Jesus is traveling through a region known as Samaria. Many view the people living there as enemies. On the way, “ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus! Have compassion on us!” Jesus does have compassion and he heals them; “they were cleansed.”
The ten individuals suffered from and were carriers of a contagious disease, leprosy. They were sick. Something had gone terribly wrong in their bodies. It was something over which they had no control. It was a bacterial infection overtaking their body’s nerves, eyes, and skin. If untreated it could result in crippling of their hands and feet, paralysis, and blindness. Treated, leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease, can be cured. No healthy human being would prevent healing for unhealthy people suffering from this disease, but some did, labeling them enemies, sinners. Unfortunately, there are living among us today individuals who perpetuate suffering and prevent healing because they label the sufferers as enemies. These un-Christ-like individuals include Donald Trump and members of his administration, especially U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service officials Ken Cuccinelli and Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, also Homeland Security official Kevin McAleenan, ICE official Thomas Homan, Mark Krikorian executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, and Steven Miller senior advisor to Trump for policy. These officials view many people as enemies. Specifically, they view children as enemies. They targeted for closure a healing program called “medical deferred action.” It allows children from other countries to stay in the U.S. two extra years if they are receiving healing treatment for severe medical needs such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy. Targeting vulnerable children for suffering and death is its own disease. Trump, Miller, and these officials suffer from and are carriers of a contagious disease known as sociopathy. They are sick. Something has gone terribly wrong in their souls. It is something over which they definitely have control. It is a sickening infection they let overtake their conscience. Sociopaths find it difficult to form attachments with other people. They will not be compassionate. They will not be in touch with other people and therefore will not act to heal other people’s suffering and instead will act to inflict it or worsen it. If untreated their sociopathy can result in the crippling of society, the paralysis of democracy, and a blindness toward humanity.
Sociopathy is the assessment Dr. Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine, offers for these individuals. Lee, who specializes in violence prevention, offers sociopathy not as a diagnosis but as an assessment. This means the contagion is “something that we can observe and it depends on the person’s behavior toward others or behavior in society.” Dr. Lee offers her assessment of the contagion in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” The authors are doctors who have “a duty to warn the public or to protect public health and safety.” In one sense, what these doctors offer is a capacity evaluation. “Capacity evaluations (e.g. for employment) are functional exams where you simply test if the person is able to do the job and they’re not unduly influenced by impulsivity or delusions or irrational thinking.” Dr. Lee and her colleagues have determined Trump, Miller, and their ilk are not able to do their jobs nor are they rational or healthy in their thinking. They act as a disease, a disease that is spreading. Dr. Bandy is therefore “concerned about the interactions that Trump (is) eliciting from his followers.” Trump, in particular, is a contagion, “I am concerned about his effects on the public’s health and safety.”
Prayer: Spirit, keep us healthy, personally and socially.
Question: How am I helping heal this current contagion?
October 13, 2019 Gospel Luke 17:11-19 Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time