Faith

When Silence Screams: The Hubris and Apathy of a Broken Leadership

In the aftermath of the tragic shootings that claimed the lives of members of the Hortman and Hoffman families, what should have been a solemn moment of collective grief and unity was instead met with a telling void—no statement, no gesture, no condolences from the White House. Not even the minimal decency of recognizing innocent lives lost. In place of empathy, there was deflection. From the GOP, we witnessed what has become a familiar routine: politicized finger-pointing and bad-faith rhetoric that serve only to deepen divides and avoid responsibility.

This absence of compassion, this gross indifference, is not just morally staggering—it’s emblematic of the rot that has metastasized in our political leadership. Under Donald Trump’s influence, cruelty has not only become policy—it has become performance. Hubris has eclipsed humility, and political gain has all but extinguished our national conscience. The failure to even pretend to care speaks volumes about how desensitized and broken this administration is, and how far we’ve drifted from any recognizable moral compass.

We are watching, in real time, the normalization of violence—not merely as a societal ill, but as a partisan tool. When the lives of American citizens are reduced to narrative pawns in a culture war, when leaders refuse to grieve with their people because it doesn’t serve their agenda, we lose more than just lives. We lose a piece of our shared humanity. And when silence is all that comes from the top, it becomes deafeningly clear: the message is that some lives are unworthy of acknowledgment, depending on whose grief is politically convenient.

What kind of country have we become when our government cannot deliver even the most basic human response—sympathy? How is it possible that in the face of senseless violence, our leaders offer not unity, but opportunism? It is grossly, dangerously unacceptable.

This isn’t just a failure of leadership. It is a deliberate choice—a choice to divide, to deflect, and to harden the national heart. That choice diminishes us all.

I am deeply saddened—though no longer surprised—that this country has once again reached an all-time low. Under this administration, “lowest” has become a consistent signature, an evolving standard by which tragedy is not mourned but manipulated. We must not accept this as normal. We must not allow apathy to replace accountability, or arrogance to replace empathy. Because if we do, the silence will only grow louder, and the violence more routine.

We are better than this. We must demand better than this.

A Farewell to Francis: by an Ex-Roman Catholic, Still Listening for Grace

I left the Church years ago—quietly, without ceremony. Not out of hatred, but weariness. The weight of doctrine, the fractures of scandal, the silence where I needed words. Still, when I heard that Pope Francis had passed, something stirred in me. Not guilt, not obligation. Something else. A sort of reverent grief.

Francis was not perfect—no pope is. But in a world roaring with division, he dared to whisper mercy. He reached for the hands others recoiled from. He spoke not just to the faithful, but to the wounded, the doubting, the wandering. People like me.

He washed the feet of prisoners. He kissed the faces of the disfigured. He reminded us—daily, stubbornly—that love does not ask for permission before it embraces. That compassion, real compassion, has no border.

I never went back to the Church, not in the formal sense. But I listened. I watched. And when he spoke—about climate, about poverty, about the sacredness of every single soul—I found myself leaning in.

Now he’s gone, and somehow, I feel it. Like the dimming of a soft but steady lamp in a long corridor. He may not have lit my path home, but he lit something in me that still burns.

Maybe sainthood is measured not in miracles, but in how much gentler the world becomes in your presence.

Pope Francis made the world gentler.

And for that, even from afar, I say: thank you. Go in peace, Holy Father. You were light.