Preaching with a newspaper in one hand

I afflict our group with the texts of my homilies, and so far, not many of you have asked me to stop.  One of my recent offerings invoked Greta Thunberg and climate change.  I mentioned, in the blog discussion that followed my posting of that text, that I had received negative reaction from some parishioners.

I was checking my parish email box earlier today (something I do far too seldom; I never remember to do it), and discovered that I received the following fan letter a few days after giving the homily.  The parishioner was kind enough to sign it, but there is no need to mention his name.  If you read it, you will see that he gives me the benefit of the doubt at the end, and very nicely offers me his blessing as well, so it finishes on a friendly note.

I offer this, not to excuse, but to help illustrate why many preachers are loath to touch on church social teaching in their homilies.

Dear Mr. Pauwels,  I take exception to your Saturday, Sept. 28th homily at St. Ednas.  You stepped over the line when you used the church Altar to espouse your "liberal" views in reference to climate change, the south and west sides crime problems, and more importantly, the "poor families" being detained at the Arizona borders. The south and west side residences steadfastly refuse to Anonymously  identify  known gang members commiting theses shootings.  That’s on them, that is not being complacent.  That’s a group of people who don’t want to get involved in solving their own problems.  Those communities need to be part of the solution, otherwise they continue to be part of the problem.
Who went so far to put this pathetically “Inept” girl Greta Thunburg on world TV expressing  her outrage about climate change of which she knows nothing about.  From what educational institutions did she get her degrees in “Meteriology, Oceanology, Volcanolgy, Geophysics or Earth Science.  At the very minimum, these require a Bachelors Degree. Who would use an innocent child, who by the way, has Aspergers/Autism disease.  Sounds like “child abuse”.  The United States contributes only 15% of the carbon emissions while China and India contribute the rest.  You call that being complacent.  I think we did damn well.
Last, but not least, both sets of my grandparents came from Europe through Ellis Island in the early 1900’s.  They came here legally.  Who in the hell do these people think they are, invading our country, then demanding to be taken care of with my tax dollars.  Do you not know the definition of   “ILLEGAL”  Last, but not least, where’s your complacency about the Priests, Cardinals and Bishops on the past, present and future sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.. Why don’t you address a situation that cost the church billions of dollars, which should be helping these poor people that you are so worried about.
I’m sure you are a very nice person who loves his God and his Country, but please, in the future do not bring your political views to our Church. God Bless