Too much is at stake for global economic, political divisions - Boston Herald

I can’t remember when I read so many books, newspapers and listened to so many Broadway musicals, as I have in the past three months.

But just after saying that to an old college basketball teammate, he reminded me of what it was like on some of our long bus trips to Buffalo, Philadelphia and Madison Square Garden when we played in four-day big college championship tournaments. We had plenty of time to do a lot of reading and follow world events.

Often, the weather was so bad we had to travel by bus and couldn’t leave the hotel because of a storm or snow. It often amazed me how so many enthusiastic spectators could turn out for a basketball game in such terrible weather conditions, but they did.

One day, on a return trip from a game in Buffalo, our Providence College team had to spend a day and a half layover in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport before we could finally catch a flight to New York. I’ll never forget that trip, because we got bumped at the airport from a connecting flight we were supposed to take, but that plane went down just as it reached New York City, and none of the passengers survived.

Tragically, that also happened on another occasion when a TWA flight back to Rome that I and several of Pope John Paul II’s staff members were initially scheduled to take crashed just after just leaving JFK Airport, also killing everybody aboard. I was never inclined to talk about these tragic stories, but was reminded of them as years spent traveling for sports, the military and later crossing the globe for almost five years as an ambassador left me with little free time — a far cry from today.

But this recent coronavirus pandemic provided some of us plenty of time to do some reading or watching television. My wife can read four books a week, so I had a good adviser on book selection, including a great new book about Abe Lincoln, “Lincoln on the Verge” by Ted Widmer, “The Tribe,” a superb ebook by Caitriona Perry about modern Irish politics, and of course just about everything about John Paul II and sports. And over the last three months we also had a lot of time to think about the direction in which our country is headed.

While many of us are happy with our family and community, I think many people are concerned with the unsettling political and economic situation here and abroad. I don’t mind telling you, I am greatly worried about the petty political and economic division that exists in society and the world today.

There are no world organizations to keep countries’ political leadership talking and sharing constructive objectives. No one has been on the scene as a world voice for peace, justice and respect. No leader or organization is even in the news sharing those critical values, like St. Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and, of course, St. John Paul II. This is something that bothers me the most about the world. We are not coming together as we should, but heading in separate and in terribly divisive directions.

Maybe with God willing, a new moral order and world healers will emerge. I know one thing, we cannot and must not give up. Too much is at stake.

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Ray Flynn, is a former mayor of Boston and U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

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Too much is at stake for global economic, political divisions - Boston Herald
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