Jesus’ Gospel message continues to focus on communion, from which one of the founders of institutional christianity unfortunately diverges – Paul of Tarsus. Paul infamously states in today’s second reading, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife.” “As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.”
Men like Paul devalue others, for example, women, from being human to being subordinate, satisfying useful roles such as wife. For millennia men have criminalized women’s human advancement; in education, property ownership, positional authority, et cetera. At the same time men discriminate against women, they claim male meritocracy. Focusing on the U.S., meritocracy is white men’s false assertion that they merit position because they earned it from effort. Men ignore their control of a system that sanctifies their rights to advancement while their system denies it to others. Nothing proves the falsehood of white male meritocracy quite like the unmeritorious Donald Trump. He and other MAGA men are thus fond of projection. They erroneously assert that it is not white men who do not merit their position but women, especially women of color, for example, Kamala Harris. MAGA falsely claim women of color advance through unfair Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives (DEI). DEI is truthfully moving U.S. society beyond white men’s discriminatory systems. DEI initiatives originated in long sought after equal employment and affirmative action laws finally passed in the 1960s. DEI trainings were aimed at helping workers, primarily white men, value women and minority co-workers and bosses. But some white men and white organizations refused to adopt that value. They still tell a willful untruth that affirmative action rewarded race and/or gender over merit. But lack of merit, an unearned affirmative action, was always the premise of the old white boy network. As Michelle Obama said this past week at the Democratic National Convention, the old network provided men the “affirmative action of generational wealth.” The old false meritocracy network demanded discriminatory ‘wealth only’ politics, discriminatory ‘men only’ offices, and discriminatory ‘whites only’ sports teams, schools, and neighborhoods. The people’s affirmative action in DEI required hiring based on merit and not on discrimination. Discrimination persisted though against women, ethnic minorities, people disabled, LGBTQ, Muslim, et cetera. If they got hired, they rarely advanced because the discriminatory old white boy network persisted as the means of advancement. DEI trainers shifted towards educating people on the benefits, especially financial, of diversity for their business. That truth, plus business’ increasingly global model with global social media accounts at the millennia, meant some business owners started valuing DEI and its trainers. DEI, however, continues to be targeted with willful untruths by the old white boy network.
For example, Robert Barron recently addressed DEI and the Olympics. Barron is a white male bishop in Catholicism’s discriminatory ‘male only’ priesthood. Yet, he cluelessly asserted we all enjoy “equality of opportunity.” He also falsely asserted DEI demands “equity of outcome” meaning, to Barron, unfair advantage to the unmerited. But Bishop Barron knows Catholicism teaches that equity means love – to make considerations for people beyond law for the sake of love. Such love transforms us. It is the transformation Jesus witnessed when he attached no merit to being wealthy or white or male or a priest when he gathered people in communion.
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, keep me healthy and in communion.
Question: How does my striving for unequalled excellence erode my own health and the health of the common good?
August 25, 2024 John 6:60-69 Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time