Reflection from our Pastors
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Independence Day
Senate Republicans on July 1 passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would enact key provisions of the President’s legislative agenda on taxes and immigration, without any Democratic support and
losing three members of their ranks. The House must now approve the Senate's changes to the bill before it goes to the president's desk for his signature. The President has sought to do so by Independence Day, July 4.
Catholic leaders are speaking out about this bill:
A June 26 letter to senators from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops…opposed “taxes being raised on the working poor while simultaneously giving large tax cuts to the wealthiest." The letter added, "Because of this, millions of poor families will not be able to afford life-saving healthcare and will struggle to buy food for their children. Some rural hospitals will likely close." The bishops called these provisions "unconscionable and unacceptable."
Twenty U.S. Catholic bishops signed onto an interfaith effort urging the Senate to reject the bill, citing cuts to nutrition assistance and Medicaid, and its impact on immigrants among other concerns, calling it "draconian" and a "moral failure."
Mercy Sr. Mary Haddad, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said in a statement that the legislation was a moral failure, citing its cuts to safety-net programs like Medicaid and SNAP. "This bill inflicts deep harm on essential community health and social safety-net programs, threatening the survival of rural hospitals and long-term care facilities. It is shameful that Congress has once again prioritized the interests of the wealthy over the needs of millions of vulnerable Americans."
"The 'big beautiful bill' is not beautiful," Sr. Joseph Sr. Karen Burke said, "it is harmful. It is unjust and it goes against everything we believe in as Catholic women religious."
Pope Leo XIV, in his letter to legislators, pleaded with them to work towards the common good by "working to overcome the unacceptable disproportion between the immense wealth concentrated in the hands of a few and the world's poor." (National Catholic Reporter)
As our country celebrates its 249th birthday, we might want to reflect on the
word “freedom,” especially as some of our personal freedoms are being taken away. Kate Bowler, author and professor at Duke Divinity School poses this question to us:
“What if real freedom isn’t about independence at all? What if it’s about interdependence—the sacred web of casseroles and inside jokes and group texts that say “home” in all the ways language can’t? As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Bowler shares a prayer to help us practice inter-dependence this week (and all the weeks).
Loving Creator,
May we all risk being known, practicing intimacy with the way we listen and
share and ask each other questions (even when we might not like the
answers).
May we learn how to love when it makes no sense, and be loved when our
humanity feels like a liability.
May we find ourselves reminded that we belong to one another. Neighbors.
Strangers. Friends. All wrapped up together in this web of beautiful, terrible
inter-dependence.
(hello@katebowler.com)
Amen.
May you celebrate July 4th keeping in mind the words of the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all persons are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among the people, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Let us work inter-dependently towards this end for all.
Blessings,
Mother Rosean
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