COVID Thoughts. Dr. Fauci, for example, has convinced me that he has evolved from highly respected epidemiologist to his current lofty position of highly politicized creature of the Washington, D.C. swamp. At one time he might have been a wonderful research scientist, but it’s now obvious he knows absolutely nothing about how a complex free-market society functions. He also apparently knows little about basic human interactions, you know, how people relate, collaborate, learn from each other, work together, and achieve. To the renowned doctor, these basic human needs are remote abstractions that can be set aside to achieve the greater good of “fighting the virus.” I hate to tell you this, but if you believe everything this politician in doctor’s clothing tells you, you’ve been bamboozled, hoodwinked, defrauded...call it what you will. Dr. Fauci has been wrong on virtually every single issue, and when he is confronted with these errors, he just shrugs his little shoulders and presses on to proclaim his next error. Every time this “expert” opens his mouth, he just parrots what the fear-mongering politicians have already said. After all, they’re the ones who pay his $400,000 plus salary. The man hasn’t had an original thought since he became just another government bureaucrat.
Again and again, the experts and politicians tells us to believe and follow the science. What they don’t tell us is that science is never settled. It is always a movable feast, always a dialectic, a process by which scientists strive together in disagreement and agreement to come closer to a more accurate reflection of reality, all the while knowing that future science may well change everything. This is why when Al Gore and John Kerry, whose combined scientific knowledge could be etched on the head of a pin with a jackhammer, tell us that the science of global warming is settled science, we can be certain that both are, to use a scientific term, compete jerks.
Dear Diane and I have both had our two Maderna vaccine shots. We live in the wonderful, highly rational state of Florida. But we are now on a brief vacation in Tennessee — yes, indeed, vaccinated and full of COVID antibodies, we decided to violate CDC and Biden guidelines and actually leave our home and travel. Tennessee is obviously a far more irrational state, since its authoritative powers — or perhaps it’s just the local county health fascists — demand compliance with rules requiring masking and social distancing in some places, but permit seemingly normal interaction in others. It boggles the mind. Much like allowing close interaction in Walmart and other large corporate stores, but shutting down small businesses. Do you think, perhaps, it has something to do with political contributions?
I find similarly confusing attitudes driving our Church’s response to the pandemic. “Safety first” seems to be the primary ruling guideline when it should probably come in third or fourth. We are a Eucharistic Church. As the fathers of the Second Vatican Council declared, “The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.” And yet we are depriving thousands of the faithful from receiving the Eucharist. In our diocese we have not been able to take the Eucharist to shut-ins, those in nursing homes, or others whose need is probably the greatest. Does safety also supersede proper worship of our loving, merciful God? We celebrate Mass with tiny, socially distanced congregations while thousands more sit at home becoming estranged from the Church they believe cares little for them. And what about freedom? Does not the truth set us free? [Jn 8:32] Isn’t our freedom to worship something far greater than our physical safety? Haven’t we learned anything from twenty centuries of Christian martyrs who sacrificed everything — and, yes, including their safety — so you and I can worship God in freedom. Our bishops should be screaming to heaven, and to Washington, for the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution.
Pray for our nation. Pray for out Church.
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