by Fr. Joe Landi, Editor of the San Francisco Charismatics  

About Fr. Landi Out of the World and Into the Kingdom--His journey to priesthood by Rissa Singson.

 

Dear Diary...Gordon Liddy is one of those people one can say, "He did it his way." While his way wouldn't be our way, it certainly wasn't a  couch potato’s way either. He was involved, to say the least.
     Gordon Liddy, an ex-FBI agent, worked covertly on the White House staff of John Ehrlichman during Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. He apparently was the administration's unofficial expert on dirty tricks. You may recall that his involvement as one of the Watergate Five in the infamous Watergate scandal helped then President Nixon decide to opt for early retirement from the presidency. On six counts of burglary and wiretapping, a jury found him guilty and he received six to twenty years in prison plus a fine of $40,000. He served about two years of actual time.

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     Liddy is a born-again Catholic (John 3:3). I recently met him on a Holland America cruise where I was the chaplain. One day he invited me to attend his lecture on bit government in the ship's theater. Having just finished Ben Bradlee's book, A Good Life, Newspapering and other Adventures, and remembering Liddy’s role in Watergate and Bradlee's characterization of him as a "kook" and a "zealot", I jumped at the invitation to hear the views of someone who helped topple the Nixon administration. Liddy was traveling with a sizeable retinue, gathered from followers of his controversial radio program. They paid big bucks for the cruise and lecture series.

     A personable communicator, Liddy’s views on big government, could be summed up as "we got what we didn't ask for--a big central government." In his view, we now have a government that the founding fathers—also considered by many as kooks and zealots—tried to forestall with safeguards of "states rights" in the Constitution and "individual rights" in the Bill of Rights. He claims the Supreme Court has systematically disregarded these safeguards in their interpretations. Moreover, even the politicians who call for reducing the role of government in our lives only want to cut programs other than their own.

It seems to Liddy that there was a time when public-spirited people became politicians, were respected, had leadership qualities, and served their country proudly. But not any more.

Yes, there was a time when we sent our best and the brightest to the nation's capital and once elected, they didn’t spend their time raising money to get re-elected. Most could hardly wait to leave and return to their home states and families. Now professional politicians move to a neighborhood, city, county or state specifically to run for a public office.

Now we are too often faced with candidates that are the choice between twiddle dumb and twiddle dee. We have become so used to lack of leadership and sound bites from TV ads that we don’t object to them forming our knowledge of the candidates and the issues. Too many of us vote for candidates, not because they are our best and the brightest, but because they are the lesser of evils from which to choose. Unfortunately, too many of us have just soured on the process and do not even bother to exercise our voting right. The 42% turn-out in San Francisco’s city election reflect voter apathy or perhaps the mistaken belief that "my vote is not going to make a difference."

Into this vacuum of leadership, the Christian churches and notably the Catholic Church, have stepped to the howl of those who scream the church has no right to do so because of their mistaken interpretation of the "separation" of Church and State. When it comes to our participation in the public arena "rendering unto Caesar" doesn’t mean we have to stick our heads in the sand and let the government dictate how we should "render unto God." The Church has every right, indeed the obligation, to speak out against what is in conflict with its moral teachings. That right applies to laws passed by the government and to those initiatives proposed on the ballot for consideration of the voters.

Scripture tells us that every generation tends to ignore the voice of the prophet in its midst. Like the prophets of ancient Israel, the Church may not be popular in what it preaches but it is never wrong when it preaches God's will.

We can get ourselves into trouble—vis-a-vis Gordon Liddy—when motivated by greed, selfish interests, or grasp fundamental misconceptions as truth. But when we follow the Catholic Church’s teachings about religion, government, or public issues, we may not be popular—even called kooks and zealots—but we will never be wrong.

Fr. Joe Landi is a Parochial Vicar at St. Cecilia Parish, San Francisco, the Archbishop's Liaison to the Charismatic Renewal, the Editor of the San Francisco Charismatics, and Board Chair of Sierra Point Credit Union, South San Francisco, serving the community, parochial and government schools in San Mateo County, and the Charismatic Renewal.

By clicking on the following blue type, you can contact Fr. Landi by e-mail at frjoe@sfspirit.com, read other articles in the December 1999 issue of The San Francisco Charismatics or return to the Main Menu of this web site.

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