Archbishop Anastasio #6

[Continued from Archbishop Anastasio #5. sch 4/1/23.]  

 I read the next three paragraphs of  Archbishop Anastasio's In Albania: Cross and Resurrection (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2016) as about the Great Recession but also being applicable to this Age of Trump:

Nicholas Berdiaev used to say that Christianity did not give due attention to social justice, which is why it became a bourgeois religion; therein lay its failure. Yet. Christianity still has the potential to create individuals of  freedom, free from their egocentrism, and free from the delight in pleasure and power, with a sense of obligation before every human being.

Religious fanaticism does not only appear with a Kalashnikov rifle; it can take the shape of a television camera or a reprimand when we converse with someone of another religion or snub the fashionable atheism.

The crisis all about our perverted financial management, which originates in our egocentrism, our unrestrained individualism, our materialistic illusion that wealth in life is having great riches, many luxuries and vast power. These are precisely the opposite of the Christian ideal.

p. 325

There is talk here at Fort Dix that Trump will release some inmates who in danger from the corona virus. I stay out of these conversations - no reason for me to train on anyone's parade. When we become so enamored with BDSM, with punishment for the sake of punishment? The United States does not believe in redemption. Consider the sex offender registration laws - they refute any idea of redemption. This "Christian" nation does not respect repentance.

Ultimately, everyone's galis repentance. For many secularized people, tis concept may wellapear overly religious or archaic. Nevertheless, those who believe in Christ are aware that this is the definitive principle of Christianity. It was the central and essential core of Christ's message, which teaches: "Repent and believe in the gospel." (Mk 1.15). It is only through a change of heart and transformation of mind that we are capable of breaking habits and healing passions, which pollute our world. Sincere and consistent repentance is the only fundamental treatment and therapy for a better future as individuals and as a society.

pp. 331-32

I do hope you think about all that. 

As for us in the care of the United States Bureau of Prisons, they will not let us go. The BOP does not like compassionate release. They are not in the business of rehabilitation. Your tax dollars at work.

sch

3/31/20

[I was more right than I like to admit about the BOP and Fort Dix FCI: Lawmakers have ‘grave concerns’ over how officials are handling COVID-19 outbreak at N.J. prison.]