Making sense of the divisions within our nation at this moment in history has never been more important. Culture issues stand out as among the most divisive realities that cause disagreement and polarization. When Roe v Wade happened, the fuse was lit on the abortion phenomenon that would blow up in all kinds of ways over 50 years. Gay marriage was the forerunner of all sorts of questions about sexuality and gender. Global warming has become a much-contested issue between the fossil world and the tree huggers. (It does exist! It does not exist! It is the result of human activity! It is part of an ever-changing world!) There seems to be no middle ground when the implications of all these issues are aired in their entirety.
Beneath these culture war issues is the question of values. What we value is what we support. What we do not care about is what we ignore. What we value determines how we act and how we make decisions. What we do not care about translates into indifference or apathy. In the culture wars there is an on-going proselytizing to convert indifference into passion. For a long time, evangelicals did not care about abortion and saw it as a Catholic concern. When it got married to the preservation of segregated schools, it became a galvanizing issue for those who were unhappy when tax-exempt status was removed from white-only elementary schools and colleges. This unholy alliance has since dissipated but helps to explain how the deep divisions between pro-choice and pro-life have become so toxic.
In the years before the Second World War, there was a great deal of isolationist sentiment in the United States. This came to a head in 1940 with the establishment of the America First Committee. Hitler was on the march through Europe, Italy was also at war with Great Britain in Africa and the fear of US entanglement in foreign wars was the driving force behind the AFC. President Franklin Roosevelt recognized the threat that Nazi Germany posed to the rest of the world and created the Lend-Lease program to assist England through the back door. It provided necessary military assistance to England in much the same way that the US and Western Europe are aiding Ukraine today. US Isolationist sentiment opposed any help to England and saw it as possibly dragging the US into a European war. All this went underground when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Hitler fulfilled a commitment to Japan to declare war on the United States. Sadly, it is rearing its ugly head today.
This is a very important part of US history because embedded in the isolationism of the America First Committee was a genuine hatred for Jewish people. Known anti-Semites Charles Lindberg and Henry Ford played prominent roles in the America First Committee. All this took place at a time when news about Hitler’s persecuation of Jews was making its way slowly into the rest of the world. Roosevelt and those who recognized the evils of fascism understood what we have come to recognize as globalization. What happens in the rain forests of South America has an impact in Canada and what happens in the icesheets of the Artic is eventually felt in our oceans. What we know clearly today is that isolationism is not an option. Like the America First Committee of 1940, America first sentiments today have anti-immigrant sentiments woven deep into their fabric much like the anti-Semitism of the 1940s.
The fundamental value that seems to be most under attack today is the notion of the common good. When wedded to the question of immigration, it has profound consequences for public policy. Intrinsic to the concept of the common good is the understanding that every person, regardless of where they were born, their ethnic background, level of education, and so on, has fundamental human dignity. “I’m up, pull up the ladder” captures a great deal of the isolationist and ant-immigrant sentiment that we see today. As an immigrant nation, our goal and public policy should be on how we care for all the people who are trying desperately to find safety and economic security for themselves and their families. Building walls and rounding up people for deportation may be what many in our nation desire but it is truly un-American and contrary to the values that are at the heart of our democratic experience.
The common good is much more than cheap bacon and butter. It is really about the kind of world we want to live in. It is about nations like Ukraine being able to fend off unjust aggression. It is insuring that children born today will have clean air and clean water in 25 years. It is about seeing decent health care as a human right and not just a privilege for the rich. It is about building a culture of inclusion not exclusion, a culture of peace not war, a culture where differences are regarded as assets and not liabilities.
The common good is about compassion, thoughtfulness, generosity, responsibility and accountability. It is the value that undergirds our nation and the fundamental value that needs to be strengthened if our nation is to survive another 250 years.
Msgr. Garrity is a Senior Priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and former pastor of St. Mary’s Parish and School, Lynn
