21 Jan Injustice in Washington
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines a mortal sin, i.e. a grave and heinous evil, as something that “destroys charity in the heart of man” and, as a result, “turns man away from God.” St. Thomas Aquinas defines mortal sins slightly more concretely, writing that they are acts that violate the “precepts of the Decalogue” and “which contain injustice.”
Using Aquinas’s definition, specifically his reference to injustice, I think it’s probably largely inarguable that a grave and heinous evil was committed yesterday, in the last hours of the Biden Administration. The blanket pre-pardons of the January 6th Committee, Anthony Fauci, and Biden’s family, as well as the clemency granted to double-murderer Leonard Peltier, seem almost intentionally designed to be unjust, to violate the letter and the spirit of the presidential pardon power. By attempting to silence judicial inquiry and eliminate the possibility of any understanding of possible miscarriage of justice on the part of our government, serious and wicked acts were committed in the Oval Office.
The only question is “by whom?”
To be clear, when I ask that question, I’m not trying to be cute or clever or even especially cynical. I would guess that most have known that Joe Biden was not in full control of his mental faculties for a long time. Nevertheless, over the ten weeks or so since the election, we’ve all had our worst fears confirmed. Stories told by insiders, including the Speaker of the House, have more than verified our suspicions that somebody (or somebodies) other than Biden has been operating as the de facto president for some, if not all, of his term in office.
To revert again to the Catholic Catechism, in order to commit a mortal sin, “three conditions must together be met: ‘Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.’” Or to put it more simply: it must be a serious matter; one must know it is a serious matter; and one must will to do it anyway.
It is almost certainly true that in the case of the injustices committed at the White House yesterday morning, Joe Biden lacked at least one and possibly two of the conditions necessary to be responsible. I hate to absolve Biden of any wrongdoing, since he was hardly the saint his supporters would have us believe, but it’s hard to see how he could have committed a mortal sin in these instances.
But that’s not to say that nobody committed such sins, that nobody is responsible for these grave and heinous injustices. Somebody is responsible. Indeed, somebody (or somebodies) is responsible for every action and inaction of the Biden presidency. It’s just that we have no idea who.
The other day, one of the people we follow on Twitter/X posted something quite powerful. Its power came not from its content necessarily, but from its source. This person – whom I will not name because I did not ask his permission – is a longtime Washington observer, a former highly placed and well-respected Washington journalist, and a solid, even-handed reporter. While he is a conservative, he has never, at least in his public proclamations, been much of a fan of Donald Trump. Indeed, he has been very critical of Trump and of Trump’s misdeeds. Nevertheless, he noted that the list of people who were in on “the Biden dementia cover-up” reportedly includes the Majority Leader of the Senate and the “head of the CIA,” and that, in turn, suggests that “We need a Neo-Warren Commission.”
The Warren Commission, for those who may not recall, was the task force established by President Lyndon Johnson and headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. Setting aside all conspiracy theories, supposed faults with the investigation, and rumors of the pending release of “shocking” files, the “Warren Commission” has become a well-accepted metaphor for a thorough and bipartisan investigation into the causes of a traumatic event and potential government corruption. In other words, when this individual we follow on Twitter/X said we need a Neo-Warren Comission, he meant that this is some pretty awful, pretty serious, and pretty widely corrupt stuff we’re learning about – or at least that’s how it appears. And we, as a supposedly self-governing people, have an absolute and inviolable right to know what happened, to know who knew what and when, and to have answers to the questions posed above, namely who is responsible for the actions and inactions of the Biden presidency.
In a normal world, I might be inclined to conclude that I’m being a little too partisan in my reading of what happened over the last four years. Although I felt sorry for him and members of his family, I never liked Joe Biden. I always thought he would be a terrible president, and I always respected the American people for rejecting him as often as they did. So…maybe it’s just me.
But this isn’t a normal world – and it hasn’t been for a long time. And it isn’t just me. The reason I bring up the Twitter/X post is specifically because it confirmed, in my mind at least, that serious people (who don’t share my specific biases) think that something terribly wrong happened in this country and that we deserve an explanation.
For all their prattling on about “democracy” and the threats posed by their opponents, it is almost inarguable that a large number of people in the Democratic Party, in the Washington establishment, and in the mainstream media undermined the will of the American people and spent the last four years using and abusing power that they had no legal right to wield.
And then yesterday, they committed obvious and inarguable evil. In our name.
This should be the greatest scandal in American political history – greater even than Edith Wilson’s co-presidency. Whether or not it will be is another question, the answer to which hinges on the strength and character of a great many people who have not yet demonstrated much strength or particularly great character.
If it’s true, as Bismarck probably never said, that “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America,” then we can only hope that he’ll make good use of that providence now.
