The End in View

I wonder if we have had the right conversation about Sound of Freedom. We could consider it a “message movie,” and it does have one, but its creators have made it clear what the message is: END CHILD TRAFFICKING.
            Much of the talk that I’ve heard about the film misses that point. It’s good that we are impressed by its artistic value, it’s okay that we found it deeply moving, however, the film intends to incite in us more than admiration and deep feelings. Eduardo Verástegui and Jim Caviezal have been clear about their intentions—we should, and we can, end this evil.
            At the premier of Sound of Freedom in El Salvador Mr. Verástegui said, “What do we seek with this movement? To save children.”
            They say something about the people governed that we don’t hear much today—there are many evil people in the world, and human traffickers are at the top of the list, but the people, the overwhelming majority, are good. The human person is fundamentally good. A Catholic presupposition from two Catholic artists.
            There are a couple of implicit questions: Why don’t we, since we are good? Like moral questions in general, that question invites the backward glance and the question, “Why haven’t we? This evil has prospered and thrived—Why?
            Though, of course, no one is guilty except the perpetrators. Besides, what can we do about it? That backward glance doesn’t rise up naturally into consciousness, and the backward glance is usually a furtive one.
            I know that an essay in Catholic365 which maybe one or two people will read won’t have any impact, so why even bother writing it? Why talk about child trafficking at all—other that saying that Sound of Fury was a good and moving film that outdid even Mission Impossible at the box office?
            We probably don’t talk about it in terms of asking what we can do to end this evil in our midst. We probably don’t want the thought to rise into consciousness that it is in our midst. We have other things to think about, other pressing concerns.
            Could the people of the United States be united by the moral outrage this scourge deserves. Even racial slavery didn’t unite us—it divided us in the extreme and led to the Civil War which killed more people than all of our other many wars combined. But that was long ago.
            One of the most common explanations trotted out for the explanation of evil—child trafficking included—is that evil arises from within us because we are fallen creatures. Of course, we are fallen, but human goodness that falls back on the excuse of its own fallenness isn’t much good. Can’t we put the pressing issues on hold, or find the time, to demand that our government use its resources to end this evil? One of the public affairs people will call it a war on child trafficking. Fine.
Is the corruption of the Biden family or the narcissistic guilt of Donal Trump more consuming that this evil? Can we put aside our worries about inflation and the downgrade of the credit rating of the United States? Can we do good while mass shootings proliferate? Yes, we’re a mess, and after we should end child trafficking, we’ll go back to being a mess, but a mess without child sex slaves.
            How would one go about it? There would be meetings to schedule, letter writing campaigns to organize, publicity to coordinate in order to keep the evil visible. Our southern border will need to be brought under control. There would be a lot of time and effort required.
            Could that be done? No, that’s not the right question. Will it be done? Humanity has always had slavery; we have never ended it except in individual countries; it’s even in the Bible, but Holy Writ has something else to say on that score.
            In the beginning we were made in the image of God. The emphasis often is that we are each one of us an image of God, which leaves out the verb. We are made by God in His image. We are made. We are creatures uniquely endowed with bodies and souls and minds. We can reason and we can ourselves make. We are makers. We have received from God the mind of a maker. One of things made is pornography of which the United States is the number one consumer. Another thing made is a child slave. Some of us make gross evils, sickening evils.
            We also make families. We make movies. Some of those movies are mindless entertainment that allow us a break from reality. Other movies are art that ennobles us as it entertains. We are fallen, true, but we have never lost our capacity to be ennobled.
            We always have an end in view. That is essential to our being makers. The end in view of Sound of Freedom is the end in view of salvation itself—Freedom. Freedom from the evil of child trafficking in this case, and the end of all evil everywhere, which is the end.