By Dawn Morais Webster
Special to the Herald
It was wonderful to see the OSV editorial board headline in the March 28 edition of the Hawaii Catholic Herald which said in no uncertain terms that “Catholics must be strong witnesses of Christ’s love.” But the gravity of the crisis we are in is diminished when the editorial speaks of the next four years being “a wild ride” or “disruptive.”
What we have seen in the first few weeks of the second Trump administration is cruelty and mayhem, largely orchestrated by an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, who has been given free rein by the White House. In early February Musk tweeted that he felt good about feeding the U.S. Agency for International Development, better known as USAID, to the woodchipper.
The disruption of the agency that delivers critically needed food and vaccines to the poorest people across the globe includes withdrawing emergency nutritional support for starving children and drinking water for families uprooted by war in Sudan. It also hurts USAID workers who have been laid off and businesses who have been stiffed despite having contracts in place with the U.S. government.
We are greeted almost daily by news of more government agencies and departments shut down or severely downsized. We are told about thousands of people fired and critical services seriously compromised: from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Department of Health and Human Services, NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the National Park Service, the Department of Education — the list keeps growing.
The callous disrespect for federal workers is hurting families across the nation. This is not just a wild ride. It is wickedness that we must condemn, as Jesus surely would.
In the March/April issue of The Catholic Worker, Jim Reagan writes in anticipation of Easter. He tells us that for some years now, when speaking to university or church groups, he has avoided using the word “crucifixion” because the holiness with which we revere the cross has come to obscure the horror. Instead he would say that “Jesus was forcibly arrested, unjustly tried, brutally tortured and executed.”
Surely we can see the parallels in how bright young students who speak out on issues they care about, as the First Amendment allows, are having their visas canceled without notice. They are being arrested by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents without warrants, handcuffed, denied due process, disappeared to out-of-state prisons and denied contact with their lawyers. This is not the America we grew up knowing.
It isn’t enough to be deeply disturbed about these events. Jesus flipped tables. He would expect us to, at the very least, raise our voices as many are already doing across the country: from big towns to small rural communities, as they feel the pain of all that is being dispensed by this administration.
Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, which started with a small group of Catholic nuns in 1972 and grew into a faith-based political advocacy organization for the common good, is calling on all of us to raise our voices by writing letters to the editor of our local or national papers. It is even training people in how to do so.
It’s time we did too. Our letters to the editor can and will help communicate our collective dismay and bring an end to the needless cruelty.
Jesus would approve.
Dawn Morais Webster has been a member of the congregation at St. George’s Church in Waimanalo and the Mystical Rose Oratory at Chaminade University of Honolulu. She worships at St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Kalihi which hosts the Catholic Worker House.
