Editor’ s Notes
Beacons, Not Barriers by Fr. Richard Bayuk, c. pp. s., Editor
you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land— from Home, by Warsan Shire
President Ronald Reagan, in his farewell address to the nation in January 1989, concluded his remarks with these often-quoted words:“ The past few days … I ' ve thought a bit of the shining‘ city upon a hill.’ The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important, because he was an early Pilgrim, and early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we ' d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I ' ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don ' t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind, it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.…
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she ' s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home” [ italics mine ].
Well … that was then, this is now. In sharp contrast, the current president has used the following dehumanizing terms to describe( non-white) immigrants: rapists, murderers, thieves, invaders, animals, breeders, infestation. His administration initiated a zero-tolerance policy which included forced family separation, meant as a deterrent. A policy that is purposefully cruel and mean— and morally offensive and repugnant. Babies taken from mothers’ arms( some of them nursing), sobbing children placed in prison camp-like conditions or loaded on buses under the cover of darkness and shipped around the country. Parents being deported back to the countries they fled without being reunited with their children. continued on page 5
2 • The New Wine Press • July 2018