St. Gregory, Slothfulness, and the Los Angeles Fires

The LA fires uncover the apathy and indifference of our politicians toward virtue.

The fires in Los Angeles County continue to burn into their sixth day. So far, over 40,000 acres have been burned and 12,300 buildings destroyed. 16 fatalities have been reported. That number is expected to rise as the rubble is cleared. The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, claims that the fires may be one of the worst natural disasters in American history.

Leading to the fire, the National Weather Service alerted LA residents about the high possibility of severe windstorms between January 6-7. A fire weather watch was initially implemented, but the urgency increased with an alert the day before, prompting a red flag warning for extreme fire conditions in LA.

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Around noon on January 7, the Palisades Fire ignited in western LA County. As the fire approached, the LAFD mandated an evacuation order for residents in the Palisades area. Within four hours, the fire had expanded to approximately 1,300 acres. By 6 p.m., Governor Newsom declared a state of emergency. Shortly after, the Eaton Fire spread rapidly to over 200 acres in just one hour.

The fires destroyed some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in LA, leaving celebrities like Mel Gibson, Billy Crystal, and Paris Hilton among those who lost homes. The once-luxurious areas are blanketed in ash and now resemble a warzone, with hollowed-out buildings and smoldering piles of debris.

Disasters happen. While arson investigations are still underway, the government likely can not be blamed for the fire’s origin or how quickly it spread. However, legitimate questions arise about the government’s readiness and response to the crisis. Within hours of fighting the fires, firefighters had already run out of water. Hydrants failed, leaving crews with no choice but to stand by and helplessly watch as the flames tore through homes.

According to Captain Easton, a firefighter on the scene, the hydrants were “completely dry…couldn’t get any water out of it.” By Thursday evening, LAFD Chief Kristen Crowley announced they had stopped attempting to use hydrants altogether. Much of LA’s water infrastructure is over a century old. Despite the city’s exponential growth, the government has repeatedly chosen not to upgrade or expand it to handle disasters of this scale.

Last year, LA Mayor Karen Bass slashed the fire department’s budget by $17 million. While some have dismissed this claim as a politically motivated rumor, LAFD Chief Kristen Crowley confirmed the cut on live TV, stating, “Yes, it was cut, and it impacted our ability to provide service.”

During the first critical days of what may now be the worst disaster in LA history, Mayor Bass—who in 2021 vowed she “would not travel internationally” and would focus on her city—was in Ghana celebrating the inauguration of a new president.

This visit to Ghana marked her fifth international trip since making that promise, each trip funded by LA taxpayers. Three of those tax-funded trips were to the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Governor Newsom is also facing severe questions from the larger public. The once-presidential hopeful is now dodging questions with his constituents and trying to support his crumbling image. While claiming that they boosted fire prevention funding, reports show that in June 2024, Newsom’s administration cut $100 million for wildfire and forest resilience programs. Amid other concerns over the Palisades reservoir being empty and fire prevention stymied in the past due to unfounded ecological concerns, Newsom’s PR team is working overtime to clear the governor’s “good name.”

Meanwhile, Governor Newsom continues to blunder. In a Twitter/X post, he promoted a new fact-checking page addressing claims about the fire. However, the page includes a donation link supposedly directing people to support the California Fire Foundation. Instead, the link routes users to ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform that takes 3.95% of all donations to fund Democratic candidates, including Newsom. By bypassing established charities like the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, Newsom’s actions come across as self-serving at a time when Californians desperately need leadership focused on their needs, not political gain.

The political rot in LA extends from the top all the way down, including the leadership of the fire department. In recent years, the LAFD has prioritized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives over fighting fires. Chief Kristen Crowley, the first woman and LGBTQ individual to lead the LAFD, highlights these priorities in her official bio, “creating, supporting, and promoting a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and equity while striving to meet and exceed the expectations of the communities.” One has to wonder whether fire fighting and prevention should be the main priorities of a fire department, not DEI.

Since her appointment, Mayor Bass has launched LA’s first DEI bureau, including the newly established Equity and Human Resources Bureau, led by Deputy Chief Kristine Larson. In a promotional video defending women firefighters’ capabilities, Larson addressed concerns about their physical strength and the ability to carry a grown man out of a burning house. Her words amounted to the negligent blame-shifting of potential victims “Which my response is, he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”

The roots of corruption run deep and cannot be completely covered here. What has been shown is enough to conclude that the government of California (and LA in particular) is severely distracted from its priorities. Specifically, these governments and their politicians have a slothfulness problem.

Slothfulness is a sin that is rarely mentioned. While sloth is often associated with laziness, its meaning is much broader. When we think of a lazy person, we typically do not imagine someone who is busy. Yet a slothful person can indeed be busy. In fact, busyness is often the perfect disguise for slothfulness.

Sloth is an indifference towards the most virtuous action in any given context that results in a lack of discipline in the pursuit of that virtuous action. The most common disguise of sloth is the pursuit of lesser virtues.

The results of slothfulness are on clear display in LA and California. For decades, the government has refused to prepare for extreme situations by upgrading their infrastructure, all the while focusing on a plethora of distractions. When an insignificant man is slothful, he destorys only his life. When a significant man, on whom the public relies, is slothful, he threatens all who are under his care.

St. Gregory the Great, a Roman bishop of the late 6th century, played a pivotal role in the mission to evangelize the pagan Anglo-Saxons. His work, The Book of Pastoral Rule, remains one of the most influential writings on pastoral ministry and is essential reading for every aspiring minister. In this timeless work, Gregory writes,

“The lazy should be instructed that, often, if we do not do what we can when we have the opportunity, soon we will not have the opportunity to do what we want. For the desire of the mind, when it is not accompanied by the appropriate zeal, loses its desire for good works, as it is overcome by a powerful, but hidden, sloth.

For when the soul does not incline itself to greater things, neglecting itself, its desire increases for inferior things. And when the soul does not restrain itself by studying vigorously for higher things, it is wounded by the hunger of desire for lower things. And as a result of its neglect for discipline, it is all the more distracted by the desire of pleasure.

For the most part, the one who is lazy, when he neglects to do what is necessary, alleges that certain things are too difficult or that he is unduly afraid of others, and then when he comes upon something to warrant his fears, he acts as though he was justified in his idleness.”¹

The devastation caused by the fires in LA expose not only the failure of slothful governance. It also serves as a lesson for each of us. Leaders neglected essential priorities like upgrading infrastructure and providing water, choosing instead to pursue distractions that offered momentary political gains but left the public vulnerable. Such busy inaction brought about the excessive damage we all now see in LA.

But sloth is not confined to government. Each of us must confront the temptation to prioritize lesser virtues over what is necessary and good. As St. Gregory the Great warns, neglecting greater things for lesser pursuits weakens our discipline, clouds our judgment, and ultimately leads us to a disaster in which we blame others rather than ourselves. The fires are a tragic reminder that the cost of sloth, whether in governance or in our personal lives, is too great to ignore.

1. St Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, ed. John Behr, trans. George E. Demacopoulos, vol. 34, Popular Patristics Series (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007), 125–126.