We need to examine in a big and serious way how much of this throwaway infection has infected us.
There was a moment last year when I listened to Andrew Cuomo talk about how every life has value – as he was shutting down the Empire State — when I thought: Goodness — after he expanded abortion in New York the previous year and celebrated with lights on the bridge named after his father and on the Freedom Tour, which should be a symbol of Resurrection, not of death — could he by some miracle really mean it? Could he consider every vulnerable life worthy of protection? It would take a miracle, but, hey, we all know the story of St. Paul.
Well, then there was the nursing-home order that unnecessarily made elderly men and women in nursing homes even more vulnerable to COVID-19 than they would have otherwise been. And then there were the lies and cover-up, halving the numbers so he wouldn’t have to be accountable. And now we are only beginning to learn that there’s been a similar order in homes for the disabled in the state that’s still in effect.
The fact of the matter is that this is all ideologically consistent with where the Democratic Party and our culture to a pernicious extent is: We value those who have voices — and money and power. But the elderly who are no longer productive members of society? We cast them aside. We warehouse them. Those with disabilities? We honestly seem to prefer to eliminate them rather than deal with the challenges of love that stretch our hearts.
MeToo may be what does Andrew Cuomo in, but he is so much of what Pope Francis has been talking about in naming our society the throwaway society. I often think Manhattan demonstrates it in the most obvious ways as one moves from the abortion clinic, to the piles of trash, to the addicted mentally ill men walking the streets and other lost souls afraid of the city shelters, to reading about people in Albany lobbying for assisted suicide. Somehow the LuvGov managed to expedite a government-insisted involuntary death for — we don’t even know how many. Faceless, nameless people, unless we are talking about your mother or father — or mother-in-law and father-in-law for the indefatigable Janice Dean — or brother or sister or friend.
Please don’t let him get away with resigning just for being a Neanderthal to women — which is obviously terrible and would be cause in itself. And those accusations, too, I might add are consistent with our throwaway society — treating people as though they exist only for your own personal pleasure, looking at them with the eyes of utility.
At some point in this mess of a year, I tried to pray more for Andrew Cuomo. As a friend often reminds me when commenting on the state of the world: Obviously I am not praying enough. Couldn’t that be said of most of us? And for all the victims of these grave decisions that were made.
I don’t think that he knowingly intended on all of this death, but he clearly didn’t think about the implications for those most vulnerable. And, again, it’s ideologically consistent, as I am reminded every day I stand outside Planned Parenthood in lower Manhattan silently praying for miracles and healing.
The point is: This isn’t just about Cuomo and getting him out of power, but we need to examine in a big and serious way how much of this throwaway infection has infected us — and not just in the Empire State post-emperor.