Maybe you remember the Sneetches? Yellow bird-duck things with short legs, long necks and greatly pronounced rotundity? These figments of the imagination of Theodor Seuss Geisel, the headliners in Dr. Seuss’ 1961 “The Sneetches and Other Stories,” are a flock divided. For there are two kinds of Sneetch: the kind with bellies bedecked with stars, and the kind just the same though with “none upon thars.”
The Star-Belly Sneetches think they’re better than their non-starred counterparts, and they do all they can to let them know it: talking down to them, ignoring them, ostracizing them. For their part, the Plain-Belly Sneetches buy into the stellar narrative, and sit around feeling sorry for themselves. For these bird-duck things, the demarcation of stars or no stars enabled them to foster a culture of superiority, division and downright nastiness. Their world became toxic.
I began thinking about the Sneetches when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rolled out its new “if you’re fully vaccinated, you no longer need a mask” guidelines. With such a ruling, have we managed to figure out yet another way to divide ourselves? Have we given ourselves yet another excuse for looking down upon our neighbor?
The answer is: of course. For American society in general, this isn’t all that surprising. There’s not a whole lot we agree on these days. But the divisions extend, in a highly disturbing and most un-Christian way, into the Church. Of course, divisions already exist here, too. But the vaccinated/unvaccinated debate has made these divisions shockingly even more pronounced.
I have seen Catholics attacking each other for choosing to get the vaccine and for choosing not to get the vaccine. Catholic moms are smearing other Catholic moms. Catholic dads are smearing other Catholic dads. Laypeople are vilifying priests and bishops. Some clergy, sadly, are adding fuel to the fire. Catholics — members of the one Body of Christ — are viciously making one another pay for their vaccination choices, and it is sickening.
Which leads me to Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the silver-tongued “Fix-it-Up Chappie” who has “heard of (the Plain-Belly Sneetches’) troubles” and offers to help them out by adding stars to their bellies — for a small fee, naturally. For the original Star-Belly Sneetches, this will not do, for “‘how in the world will we know,’ they all frowned, ‘If which kind is what, or the other way round?'” And here is McBean again, happy to assist in turning the Star-Bellies into Plain-Bellies — for a slightly bigger fee, of course.
Some say McBean is a capitalist; some say he’s an entrepreneur. But it sure seems to me that he’s akin to the Evil One, slyly encouraging division and reaping the benefits of it. Chaos ensues as the Sneetches dash out of one machine and into another, adding and subtracting stars, wasting their money, time and energy in pursuit of … what, exactly? Certainly nothing virtuous.
As Catholics use vaccinations as just the next round of ammunition in what seems like a never-ending battle within the Body of Christ, we waste our money, time and energy in pursuit of … what, exactly? Certainly nothing virtuous.
Catholics can and should be able to have disagreements. But when these disagreements turn toxic, when they push us into a culture of superiority, division and downright nastiness, we are as bankrupt as the Sneetches have become by the time Sylvester McBean leaves town, his machine overflowing with the cash they threw at him in order to perpetuate a nonsensical divide.
Thankfully, the Sneetches learned their lesson. They “got really quite smart” and remembered that “Sneetches are Sneetches” — one body together, not separate, not apart.
As Catholics, will we be able to do the same?
Gretchen R. Crowe is editorial director for periodicals at OSV. Follow her on Twitter @GretchenOSV.
