The president spoke actual truth, even if inadvertently

For many reasons having to do with how I believe my Christian faith calls me to act and think, I have been, in my writing, critical of various public figures, none more so, perhaps, than President Donald Trump in these recent and scary months.

I take back none of those criticisms, but when he gets at least close to saying something that reflects the values that my faith tradition teaches, I want to lift that up and give him at least a fist bump of approval even if he said it for reasons he didn't understand or really believe in.

So in the midst of the Trump Trade War, Christmas toys made in China but traditionally given to American children haven't been making it to the U.S. for the most part and it looks as if there may be a severe shortage of such toys, particularly dolls, even with the newly adjusted tariff rates. As historian Heather Cox Richardson noted in one of her recent "Letters from an American" posts, "China produces 80 percent of the toys sold in the U.S. and 90 percent of the Christmas goods."

As Richardson wrote, Trump recently addressed that this way: “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we’re not talking about something that we have to go out of our way. They have ships that are loaded up with stuff. Much of which — not all of it — but much of which we don’t need.”

First, I'm guessing that Trump's assumption (or example) that American children get "30 dolls" for Christmas may simply be a reflection of the wealth with which he grew up and of the wealth he currently likes to show off in countless ways. In fact, his whole way of being strikes me as an example of a 30-doll lifestyle. Yes, I'm sure he knew he was exaggerating, but I wonder if his experience growing up in wealth meant that he simply bumped up the 10 or so dolls girls in his family got to 30.

Despite all that, he managed to speak an important truth about the "ships that are loaded with stuff" heading to the U.S. And the truth he said for all to hear was this: "much of which we don't need."

Four years ago my wife and I downsized from a three-bedroom house to a two-bedroom apartment. In the process we gave away, sold, recycled or trashed a shocking number of things that had found harbor in our abode. We were guilty of collecting what Trump is right to call things "we don't need" (even if we once thought we did need them -- and maybe we did, for a time).

Periodically the press reports on how our economy is supported by purchases of stuff we don't need. Here, for instance, is a 2017 report from Bloomberg saying that the purchase of non-essentials has hit a 17-year high in the U.S. These items basically are made up of things we want but could quite easily live without, even as there are many families who can't afford the basics of what they truly do need.

Our various religious traditions can help us discern the difference between, say, a simple bar of soap to be used in a bath or shower and a fancy 100-gram bar that sells for $110.

Buying such stuff used to be called "conspicuous consumption." I haven't heard that term in quite a while, but it's worth bringing it back to remind us, as Trump did, that a kid doesn't need 30 dolls for Christmas. And yet what does it say about the American people if it's true that our economy would be severely damaged if we simply quit buying stuff we don't really need? It would, of course, say something unflattering about our failure to make moral economic choices and about the reality that capitalism as an economic system has built-in ways of encouraging conspicuous consumption -- ways it's up to us to resist.

* * *

WHAT CAN POPE LEO XIV CHANGE -- AND WHEN?

How fast does change happen in religion in general and in the Catholic Church in particular? This article from The Conversation by Dennis Doyle, an emeritus professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, notes that in a fast-changing world, the Catholic Church does change, but ever so slowly.

A new pope, he writes, "cannot simply reverse official positions that his immediate predecessors had been emphasizing. Practically speaking, there needs to be a papacy, or two, during which a pope will either remain silent on matters that call for change or at least limit himself to hints and signals on such issues."

And yet the new pontiff, Leo XIV, Doyle writes, seems to be in considerable harmony with the adjustments that Pope Francis tried to institute. Leo "needs to be a spiritual leader, a person of vision, who can build upon the legacy of his immediate predecessors in such a way as to meet the challenges of the present moment. He already stated that he wants a. . .church that is 'close to the people who suffer,' signaling a great deal about the direction he will take. If the new pope is able to update church teachings on some hot-button issues, it will be precisely because Francis set the stage for him."

Just don't expect female priests any time soon.

* * *

P.S.: An organization called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, with which I'm connected, recently offered a Zoom webinar about the need to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, where several of the accused 9/11 terrorist attack hijackers still are being held. If you, too, wonder why some of these accused terrorists haven't been tried by a military commission more than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, this webinar will help answer that and other questions. You may access the webinar here. (Note: It takes a couple of minutes for things on the recording to get started and for sound to be heard.)