October Journal, Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

A man burst into our St. Joseph’s Collegiate Chapel near UC Berkeley on Sunday morning, incoherently shouting and waving a cylindrical object. He turned around and left, violently kicking the door open. He was clearly on drugs, seeing the world through a different lens, one of unreality. When he saw us (were we singing?… not sure) he became incensed with rage. Was it the confrontation with reality that angered him? The Reality of God? Of God’s people worshiping? Why was he so angry?

Each day our world appears to grow more hostile, or is it my elderly imagination, my clear recall of far less turmoil in my own past, and I have had considerable turmoil in my life. And when we were at war – be it domestic or international – we could speak about it. We could assemble and march and write and preach. We could debate one another. Newsprint allowed pros and cons. There were rules and laws we were required to follow. We were to keep things peaceful, or face serious consequences. Not so today. Media largely has become overtaken by one-sided opinion, attempting to destroy the opposition.

The drive into Berkeley yesterday morning was equally hazardous, cars weaving in and out unexpectedly on the highway as if on a racetrack, competing for death-by-crashing, fastest speed, as if the drugged drivers knew there would be no accountability for their actions.

The recent lockdowns, at least here in California, were severe the last few years, and many restrictions continue in eldercare locations, requiring masks and vaccination records and instant temperature takings and questionnaires simply to get past the front desk. It has been a challenge for me to oversee my 102-year-old mother’s care at one of these assisted living locations, since I can’t wear a mask (I really panic) and they are required of everyone.

And now we see an uncivil war brewing in our land of freedom, a growing state power that silences dissent. These trends we foresaw some years ago, at least in California, and they seem to have become emboldened by the continuing “emergency powers,” granted with COVID 19 and ongoing.

Aside from drugs driving crazies on the roads and threatening innocents in churches, the latest concern is the State taking custody of our children to perform “gender therapy” on them. Should parents protest, they will lose custody. Ben Jonson of The Washington Stand writes that Elizabeth Guzman of the Virginia House of Delegates introduced a bill in 2020 that would make it a felony to stop transgender surgeries on their children, under the guise that such interference would cause “mental harm” and fall into the child abuse category. She intends to reintroduce this bill.

Governor Gavin Newsom of California has recently passed a bill that would prevent doctors from expressing alternative viewpoints relative to COVID 19, at least alternative to the State line of the moment. Doctors stand in peril of losing their licenses if they do not support vaccines across the board.

For more on these issues, see and subscribe to the valiant and expert Dr. Monique Robles who argues another way forward, providing valuable information that needs to be seen by every voter and every parent.

These legal measures – California and Virginia – reflect neo-Marxist tyranny, the first, the kidnapping of our children’s minds and bodies by threatening their parents, the second, the silencing of speech and the manipulation of the doctor-patient confidentiality. If your doctor cannot give his own opinion (once called a diagnosis), you have no doctor. We trust our doctors to not be ruled by the State.

Churches are silent just as they were silent about abortion and, for the most part, continue to be. They too fear the State.

But there is an election coming up, when, at least in theory, we can vote for freedom. The greatest issue of all is free speech, for without respectful dialog and debate, our vote and our future are at grave risk. If our vote is at risk, then America is at risk, and thus the world.

A young friend and I were speaking of the many issues in our world today. She is confused, she says, about what is going on and what is causing it, how to vote. I agree. It’s vastly confusing for most of us. I told her she needed to find someone knowledgeable whom she trusts, and vote according to their suggestions. We cannot be authorities in all things. We must defer to those experts who value life and freedom and faith and family, those authorities we trust.

The mainstream media that advocates butchering children and jailing parents is the loudest voice in our world, and many times the only voice heard now that so many self-censor. If you hear the same repeated phrases from all your news sources you are hearing only one side. You are hearing the manipulation of the media, just as Stalin and Mao manipulated the media (today Putin and Xi). Hear the other side at Epoch Times, the Daily Wire, Newsmax.

Check out Uncommon Knowledge, interviews with major thinkers today by the (Stanford) Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson. Also Victor Davis Hanson will give another take on America’s future. He is an expert military historian with an astute vision and a quiet way of speaking. These are thoughtful and brave Americans not afraid to warn us that things are amiss. We are close to losing our country. God bless them for speaking out.

Hillsdale College has numerous free offerings that offer another side to the debate raging over our land, including Imprimis, a newsletter featuring key leaders supporting faith, family, and freedom.

Most have videos and audio on YouTube. Enter the debate of ideas, so crucial for a democracy to survive. Decide for yourself.

There are always two sides to every issue (or more). Don’t allow anyone to silence one to the advantage of the other. When this happens, elections are rigged, children butchered, and parents jailed. Crime increases as drugs flow over open borders and crazies endanger highways and burst into peaceful chapels waving weapons.

We need to hear all sides of every question.

Oh, and, by the way, I spoke to our bishop and he suggested we lock the front door and enter through the parking lot in back. Has it come to that? We no longer serve the students and community that pass by our busy Berkeley corner at Durant and Bowditch. St. Joseph’s will be taking the first step to going underground. At least for now.

But it’s reality. And we are a people of Reality, as my bishop of blessed memory often reminded me, preaching and witnessing to Our Lord’s great acts of salvation two thousand years ago, and alive among us today.

This is the really Good News. It must not go underground. Not yet.