Monday, October 24, 2005
Out of Many, ONE!
E pluribus unum may be found on much of the currency of the United States of America. Of course, it is found on the Great Seal of the United States of America. Now there are many people who get entrenched in Masonic conspiracy theories about our seal and mottos; if you are such a person, then this blog is not for you.
However, this blog is for people who believe that e pluribus unum is not just our motto, it is our goal. This includes people who support assimiliation of legal immigrants into our culture. The motto is not a racist one although there have been several groups in the history of our great nation who opposed immigration due to racist ideas while still presenting themselves as "good Americans" (the Know nothings, the KKK, etc.).
If one accepts the motto, then one is obligated to help legal immigrants to our country. This is not to say that immigration should not be regulated and controlled. How best to do that is a subject for another day (and past blogs if you want to dig through the archives).
Out of many one can best be lived out if it is broadly applied. It is fairly easy to see how it should be applied to public education, access to politics and government services, etc. However, the process of assimiliation (and I subscribe to Proferssor Huntington's tomato soup concept), if it is to be successful, should focus on cultural interactions as well.
Unfortunately, the multi-culturalists, the uninformed, and the down-right naive people in certain sections of society oppose this idea. The most recent example witnessed by this blogger was at Mass yesterday in a small town that caters to tourists. The pastor, and only priest of the parish, went on a 25 minute diatribe about how town A was the most racist town in which he had ever lived. Specifically, he was critical of the predominantly "white" parishoners (whose own cultural backgrounds were not taken into consideration) who had opposed his introduction of a Spanish Mass. Now since I was not privy to any of these discussions, it may be true that some or all of the parishoners who opposed this new Mass were racists. However, given Fr. X's extrapolation of local problems to the big issue of immigration from south of the border, my educated guess is that Fr. X is pushing a multiculturalist agenda based on liberal politics grounded in the Gramscian-Marxist multicultural movement.
This is not to say that Fr. X is a Gramscian-Marxist. I have found that most ardent multiculturalist have no clue as to where the movement started. The goal of G-M movement is to fracture the hegemonic culture that gave us such ideas as political liberty, democratic republics, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc. in an attempt to install, in the long run, a G-M world system. I will give Fr. X the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is an unknowing pawn of the multiculturalists.
How so?
In his unhinged rant against the racist community of town A, he defended the Spanish Mass as being necessary for the Spanish speaking community of A who was and continues to be the victim of racism at the parish and in the community. But is his catering to the Spanish community good for the Spanish community, the community of A, and the greater society of the United States of America.
The answer is a resounding, "No!"
Is his policy fueling the racist fire (which, by the way, I have never seen in town A)?
The answer is, "Yes!"
In the Parish's vision statement (yes, I know, beware of organizations with a vision statement) the idea of community is presented first. But how is a community united if it caters to separtist cultural agendas by having separate masses in different languages as well as separate events? The answer, again, is obvious since it cannot promot unity while promoting divisive multiculturalism. In fact, this parish has a "Coordinator of Hispanic Ministry" who can only be seen as further contributing to the problem of cultural and religious segregation.
What Fr. X should have done was devise an assimilation process for the new immigrant community thus living out the idea of a united community - or, in other words, out of many, one. Perhaps the Spanish Mass could have been a temporary and transitional event, and not the apparent permanent and divisive one it has become. Given that the Church wants its members to be the united body of Christ, perhaps the best solution would be to offer all Masses in the common language of the Church - Latin. The readings could then be in the tongue of the particular group (English or Spanish), but others who do not speak that language could read the readings in the missalette and only "miss out" on the homily. In fact, people of both languages should be encouraged to go to the Masses of the other groups until the immigrant groups learns a sufficient amount of English so that the partial Spanish Masses could be eliminated.
Now, this does not mean that some specific cultural and religious events, such as the Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations, should be eliminated. Such events are the pieces of food in the tomato soup. All immigrant groups who came to America and assimilated have contributed such things to the assimilation process.
The question now becomes: will the multiculturalists in the Church at large and in Fr. X's parish realize that their policies are more divisive than helpful? Unfortunately, I think not, but I will continue to pray that I am wrong on this point.
However, this blog is for people who believe that e pluribus unum is not just our motto, it is our goal. This includes people who support assimiliation of legal immigrants into our culture. The motto is not a racist one although there have been several groups in the history of our great nation who opposed immigration due to racist ideas while still presenting themselves as "good Americans" (the Know nothings, the KKK, etc.).
If one accepts the motto, then one is obligated to help legal immigrants to our country. This is not to say that immigration should not be regulated and controlled. How best to do that is a subject for another day (and past blogs if you want to dig through the archives).
Out of many one can best be lived out if it is broadly applied. It is fairly easy to see how it should be applied to public education, access to politics and government services, etc. However, the process of assimiliation (and I subscribe to Proferssor Huntington's tomato soup concept), if it is to be successful, should focus on cultural interactions as well.
Unfortunately, the multi-culturalists, the uninformed, and the down-right naive people in certain sections of society oppose this idea. The most recent example witnessed by this blogger was at Mass yesterday in a small town that caters to tourists. The pastor, and only priest of the parish, went on a 25 minute diatribe about how town A was the most racist town in which he had ever lived. Specifically, he was critical of the predominantly "white" parishoners (whose own cultural backgrounds were not taken into consideration) who had opposed his introduction of a Spanish Mass. Now since I was not privy to any of these discussions, it may be true that some or all of the parishoners who opposed this new Mass were racists. However, given Fr. X's extrapolation of local problems to the big issue of immigration from south of the border, my educated guess is that Fr. X is pushing a multiculturalist agenda based on liberal politics grounded in the Gramscian-Marxist multicultural movement.
This is not to say that Fr. X is a Gramscian-Marxist. I have found that most ardent multiculturalist have no clue as to where the movement started. The goal of G-M movement is to fracture the hegemonic culture that gave us such ideas as political liberty, democratic republics, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc. in an attempt to install, in the long run, a G-M world system. I will give Fr. X the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is an unknowing pawn of the multiculturalists.
How so?
In his unhinged rant against the racist community of town A, he defended the Spanish Mass as being necessary for the Spanish speaking community of A who was and continues to be the victim of racism at the parish and in the community. But is his catering to the Spanish community good for the Spanish community, the community of A, and the greater society of the United States of America.
The answer is a resounding, "No!"
Is his policy fueling the racist fire (which, by the way, I have never seen in town A)?
The answer is, "Yes!"
In the Parish's vision statement (yes, I know, beware of organizations with a vision statement) the idea of community is presented first. But how is a community united if it caters to separtist cultural agendas by having separate masses in different languages as well as separate events? The answer, again, is obvious since it cannot promot unity while promoting divisive multiculturalism. In fact, this parish has a "Coordinator of Hispanic Ministry" who can only be seen as further contributing to the problem of cultural and religious segregation.
What Fr. X should have done was devise an assimilation process for the new immigrant community thus living out the idea of a united community - or, in other words, out of many, one. Perhaps the Spanish Mass could have been a temporary and transitional event, and not the apparent permanent and divisive one it has become. Given that the Church wants its members to be the united body of Christ, perhaps the best solution would be to offer all Masses in the common language of the Church - Latin. The readings could then be in the tongue of the particular group (English or Spanish), but others who do not speak that language could read the readings in the missalette and only "miss out" on the homily. In fact, people of both languages should be encouraged to go to the Masses of the other groups until the immigrant groups learns a sufficient amount of English so that the partial Spanish Masses could be eliminated.
Now, this does not mean that some specific cultural and religious events, such as the Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations, should be eliminated. Such events are the pieces of food in the tomato soup. All immigrant groups who came to America and assimilated have contributed such things to the assimilation process.
The question now becomes: will the multiculturalists in the Church at large and in Fr. X's parish realize that their policies are more divisive than helpful? Unfortunately, I think not, but I will continue to pray that I am wrong on this point.
