Living The Worthy Life- One Crisis At A Time- From Our Own Making?

The following words were written by Bishop Fulton Sheen in his book, Old Errors and New Labels, in 1931, However as you read this passage notice how fresh the words appear and how they could be easily applied to our day as well as they did almost 90 years ago. Read the words carefully and please note- crisis are created they are not begun without the help of the media.

There should be a vacation for certain overworked words, and in particular the word, "service" is to a Kiwanis booster, the word "crisis" is to moralists. This latter class have used it so often as to prove without doubt that Stevenson was right in saying that not by bread alone do men live but principally by catchwords. It is hardly possible to pick up a magazine to-day without reading an article by some self-styled ethicist on "The Crisis in Morals."

The repeated use of the word "crisis" in reference to morals is interesting, for it reveals a tendency on the part of many modern writers to blame the abstract when the concrete is really at fault. They speak, for example, of the problem of crime, rather than of the criminal; of the problem of poverty, rather than of the poor; and of the "crisis in morals," when really the crisis is amongst men who are not living morally. The crisis is not in ethics but in the unethical. The failure is not in the law, but in the law breakers. The truth of this observation is borne out by the failure of such writers to distinguish between the problem of making men conform to standards and that of making standards conform to men. Instead of urging men to pass the test, they alter the test. Instead of inspiring them to hold to their ideals, they change the ideals. In accordance with this logic, they urge that morals be changed to suit those who cannot live morally, and that ethics be changed to please those who cannot live ethically. All this takes place in accordance with the democratic principle of certain philosophers, who are prepared to construct any kind of philosophy that man desires. If men want ghosts, the democratic philosophers, who know the will of the populace, will write a philosophy justifying ghosts; if the man in the street wants to follow the line of least moral resistance, philosophers will develop.

All the books and articles on "the crisis in morality" touch on three points: the nature of morality, its origin, and its test. In discussing the general nature of morality, most authors reduce it to convention or taste. But before arriving at that conclusion they seem to sense the inadequacy of the very solution they propose, and one of them makes this rather excellent observation: "Social conventions change: the particular actions calculated to suit them change with them, as, e. g., if the rule of the road were changed in England we should drive on the right instead of the left.

Crisis- this appears to the favorite word of the media today. We have a Border Crisis, Ukrainian Crisis, Health Care Crisis, U.S. Economic Crisis, and the Opioid Crisis.

Opioid Crisis

Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. The misuse of and addiction to opioids—including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total "economic burden" of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.

Border Crisis

The horrific accounts of the conditions under which immigrant children are being held has focused outrage and attention on the Trump Administration's actions and agenda. But any future reversal of policy will do little to help kids who have already been detained—many of them after being separated from a parent or other relative. The psychological effects of separation and detention have worried experts in child development, and some of them are speaking out. The American Psychological Association, among other groups, has issued multiple statements on the effects of the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, writing that they “pose serious harm to the psychological well-being of immigrant children, their U.S.-born siblings, and other family members.

Ukrainian Crisis

Ukraine is a Texas-sized country wedged between Russia and Europe. It was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, and since then has been a less-than-perfect democracy with a very weak economy and foreign policy that wavers between pro-Russian and pro-European. This all began as an internal Ukrainian crisis in November 2013, when President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a deal for greater integration with the European Union (here's why this was such a big deal), sparking mass protests, which Yanukovych attempted to put down violently. Russia backed Yanukovych in the crisis, while the US and Europe supported the protesters.

Health Care Crisis

"Compulsory sickness insurance...is a variety of socialized medicine or state medicine and possesses the evils inherent in any politically controlled system. It is contrary to American tradition and is the first and most dangerous step in the direction of complete state socialism. The American Medical Association rejects any such scheme as a method of the distribution of medical care." - Editorial from The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dec. 1948- this how a 2019 article on the healthcare crisis begantheir story on the healthcare crisis.

Economic Crisis

A U.S. economic crisis is a severe and sudden upset in any part of the economy. It could be a stock market crash, a spike in inflation or unemployment, or a series of bank failures. They have severe effects even though they don't always lead to a recession.

Wait what is this really all about. Did Bishop Sheen almost 90 years before write about these different crisis? By applying the logic of Bishop Sheen to this crisis, we have found that our problems are not new, they are created and manufactured out our very past. Only a careful reading of Bishop Sheen can save us from ourselves today.