Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY AND IT IS "WE" (2/17)

It was comforting to read about Bishop Olmstead's defense of Catholic orthodoxy. Thank goodness someone is willing to stand up for the important issues, especially during these dark days with our police getting wounded rescuing babies, a pandemic which has killed over 27,000 Arizonans, 11,000 homeless people on the streets daily, 1,054 killed on our roads in 2021, our nurses and doctors weary and overloaded, service workers risking their lives every day to make sure there is food on the table and the aftermath of an attempted coup in the nation's Capitol. Bishop Olmstead did not hesitate to act. He fired the priest guilty of using the collective pronoun "we"instead of "I", when baptizing children. This priest might have undermined fifteen hundred years of church teaching about baptism. God forbid, those children and adults wrongly baptized might all have gone to hell. We must never allow "we" to be used indiscriminately or thoughtlessly. Even our politicians trying to sound as if they know what they are talking about use "we" rather than "I". While they are busy passing restrictive voting measures, perhaps they could pass a bill banning the use of "we" wherever it's inappropriate.