...BY THE COMPANY YOU KEEP!

Why is it that only know I realize how truly wise and completely selfless my dear parents where in bringing up our family of one sister and three brothers.

The Bible has its Proverbs.  Dad and mom had their adages.

“Keep your nose clean,” one of my father’s favorites, was a cautious reminder to stay out of trouble because each of us was responsible for the reputation of our entire family.

Mom inspired us to fulfill our obligations promptly with her familiar refrain, “Get you work done first thing in the morning so you can enjoy the rest of the day for yourself."

And, sitting here so many years after they have both passed from this life to eternity, I still remember both of them admonishing us always, “Watch the company you keep,” because people will identify your character by those with whom you associate.

This article isn’t a just a trip down memory lane. 

But, by way of those memories of such wise watchwords, I wish to call attention to some curious and disturbing trends I see among the ranks of the American Bishops.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is getting very close to revealing its true, secular and socialist self....by the company its keeping.

For decades, I have been lamenting how much of what the USCCB publishes is eerily similar to the political platform of the Democratic Party, but not the Democrats of old, but Democrats of today who advocate the elimination of all borders everywhere in the hope of creating in America one huge hemispheric mass.  

And in their folly, the Bishops have convinced themselves that a borderless country of Latino immigrants is the hope of the American Catholic Church.  

Get real!

But, the fraternization of the USCCB with radical leftist and left-leaning advocates does not end with the Democratic Party.  

Increasingly disturbing is the uncomfortable alliance the Conference of Bishops seems to have adopted with the likes of those who will say and do anything to advance their angry, self-centered agendas. 

In one of the most curious of these alliances, it was quite revealing how left the USCCB has moved in recent decades when the Bishop of Tucson encouraged the American Conference of Bishops to consider excommunicating Border Patrol and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) Officers for carrying out their sworn duty to enforce the country’s laws.

Rather than rebuke their brother-Bishop, the majority of the Conference’s Bishops listened in relative silence, hoping their lack of response would be seen as a tacit assent of what the Bishop had proposed.

Of course, the Bishop of Tucson couldn’t be anymore ridiculous and shameful to himself and the Church in the propaganda he was attempting to pass off as a Catholic moral imperative, but he was passionate nonetheless.

Funny (not really), I can’t quite remember such passion within the USCCB in condemning the blatant propaganda and misinformation by members of Black Lives Matter.

Where were the indignation and calls for excommunication of the politicians who advocated same-sex marriage, attacks upon law enforcement, the revocation of religious freedom as well as the demonstrably anti-family provisions of the Health Care Act?

The recently elected President of Mexico boldly asserted that immigrating to America is a “human right”.  

Does any, can any Catholic believe that members of the USCCB are not in sympathetic agreement with such nonsense.

There are politicians sitting on City Councils throughout the country who espouse and advocate sanctuary status for illegal immigrants, some of whom are counted among the most notorious and violent members of drug cartels such as MS13.

And yet, not a whisper from the USCCB about this deplorable state of affairs.

It’s clear and becoming clearer with each passing day how far removed American Bishops have become from the faithful for whom they are charged with providing spiritual care.

The fact is that an overwhelming majority of the Clergy and the faithful see the Conference for what it has become, a haven for and bastion of secular, socialist, irrational and shrill politics rather than the instrument of evangelization and conversion it was created to be.

The price tag for such political nit-picking has been the very credibility and relevance of the Church itself.

Permit me to offer the USCCB the wisdom of my dearly departed parents, "Watch the company you keep."  The faithful are watching you.