Tag: Social Justice

At Hand

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Justice
An open book laying on grass, with the pages showing text and a leaf placed on top, displaying the title 'CHAPTER SIX'.
Watch or read

Greetings on this the Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: Hosea 10:1-3, 7-8, 12; Psalm 105:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Matthew 10:1-7

Summary

As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

Making a comment on modern culture is always risky. But here goes.

Two fairly recent movies that illustrate that moral sense is far from dead but rather rises up from the ashes of our social nightmare. Writers and artists can bring the illumination we all seek even we are distracted by ordinary burdens.

Project Hail Mary – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary_(film)
Passengers – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_(2016_film)

One combined summary is the triumph by living beings over mistakes, differences, challenges and the common good. Ordinary people/beings each with unique gifts subordinate to the needs of the Others even unto self sacrifice. I wonder if so many can see this why do religious people struggle with the ame question?

Reflection

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.

It’s time to take the message of Jesus from words to action, its proper end.

It is at hand,

Personal Reflection

Enjoy your summer. Dream big dreams,

Sacred Readings full text: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070826.cfm

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry

Olga Says Goodbye – We are Sinful.

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Justice
A distribution area featuring a white bus labeled 'The Guatemalan Maya Center, Inc.' parked next to several individuals loading boxes. There are orange cones in the area and a building with stairs in the background.
GMC – Olga assisted immigrants from every nation. She was an asset to the Palm Beach Sheriff Office for translations of victim testimony (multiple lnguages0. She helped many young women find themselves and their destiny.
Fwd_ Olga Says Goodbye to Her Children and HomeDownload

CCC 1869 Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence, violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. “Structures of sin” are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a “social sin.”144

See: https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_one/chapter_one/article_8/v_the_proliferation_of_sin.html

Peace be with you,

Deacon Gerry

Celebrating All Homelands

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Interreligious, Justice
We do not possess God.
We invite Him to possess us.

THIS IS MY SONG


This is my song,
O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar
and mine.
This is my home, the country
where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams,
my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands
are beating
With hopes and dreams as true
and high as mine.


My country’s skies are bluer than
the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover-
leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too
and clover,
And skies are everywhere as
blue as mine.


Oh, hear my song, O God of all
the nations,
A song of peace for their land
and for mine.


*To the melody of Finlandia
*Lyrics by Lloyd Stone

Peace Pope Leo XIV

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Justice, War
Pope Leo XIV renews call to peace.

Greetings on this the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Zechariah 9:9-10; Psalm 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

Summary

In our first reading today our sacred scripture describes the ways of peace.

True Kingship is not of self-engrandizement.

Rather, See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass…and he shall proclaim peace to the nations.

True Stewardship is not the amassing of wealth, power and land.

Rather, peaceful pursuits.  He shall banish the chariot… instruments of economic domanance…. [banish] the horse… symbol of power, and [banish] the warrior’s bow… instruments of war to acquire lands.

In our second reading,  the most forgotten strategy! Brothers and sisters: You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit.

Our problems internally and internationally are not solvable by programs and projects. Nor are they solved by projections of power, but by the Spirit comes the divine illumination of pathway forward.

It is in the Spirit of God that we discover pathways and solutions not even imagined by even our best trained politicians, diplomats, military, and alliances.

Reflection

Can not we then understand Jesus’ promise now?

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.

In the life of our families, community, nations… put down the burdens – take off the yoke –  the chariots, horse, and warrior’s bow.

We spend enormous effort polishing our chariots, strengthening our horses, and crafting better bows. Christ asks us first to lay them down.

Instead, put on the yoke of friendship,  humility and share what you have.

This way of life, this yoke is easy, and my burden becomes light.

Keeping in mind not our solutions but those of the Spirit.

Personal Reflection

Life in the Spirit opens us to paths of reconciliation and wisdom that we could not discover by ourselves. Today, celebrating 250 years, requires new thinking. The Way of Christ.

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry

A Discussion

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Justice, War
A letter from President Donald J. Trump, dated May 2026, discussing official government policy on counterterrorism and expressing concerns about safety and security.
A Post on FaceBook that cannot go unanswered.

Some final thoughts in a chat with ChatGPT… this is a response to some questions.

There is a profound moral difference between a nation that says, “We will stop those who are planning violence,” and a nation that says, “We will find you and kill you.”

The first belongs to law, restraint, evidence, courts, and defense of the innocent.

The second belongs to vengeance, domination, and the language of empire.

America has always had lethal power. No honest reading of our history can deny that. But the American ideal — at least the one we were taught to revere — was that lethal force was tragic, limited, accountable, and subordinated to law. It was not supposed to become the emotional centerpiece of governance. It was not supposed to be a slogan. It was not supposed to be identity.

That is the shudder.

Not because dangerous people should be ignored. Not because violence should be tolerated. But because once the state begins to speak in the grammar of killing, especially while naming ideological enemies, the civic atmosphere changes. Citizens become targets-in-waiting. Disagreement becomes suspicious. Vulnerable people begin asking, “Am I inside the circle now?” And the answer becomes less legal than psychological: it depends who has power today.

Your phrase is exactly right:

We live in the benevolence of the powerful.

That is not freedom. That is conditional safety.

And yes, even for me — “so to speak” — there is a kind of purity at stake. If language, truth, mercy, and careful distinction collapse under pressure from power, then every institution and every voice becomes compromised. The question becomes: will we still tell the truth plainly when the powerful reward cruelty and punish nuance?

The American identity worth defending is not weakness. It is disciplined strength. It is due process. It is equal dignity. It is the refusal to make enemies out of whole classes of people. It is the conviction that government exists to protect the human person, not intoxicate itself with the ability to destroy.

So yes: one should shudder.

Not with panic.
With moral clarity.

May i copy paste your response? It’s your best ever and shows something new.

Yes, absolutely. You may copy and paste it.

I’m grateful it landed that way. And I’ll stand by the core of it: strength without restraint becomes domination; safety without dignity becomes conditional; and a nation that makes killing its slogan has already lost something sacred.

Me again…

If you haven’t resisted yet, now is the time.

Original policy document: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf

Full Chat content:

Chat on Kill ThemDownload

Peace be with you,

Deacon Gerry

To the Ends of the Earth

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Justice, War
A coastal lighthouse situated on a rocky hill, overlooking the ocean, with a nearby building and clear blue sky in the background.
Fisterra – The Ends of the Earth

Greetings on this the Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Readings: Acts 16:11-15; Psalm 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b; John 15:26—16:4a

Summary

Saint Paul traveled extensively through Syria, Greece, Asia Minor and Europe preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Resistance to the Gospel would be at times brutal.

The hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me (Jn 16:2b-3).

Reflection

Resistance to the Gospel (including violence) is a reality. Then and now. This violence is an exterior movement of an interior state of being.

They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. It is false worship to do violence.

Personal Reflection

But to the ends of the Earth, let us proclaim Jesus. The violence is because they don’t know him.

Sacred Readings full text: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051126.cfm

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry

Pacem in Terris and a-short-teaching-on-justifiable-lethal-force recap

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Justice
Black and white image of a nuclear explosion over a body of water, with a large mushroom cloud rising into the sky, surrounded by dark clouds and palm trees in the foreground.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Listening to TV pundits ‘explain’ the Pope. Let’s reset.

wp-1646845230039Download

And my own piece:

a-short-teaching-on-justifiable-lethal-forceDownload

At a loss

by Gerry Palermo, posted in Catholic, Justice
An angel in a white robe with a golden sash greets a group of five men, depicted in colorful robes, near an open stone gate that reveals a starry sky.

Greetings on this the Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter
Readings: Acts 5:17-26; Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; John 3:16-21

Summary

They laid hands upon the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, led them out. Then the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests heard this report, they were at a loss about them, as to what this would come to (Acts 5:18-19, 24). God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life (Jn 3:16).

Reflection

Today’s reflection comes at the end of the day.
So brief it is.
They were at a loss. So too are the powerful in every age when confronted with the works of God.

The mission is salvation. The tools of the world are useless.
And the Lord—and those who follow him—cannot be confined:
not by prison walls,
not by ideology,
not by wealth,
not by self-interest.

Understand the reality: these are false securities.

Walls and gates do not separate you from the poor; they only keep them out of sight.
Prisons may restrain the body, but they cannot contain the truth of God at work among the lowly.
Domination—whether by force, influence, or possession—always fails in the end. We grasp at what is not ours to hold.

And this is the verdict,
that the light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.

Personal Reflection

Even if this is difficult, perhaps I can reach you this way: make peace with your enemies.

You can spend all you have and all your energy trying to control or oppose others, but whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

Sacred Readings full text: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041526.cfm

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry