Yesterday I offered a solemn festive Mass of Thanksgiving at 10am, which is one of the most heavily-attended Masses of the year. People instinctively feel the need to thank someone, and even nominally religious people feel the need to thank God. It’s hard for anyone to live in the beautiful city of San Francisco without feeling thankful. But for many of us, it’s a love-hate relationship as the city declines. We thank those who have built the up San Francisco (and rebuilt it after 1906), but we resent the elites who are deconstructing our city.
The Gold Rush of 1849 flooded this port city with millions, and the tech boom of the last twenty years has inundated it with trillions. In Mark Twain’s time, a few millionaires controlled San Francisco. Today, a few billionaires control the city. The superrich tell us what to think and what not to think. They tell us how to vote, what to buy, how to spend our time, and what to fear. They don’t tell us directly but by deftly managing market forces and government mandates. This is done through “algorithms” but much more by simply repeating certain phrases a billion times. “My Body My Choice.” “Toxic Masculinity.” “Stay Safe.” The rulers of our city close and open our streets, open and close private businesses and public projects, tax and spend, all without feeling the need to justify or explain their decisions. At least, this is how I see it from the street level, and this is what I hear from the vanishing middle class of San Francisco.
A few billion dollars is different than a few million dollars. Fantastic money warps one’s thinking, as one can see in the more paltry experiences of those who have won very large lottery amounts. A good argument is made that no one should own a billion dollars, because the billion dollars inevitably takes ownership of the man. To be fair to our dear billionaires and trillionaires, they mostly think that they are benefitting the common good. Perhaps unconsciously, they have come to think that the future and well-being of the planet is in their hands.
Not unlike today, during the Roman Empire a few supremely wealthy people controlled the population through “bread and circuses.” Several times a week the emperor would put on a free gladiatorial show with unlimited food and wine. Today, rather than gladiatorial shows, we are provided with screens, everywhere. Everyone gets a smartphone with unlimited entertainment. As for food and drink, every week hordes of my neighbors line up, fully compliant in gloves and masks, for free government food in a parking lot on 8th Avenue. We quietly accept the “stimulus checks” the government neatly inserts into our bank accounts, and we quietly vote for the leader who promises the most loan cancellations.
This exponential increase of the welfare state reduces us to a zombie-like state of existence dependent on bread and circuses. We clients should thank our benefactors, but we must keep in mind that all blessings flow from God, including those what flow through Google and Amazon and the federal government. Thanking God first is why our country invented the national feast of Thanksgiving. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, at precisely the lowest ebb of our national history (1863):
“The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God….”
The above comes from a Nov. 25 posting on Father Illo’s Blog. Father Illo is pastor of Star of the Sea parish in San Francisco.
You got a stimulus check put into your bank account?
You voted for the candidate who promised loan cancellations?
Seriously?
Many young people voted for the College debt cancellation from the Federal Government, which was promptly cancelled after the election by a judge because it was illegal. The corrupting effect of the California gimme, gimme beggars will be our ruin, but we elect our leaders again and again. Thank God we still have some good priests like Fr. Illo.
So much of life is what you focus on.
And who you give your power away to.
No, the ultra-hardcore, radical, evil Left controls the city.
I remember when all it took was one intersection to change the city. (Not completely of course)
Renew our cities, O Lord, and renew our hearts. May everyone be safe. May crime cease. May our cities be filled with charity. May everyone in the cities treat their neighbor as they themselves would want to be treated.
In the Name of Jesus, we ask this.
Why don’t you ask your bishop to assign a chaplain to the homeless?
The archdiocese of SF has 58 religious communities listed on its webpage.
Do better.
Do more.
25% of the population of San Francisco is Catholic.
That is one out of every 4 people. Ok some are children.
144,000 people.
If even 1% of those people became a workforce for good, things will change.
Things will change if just one person does it.
People always default to blaming the rich and the powerful.
Get beyond blaming and just do your Christian duty.
In the olden days of Catholicism, saints crossed oceans to convert the world.. The world has come to you. Go do your job.
I need to move to San Francisco. I hear that in a city with 5000 homeless people there are 60,000 unoccupied dwellings.
I am going to start from where I am by donating to charities for the homeless.
Every time I google, I see a lot of great charities (or charities with great websites.) None are Catholic.
Does anyone there know some good Catholic charities that help with homelessness?
SF Homeless, i just googled “Catholic homeless services san francisco and found many lisiting, the majority of them are through Catholic Charities, but there are others besides
Thanks. I will look for that.
They have some services but they don’t seem to be working on the problems on the streets.
What they do is important but I was looking for something else.
Like for the chronically homeless.
The superrich tell us what to think and what not to think. They tell us how to vote, what to buy, how to spend our time, and what to fear. They don’t tell us directly but by deftly managing market forces and government mandates. This is done through “algorithms” but much more by simply repeating certain phrases a billion times. “My Body My Choice.” “Toxic Masculinity.” “Stay Safe.”
I would be surprised if there was a single person in his parish who let the superrich tell them what to think.
We are Catholics. The Catholic Church tells us what to think.
It can’t tell us how to vote but we can figure it out.
No Catholic believes my body, my choice. Every Catholic is aware of the human life within them. Catholics have abortions at the same rate others do and it is not because they do not know it’s a baby. They got into a situation that they cannot handle, that they are embarrassed by, that they cannot see past the event horizon and they do the wrong thing.
No Catholic should have a problem with toxic masculinity. Catholics are supposed to be ladies and gentlemen of virtue. Toxic masculinity is not traditional masculinity in Catholicism. It is sin and the belief that being male entitles you to sin.
What is wrong with staying safe?
“they do not know it’s a baby” What do you suppose they think it is, a growing watermelon? They know it’s a growing baby. They just don’t want it.
It is not because they do not know it’s a baby. double negative is a positive.
To Jesus through Mary.
John 15:7
Decades ago when I was taking anthropology, there was a warning story from an anthropologist who had worked with an indigenous tribe who used stone axes to fell trees and do other work. The anthropologist had taken a steel axe with him and when he left, he gave the steel axe to his host. It destroyed the entire culture of the tribe. The host with the steel ax became the most powerful man in the tribe because everybody would borrow the steel axe; they would wait to do their work until they could get the steel axe. So a neutral piece of technology can destroy morals, mores, customs etc.
When I was young, the steel axe that changed America was considered to be the automobile. One of the reasons was that young people now had a place where they could do immoral things with less risk of getting caught. A lot of it is pinned on contraceptive mentality but there are reasons that people wanted to avoid births and one was so they could afford thing like suburban houses, cars, appliances, etc.
[George Washington Thanksgiving Proclamation 1789]
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
Go: Washington
Loved reading the 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation of President George Washington! It was a wonderful thing, the religious faith of our forefathers, which had a great influence on America’s original foundation! Despite a firm and formal belief in separation of church and state, America was founded as a nation of mostly strong Christian people, who publicly acknowledged faith in God, and acceptance of Christian Biblical beliefs, values and morality. It was recognized that our blessings, our freedoms, come not from decrees of mankind — but from a great and good Creator, to Whom we ought to give humble worship, and profound thanks. Today, Modernism and the Culture of Death have tragically eroded and nearly destroyed the important religious and moral foundations of our American way of life, laid down long ago. It is tremendously important to combat and destroy these evil influences, and set our Nation right, before God. Without God, our Nation is nothing but a fallen wasteland of selfish hedonism, corruption, evil, and sin.
There is nothing Christian in that proclamation.
Many of the Founding Fathers were Deists or Christian Deists (who do not accept the divinity of Christ.)
Washington was Anglican but what he accepted of the religion is not known.
This is from the website of his home, Mount Vernon
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/george-washington-and-religion/