A Bruised Reed He Will Not Break Until He Brings Justice to Victory (Matthew 12: 20)

Background On Patient Justice

We can see the patient justice of Jesus in the peace that Irish and Italian Americans achieved:

So many people share Irish and Italian ancestry that it is easy to forget the depth of the bitterness that once existed between Irish Americans and Italian Americans…peace was achieved through love and intermarriage and because, in the fluid world of American democracy, the Irish and Italians were so often thrown together (An Unlikely Union, 2015, pp. 3,4).

I was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1959, to an Irish-born dad and a first generation Irish American mom. In 1986, I was blessed to add my wife’s Italian American ancestry to my own ethnicity! I was especially blessed that my parents and my parents-in-law were all devout Catholics.

With “Joseph” closely associated with Italians and my middle name being that of the most beloved Irish saint, I have a powerful 1-2 patron saint “punch” each March!

Catholicism in 1970s Ireland

Before my family visited Ireland in 1978, I was privy to lots of conversations among my Irish relatives. Contrary to Ireland’s reputation as the world’s most Catholic country, my teenage sense was that Irish Americans were actually more devoutly Catholic than the Irish. Attendance at Irish Masses had been declining since 1972 (Faith Survey, 2016).

A young priest with whom I spoke saw decreased attendance as a possibly good thing – a cleaning out of people less on fire for their Catholicism. Thank God that Jesus spoke with infinitely more patience! He brings justice through patience.

“A bruised reed He will not break, a smoldering wick He will not quench, until he brings justice to victory” (Matthew 12: 20).

The Polish Pope Would Reignite Irish Catholicism – at Least Temporarily

Saint Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visit to Ireland had a phenomenal impact:

On 9/29/79, one third of Ireland came to Dublin’s Phoenix Park (the same site in 2018) to celebrate Mass…. ‘In 1983, four years after the triumphal visit of Pope John Paul II, the Irish people put the Eighth Amendment into their constitution. The amendment gave equal rights to life to both the mother and the unborn’ (BBC, 5/26/18).

Last year, I wrote about Ireland’s short-lived response to Saint Pope John Paul II’s visit:

Other than for that outstanding protection for pre-born children (and possibly a temporary upswing in Mass attendance), improvements in Catholic practice, respect for the sanctity of human life, and respect for the sanctity of the transmission of human life now appear to have been short-lived. Irish culture returned to its downward trajectory….

My second trip to Ireland was in June 2018 – just one month after Ireland’s horrific child abuse of abandoning the Eighth Amendment that protected unborn life…. Ireland actually chose to enshrine same sex marriage and abortion (Saint Patrick, Ireland, and Irish-Americans, 3/14/2022).

Irish votes against the sanctity of preborn human lives and against marriage/family would have been unthinkable to my father and even to his less devout relatives. They all recognized this as unjust.

Going Back to My Own Hometown

Growing up in my Italian/Irish Catholic Brooklyn neighborhood, the only “divisions” seemed those between Yankee fans and Met fans. It was in some ways a more innocent era, where reports of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and religious seemed unknown. And many parents viewed religious sisters as devout and highly moral, despite any claims of excessive use of discipline.

While we could describe many parents of that era as having a sycophantic approach to priests and religious, that was not true of my parents. Though they were especially close to one devout priest, my dad would tell me: “You are better off not getting to know any of the clergy too well, as you will not like what you see.” Allegedly, his own dad had shared that same “pearl” with him.

I recently walked around the gentrified Brooklyn streets of my childhood. My old neighborhood has become upper income; there were no children outside playing touch football, roller hockey, or stoopball.

At my dad’s funeral in 1984, a neighbor pointed out how blessed my generation had been. Among the families in the houses of our city street, there had not been a single divorce. Let me repeat that. There had not been one divorce.

While few of our parents had the formal education that many of us would go on to have, they were acutely aware of the importance of intact families. They understood that a loving family was a gentle form of justice in the world. For their often sacrificial heroics, I pray that they heard (or will hear) these words, after their earthly passing:

“Come, you who are blessed by My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25: 34).

Conclusion

Without sacrificing the Truth or sending out confusing signals about the sanctity of marriage, we should absolutely embrace all whom Satan ensnares in confusion about their sexual attractions or gender identity. This is a patient form of justice. At the same time, some of us believe that there has recently been demonstrable inattention to authentic marriage:

[T]he Catholic Church’s celebration of World Marriage Day should direct our attention to an institution that’s infinitely more important [than the Super Bowl]…yet recent events have left many Catholics concerned about whether the significance of marriage is being sidelined within the Church itself ….

Over the past 50 years, according to statistics from Georgetown University, the annual number of Catholic marriages in the U.S. has decreased by nearly 70%, even as the Catholic population has increased by almost 20 million” (National Catholic Register, 2/8/24).

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