APP Speaker Series Review
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Tony Norman – Columnist, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
“Faith, Fear and Politics:
Keeping a Clear Conscience on Election Day,”
By Jim McCarville
September 22, 2016
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For voters thinking about sitting out this election, Tony Norman had a clear direction on how to keep your conscience clear – don’t!
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“For white America, the failure to vote ‘the lesser of two evils’ is an unearned right.” That was the crux of his message delivered to 116 attendees at the Association of Pittsburgh Priests first Fall 2016 Speaker Series.
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To understand, let me walk you back, as Tony walked us back, about what it is that Black America won in the right to vote, and why no one, of any race, should ignore that victory.
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“Technically,” Tony said, “it was never illegal for blacks to vote, but ‘gatekeepers’ (in places where Whites might feel threatened by Black votes) managed to impose poll taxes ranging from the annoying to the life threatening. Except for the brief period of the post-civil war Reconstruction, it was easy for the gatekeepers to ignore the Constitution and the 14th and 15th amendments. The reaction to Reconstruction led to the KKK and the punitive ‘Jim Crow laws’. Still, Blacks continued to show up to register to vote, and to sometimes pay the extracted ultimate price.
“Why did the right to vote mean so much,” asked Tony, “when the lesser of two evils was a choice between Bull Connor and George Wallace? And what does that action mean to us in the election today?”
He went on to answer his own questions. “They understood that voting, however small the individuals impact was, in the long run, the best way to overcome a wicked social system. It was never a fight for ‘just’ right now. But, each vote was a witness to the moral bankruptcy of the times and the strong firm belief, that, in the long run, democracy would be redeemable.
“It took a while for Black votes to make a difference, but even George Wallace himself became an ardent believer in the right for Blacks to vote and take part of governing. Quite a conversion,” Tony added.
Bringing the vote topic up to date, he was critical of voter ID laws (a disguised poll tax); of Christian and Black preachers supporting Trump (they have either been bought off or want to preserve a Supreme Court to protect social issues the candidate has demonstrated no personal interest in); and of Hillary Clinton (too trusting of Generals and Bankers).
But, “not voting,” he concluded, “is the unforgivable sin of democracy. Men and women of color have died to preserve everybody’s right to vote. You may not be excited about the choices, but not voting is an unearned right.”
Tony appeared to enjoy the evening and was reported to be one of the last to leave the event after mixing and talking with attendees.
The next speaker in the series, James Schaefer, Ph. D, will be speaking on “Ecological Conversion, Developing Virtuous Communities, at the Kearns Spirituality Center, 9000 Babcock Blvd. Allison Park, PA 15230 on October 27, 2016.
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Ilia Delio: "Co-creating an Unfinished Universe"
By Jim McCarville
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Ilia Delio can rock the cynics. In fact she did much more than that to the 200 people attending the Association of Pittsburgh Priests’ Spring Lecture.
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After a whirlwind tour of "big history" from the big bang through the evolution of Homo Sapiens, she walked us through the scientific history that shaped the worldviews in the Ages of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Newton and Descartes. The latter two, credited with much of today’s scientific and mechanical definitions, also contributed to separating us from our natural environment.
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The Franciscan nun, who hold Ph. D’s in both Science and Theology, then showed how the possibilities of Einstein’s breakthroughs can help us better understand God, the Incarnation of the Word, the Cosmos, the environment, ourselves and our relationships.
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Her message that we are still evolving, calls us to move from “closed systems of rules and hierarchies” to “open systems of love”. She analogizes “God’s love” to Einstein’s discussion of “ever present energy” and the “power of gravity” to powerful love pulling us, still evolving, ever closer to God. We are, she says, “co-creators of an unfinished universe”.
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She says the very name God is a cosmological notion and calls on us to change our relationship to the whole of the environment. In fact she says the original Greek word for “catholicity” is a “consciousness of the whole” and “church” or “ecclesia” is a “gathering of us ‘into the whole’”.
I left with a sense of wonder and awe, wanting to know much, much more.