We were both moved by how many people around us are suffering in the current climate, so we sat down to judge what's going on, and drafted something to share with everyone. Writing down this judgment together helped us remember that simply when working on the School of Community seriously, we are helped to recognize the true depth of our needs and how Christ is the answer to these needs. It has reiterated the gratitude we have for the charism Fr. Giussani bequeathed to us so that our life can be saved and become a sign of hope for others.
-Mark and Dino

In recent weeks, our country has been living an intense period that has destabilized many of us and many of our friends. Individuals working in the government have been dismissed, some must leave this country, and most federal workers are uncertain about their job security. Immigrants, whether legal or illegal, are concerned for themselves and their families, and some are being deported. Many of our neighbors are living in fear, fear of losing their jobs, their homes, their health insurance or their country. This period overlays a time of already great divisiveness in our society. In these confusing times, it may be of help to look at a broader perspective.

The recent letter by Pope Francis to U.S. bishops may help us in this regard. The Pope highlights the “infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.” He recognizes that emigrants and refugees are often people “who beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family and dear friends for foreign lands.” This echoes the Founding Fathers’ beliefs in the pursuit of happiness and liberty. Indeed, America was and continues to be built by such people. The Pope writes that the act of deportation “damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.” The same can be said of losing a job or job security, as work is fundamental to human dignity. Although our entire consistency as a person cannot rest in our job, it nevertheless remains an important aspect of our personal dignity.

What is the meaning of these recent events for our lives? Or to put it another way: what is being asked of us at this “delicate” moment? What is the basis of the infinite and transcendent dignity mentioned by the Pope and how can we preserve it if not restore it? Even more urgently, how can our government—based in the values of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness as well as the acknowledgement of a transcendent good—serve individuals in this respect?

We may be called to help our neighbor who requires assistance in dealing with a major and unexpected upheaval in her life, such as losing her job; we may be called to offer shelter and food for the innocent immigrant who is not here to escape responsibility for criminality but who sincerely seeks to escape an oppressive regime or an economic system that excludes her. Yet beyond this opportunity for charity, this moment may also be an occasion for each one of us to ask ourselves the following questions: What is the basis of certainty and stability in my own life, even if I have a job that is not threatened, if I am a born citizen of a privileged country whose home is not threatened? What is the basis of my happiness? Might these challenges be viewed as an opportunity to look at these questions anew?

With recent events, these questions are no longer theoretical for many of us. We recognize that these questions may not have easy answers, but our lives and well-being actually depend on our ability to answer them. Once we face this position, we may then begin to realize that our need for happiness, truth, justice and beauty (as Luigi Giussani states in his seminal work, The Religious Sense) is truly so great, indeed, so infinite that, ultimately, only an infinite answer may be adequate to ensure our infinite dignity.

In the experience of those of us writing this judgment, sharing these questions and needs may form the basis of a common conversation. So we invite you to join us in a place where we are helped to discover a new gaze on the reality we are living as well as our own reality that is larger than our suffering, our reactions, our instincts, and importantly, what those in power on either side of the political divide would have us believe and reduce our questions to. And this gaze can recognize the infinite nature of our needs, and especially of our need for certainty in these times. This gaze is the same gaze that a certain young man from Nazareth had on a Samaritan woman, a leper, a blind man and so many others 2000 years ago, and continues to have among us.

Mark and Dino, Washington, D.C.