America the Not So Beautiful

For the second time since I've gone back to Mass, my parish closed the service yesterday with the church vocalist (our version of a cantor) lead the congregants in a singalong of "America the Beautiful."

This time I could not stand idly by.  I refused to take part in the singing or even stand, as one is expected to do for the recessional hymn.  At first I just remained seated when I turned to the hymn numbered on the wooden placard in the front of the church and saw what it was.  But then I asked myself a question . . . what would Colin Kaepernick do?

I took a knee.

I got out of the pew and genuflected with my left foot and my right knee on the floor as the congregants sang "America the Beautiful."  Anyone could see that I was emulating Colin Kaepernick.  Surprisingly, I was not accosted outside on my way to my car.

So what's wrong with U.S. Catholics singing "America the Beautiful" in church?  Quite a few things, actually, and excuse me if I repeat myself here and there from a previous post.  First of all, it's an act of nationalism in what is supposed to be a universal church - the very word "catholic" means "universal."  Catholics in Ireland or Poland would not sing "America the Beautiful" - or any of their own patriotic songs, for that matter - in church any more than American Episcopalians, as part of the Anglican Communion, would sing "God Save the King" at one of their services.  Second of all, America is not a beautiful country.  Donald Trump and his greedy band of wealthy supporters cannot sing "America the Beautiful" while they pollute our skies with smoke, poison our waters, fell our forests, and develop our farmland into tract houses, shopping centers, office parks, and now data centers.  And neither can we.  And, Trump apparently wants to sell Yosemite National Park.

Third, it's a bad look for Catholics to sing patriotic songs when so many Opus Dei members seem to be running our archdioceses and our federal judiciary.  Why do progressives love to go after the Church for being patriarchal and misogynistic when those same adjectives can be appended to a faith they increasingly defend, Islam?  Because no one outside of MAGA has ever accused American Muslims of promoting Sharia law in this country, though Opus Dei had a hand in overturning Roe v. Wade.

But fourth - and this is a personal reason - it goes against my own beliefs.  Back when Trump got voted back into power by MAGA supporters - many of them Catholics, some of those Catholics white and Hispanic working-class males with a machismo complex - I decided that I was through with this country and wanted to, but could not, leave it.  As I have said many times, I had decided that I didn't need to leave America because America had left me.  And almost immediately after Trump moved back in to the White House (and before he began remodeling it), I became a secessionist, convinced that the United States could not longer go on as a country and that its constituent states of the Union should break up in at least ten separate countries, twelve at the most.  I can't sing a patriotic song about a country I hope goes the way of Czechoslovakia.  I cannot ignore my sentiments and sing "America the Beautiful" in honor of a country I want to see come to an end.  I felt very much the same way that I did back in May, when the pastor extolled the virtues of being an American in his homily (and when I heard "America the Beautiful" sung in church for the first time). 

So, this time, I took a knee on the edge of the pew.  And trust me, I did not want to do that.  Especially on a hardwood floor, which made it painful.  But the pain I felt pressing my knee against the floor was a small price to pay for keeping my integrity.