it’s your stupid, woke, deranged, sick, lying, perverse, psychotic, evil thinking that’s to blame. Just keep blaming the guns. But let’s pray that the next victims aren’t our own families because as long as you keep on insisting that “It’s the guns”, you can rest assured that there WILL be another mass shooting. And, Satan loves it.
Got enough negative adjectives? So guns have nothing to do with it? Curious logic.
William: Guns don’t kill people. What kills people is evil, deranged, woke, psychotic, perverse, stupid, sick, liars.
William, over 65 MILLION human lives in the USA alone since the 1970s have been killed in abortion. The weapons used are suction machines, scalpels and forceps in the hands of doctors. I’m not hearing any calls from you and your friends to outlaw any of these instruments of death. Why not? They’re equally as lethal as any gun.
Why do you assume that I support abortion when I advocate for red flag laws to prevent psychotics from buying guns? A curious vector off the subject. I do not support abortion and I think we need to prevent psychotics from getting guns. I am sure that many people agree.
Wolliam, tou keep on deflecting and seemingly purposefully not get the point. The assumption you make is this: “Remove the guns and the killings will stop.” That’s utter nonsense.
By the way, William, possessing guns is against the law in NYC and elsewhere. I guess there are no gun murders in those places, huh?
I think our current medical privacy laws allow some of these very troubled souls to stay under the radar.
Red flag laws sound good objectively but they have a potential to become a political weapon.
Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis is correct. We shouldn’t exploit this tragedy as a rationale for hatred against Trans people. Likewise we are obliged to treat transgender as a serious disorder, rather than a liberal cause celebre.
Well, Father, we then need to speak out very clearly that it is a disorder every time the dominant culture wants to shove it down our throats as normative.
tell him that
I’m not sure that people are using this event as an opportunity to hate or as justification for hating people. Transgender people are deeply disturbed individuals, however, and that makes them dangerous. We need to stop coddling them.
And politicians shouldn’t politically grandstand by assuming that noting the distorted psychology of a transexual constitutes an act of hatred when there is no evidence for it.
Dear Father. We see the word HATE used in much of the dialogue here.
You say, “We shouldn’t exploit this tragedy as a rationale for HATRED against Trans people. Our Federal Government has taken the lead on that very word. I feel that HATRED leads to ISOLATION and despair, not enlightenment and hope. Brinyman spews just that hatred when he says, “The Democratic Party is a death cult. Democrats and the Catholics who vote for them are responsible for this monstrous act.”
PBS: Federal information about what Trump calls “gender ideology” was removed from federal government websites. Trump’s initial executive order called for transgender women in federal custody to be moved to men’s prisons.
The State Department promptly stopped granting requests for new or updated passports with gender markers that don’t conform with the new definition.
In the executive order, the president asserted that being transgender “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
When any LGBTQ soldier was dismissed from our Platoon, the discharge was classified “UNDESIRABLE”.
My parents taught us never to hate. Some of the dialog here tests that edict.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/6-ways-trumps-executive-orders-are-targeting-transgender-people
“My parents taught us never to hate. Some of the dialog here tests that edict.”
Yet you consistently post your hateful comments about Trump here on a regular basis. I guess irony is lost on some people. A little self-awareness might go a long way.
There seems to be a rule that we should not ask any questions about the shooter’s parents and family life. We do know that his mother consented to his name change. Presumably, she also approved or accepted his make believe sex change. We should also know how matters related to sexual morality, particularly the trans lunacy, have been handled at Annunciation School. Is deviancy tolerated or promoted there as it has been at so many Catholic schools? These are important matters and neither his family nor the school have any right to have their “privacy respected.” What they taught, didn’t teach, celebrated and condemned may have played a very large role in what Robert Westman turned into.
Re Tony above (4:09 p.m.) – Good questions. The silence on family background is unusual. (I’d be cautious about assuming mother supported the so-called transition).
As the family goes, so goes society. John Paul II.
The Church understood this once.
Our lukewarm emasculated ecclesial communions fail to teach the fundamental importance of Christ based solidarity and subsidiarity.
Our pagan zeitgeist is a much more powerful teacher.
Now about another imposition upon us these days of confusion. That is the topic of security. As the local Bishop pointed out, you can read it on Catholic News Agency, the request for funding for security that is given to public schools, was denied by the governor and legislature of Minnesota to the Catholic Church. Then after this tragedy, the Governor Grandstands the scene. To me this is as disgusting as it gets. How do we get passed this? Praying, then work to undo this discrimination against religious freedom and the protections it deserves commensurate with the protection the public schools get. The mental health issue needs deep examination.
“If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated me before you.”
We see this played out time and again. Whether our own children are poisoned against themselves & their anguish is eventually directed against the last bastion of Truth, or our African brethren are struck down as they gather for Pentecost—the Church will always be the center of the Enemy’s attacks. Did we not see it with the Eucharistic Pilgrimage this summer when Protestants came out specifically to taunt and mock the faithful?
Banning certain weapons won’t change this fact. The Enemy will always target the Church because his time is short. This attack was so evil, it’s almost unbearable…but we know how this story ultimately ends.
Let us not be afraid. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis.
It’s no longer a matter of hands on heart with chin held high demanding that “God love America”. Rather it should be hands clasped in prayer humbly pleading that “God save America”. The necessity for ownership of guns should have been abandoned over 100 years ago when the rest of the world grew up and realised that the days of Billy the Kid. Wyatt Earp and the Dalton brothers were over. But then I suppose it is difficult to remember that when so many are raised by the fantasies presented as essential fodder by the make believe world of Hollywood and Disney land!
More of the usual distractor, “It’s the guns!”
No, it’s the woke, evil, deranged, sick, lies that results in people’s deaths. And it’s those who continue to placate, conspire with, condone and/or remain silent in the face of woke, deranged, unnatural, psychotic and evil notions who are also to blame for the deaths of innocent victims.
If you call yourself a Christian, it means you’re a follower of Christ. Christ called Himself the Truth. If you are a follower of Christ you must of necessity be striving to live in Truth at all times and in all ways. If you consort with Lies, you are no follower of Christ. It’s all very binary: You are either striving to live in the Truth or you are living in Lies. The two are mutually exclusive. And, lastly, you cannot be striving to live in the Truth passively and silently. That, too, would be a lie.
So,if you want red flag laws regarding guns, you are evil, deranged, etc? Is that what you are saying?
Those more inclined to label others as evil are those liberals quick to identify themselves as persecuted, especially when their arguments are devoid of reality. In turn, they vilify anyone who simply disagrees with their premises as lacking what they imagine to be supreior concern.
“Red flag laws” already exist in every state and at the national level. Calling for things that already exist is more likely to be an exercise of more-compassionate-than-thou virtue signaling. Condemning those who point out the very real consequences of moral nihilism, the real problem, is not in any way virtuous.
Mr. Frawley: It is impossible for the world to “grow up.” Sin and continuous renewals of the self-delusions necessary to sustain sin, never slow down. There is no such thing as human “evolution.” Shifts in common perceptions of what is evil do not alter the reality of what is evil.
Engaging in historical caricatures to trivialize, reduce, and disparage the views of those who recognize that evil is personal, not instrumental, is not helpful.
And I sincerely hope you don’t consider exponential growth in the crimes against humanity through the mass murder of the unborn and exponential increases of willful submissions to tyranny examples of “growing up.”
I am not advocating banning guns for law abiding citizens. There should be red flag laws for criminals, psychotics,illegal aliens and people deemed dangerous by the courts. You seem to think that anyone should be able to legally buy guns. Is that correct? Why do you think this? Is it the idea that if the worst of us can buy guns, then we will all somehow be safer? Please explain your logic.
Those laws already exist.
Those laws need to be strengthened. The sicko in Minneapolis should not have been allowed to buy guns.
William: Don’t dare put words in my mouth. Ever. I never said I endorse guns for everyone who wants them. Besides the criminals, psychotics and illegals you mention, I’d add to that group progressives who should never own a gun.
What I said and what you are most obtuse in comprehending is that limiting gun sales will not end killing. If you can empirically demonstrate that it will, show the evidence. Theŕe are numerous places in the USA that ban ownership and carrying of guns that still have rampant murders. Can you cite for us here the laws governing the carrying of guns in LA, NY and Chicago? And after doing that, can you give us the number of gun murders in each of those cities.
Reasonable red flag laws will not end gun related homicides, but will likely reduce them.
So your logic is that unless something totally eliminates all gun homicides, it is not worth doing? What if the red flagl law reduces gun homicides by 50%? Would that be worth doing?
So I am obtuse because I cannot read your mind? I’ve noticed so many of the posters to this website resort to personal insult, which does not really help their case. But perhaps that’s all you’ve got?
WILLIAM: By your own worda you admit that more stringent laws against gun ownership and possession resulting in fewer murders is pure speculation. You have no evidence to back up your assertion – just more wishful thinking and pious platitudes.
Here’s one more hypothetical: Robert – the sexually deranged murderer- was denied the purchase of a gun. He had a mother or father who legally owned a gun. Robert took his parent’s gun and ammo and shot and killed two Catholic school children. Now tell me about your more stringent laws against the sexually deranged purchasing guns.
So, are you saying that the sexually deranged should be able to buy guns? How do you feel about the Federal ban on automatic weapons? Perhaps we should just let anybody buy anything?
Please define “sexually deranged”, William. What does that even mean in today’s society?
Transgender.
In days to come, which are nearly upon us, God will deliver to Himself martyrs from our time, to counter and make atonement for the perverted, emasculated clergy and unfaithful fathers and mothers who have brought so much death, devastation and destruction to our families, communities, parishes, states, countries and humanity as a whole.
The punishment will be as painful as it is just.
satn is the enemy. Recognize the foul fool as such. Stop blaming each other, but, let us take responsibility for each of our own actions and failures to act, our sins and offenses before Almighty God and before each other. Only then can we hope to be reconciled with the Lord of all.