Who Is Steering the Soul of the Nation?

Peter Vazquez walks the line between headline and heartbeat, tracing the Vanboolzalness Crisis where secrecy becomes policy and fear becomes currency. He begins in the sanctuary, where a Rhode Island report drags decades into the light and asks what happens when institutions protect the brand more than the soul. Lawrence Erickson, author of Vatican Coup, argues that abuse and cover-ups do more than shatter lives; they manufacture compromised leaders, the kind who can be pressured, coerced, and quietly redirected.

Then the lens swings to the street. From Chicago’s West Side, Honorable P. Rae Easley brings receipts and scars: blocks gutted after 2008, jobs shaved below full-time, a social-service economy that turns survival into obedience. She describes a machine that rewards silence, punishes dissent, and calls it “help,” until people forget what freedom feels like

Between church halls and city blocks, the pattern repeats: when truth is avoided, somebody else takes the wheel. The antidote is old-school and radical: confession, accountability, and courage that costs something.