Nobody's Home
If anyone happens to come across this account, which I am leaving open for now, I have moved to Life in Every Limb. Please come see me there.
posted by Leslie at
6:04 PM
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Sunday, April 06, 2003
"The Lord said to Cain: 'What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is
crying to me from the ground' (Genesis 4:10). The voice of the blood shed by men continues to
cry out, from generation to generation, in ever new and different ways" (from the Gospel of
Life).
As I walked out of the gym into the invigorating coolness of an almost-Spring evening, I
saw a sea of cars in the parking lot, throngs of people shopping Kmart's Going Out of Business
Sale, the garish lights of restaurant marquees lining Merchants Road and looming strangely over
it all, the giant illuminated cross that rises heavenward from Wallace Memorial Baptist Church.
The ordinariness of it all was surreal to me, because I knew that as much as everything
was the same as usual here in Knoxville, things in faraway Iraq were about to change
dramatically. It was 8:00 p.m. on March 19, deadline time for Saddam Hussein and the people of
Iraq. I got in the car and switched on the radio. "The War on Terror!" boomed the announcer,
complete with catchy background music. At home on the evening news, the meteorologist
forecast spring showers for Knoxville. He predicted sandstorms for Iraq, but I thought of
showers of bombs.
Catholics talk a lot about reverence for life, and usually they are talking about unborn
babies. This evening I read an interesting article online from Reuters: "Before the war began on
Wednesday, pregnant women were rushing to hospitals in Baghdad pleading with physicians to
deliver their infants even if it meant having a cesarean section or giving birth extremely
prematurely. During the war in 1991, many maternal and infant deaths occurred because patients
were unable to reach the hospital. In the late 1980s, 117 mothers died per 100,000 live births, but
now the rate is more than three times as high 379 deaths per 100,000. Mortality rates for infants
and young children have also increased dramatically, according to the United Nations Population
Fund."
We can be sure that God cares just as much about these unborn and newborn Iraqi babies
and their mothers as He does about the American unborn, and, if we are serious about our
commitment to life, so should we.
"Collateral Damage" and "Products of Conception" are both euphemisms for the killing of
innocents that takes place when society turns to violence to resolve its difficulties. Abortion, war,
euthanasia, and the death penalty as problem-solving all flow naturally from our culture of death.
People talk about hard questions. They say that there are no easy answers to the situation
in Iraq. But just because a question is hard doesn't mean there isn't a right answer. I would
venture to say that the right answer is almost always the hard one, or else we would be living in a
perfect world.
Our President may be acting as his conscience dictates, but then he is not a Catholic and
doesn't have a responsibility to consult the Catechism, the Gospel of Life, and our Holy Father in
forming it. We do, and we need to pay attention. To President Bush, the Pope is just another
world leader. He doesn't have to give his opinion any more weight than he gives to Jacques
Chirac's. But we should.
Pope John Paul said, "When war, like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity,
it is even more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that only peace is the
way of building a more just and caring society . . . Violence and weapons can never resolve the
problems of man."
If the war ends quickly, with minimal casualties, and with the end of the threat of Saddam,
as we all must fervently pray, there will be many who will rejoice and say that we did the right
thing. But we must remember that the grace of God often works miracles, creating good from the
ashes of evil. A person may grow through tragedy. A woman's grief over an abortion may cause
her to seek healing and reconciliation within the Church and lead to a renewal of faith. Yet
tragedy is not good and abortion is not defensible. A good end never justifies immoral means.
"Because of the evils and injustices that all war brings with it, we must do everything
reasonably possible to avoid it. The Church prays: 'From famine, pestilence, and war, O Lord,
deliver us" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2327).
crying to me from the ground' (Genesis 4:10). The voice of the blood shed by men continues to
cry out, from generation to generation, in ever new and different ways" (from the Gospel of
Life).
As I walked out of the gym into the invigorating coolness of an almost-Spring evening, I
saw a sea of cars in the parking lot, throngs of people shopping Kmart's Going Out of Business
Sale, the garish lights of restaurant marquees lining Merchants Road and looming strangely over
it all, the giant illuminated cross that rises heavenward from Wallace Memorial Baptist Church.
The ordinariness of it all was surreal to me, because I knew that as much as everything
was the same as usual here in Knoxville, things in faraway Iraq were about to change
dramatically. It was 8:00 p.m. on March 19, deadline time for Saddam Hussein and the people of
Iraq. I got in the car and switched on the radio. "The War on Terror!" boomed the announcer,
complete with catchy background music. At home on the evening news, the meteorologist
forecast spring showers for Knoxville. He predicted sandstorms for Iraq, but I thought of
showers of bombs.
Catholics talk a lot about reverence for life, and usually they are talking about unborn
babies. This evening I read an interesting article online from Reuters: "Before the war began on
Wednesday, pregnant women were rushing to hospitals in Baghdad pleading with physicians to
deliver their infants even if it meant having a cesarean section or giving birth extremely
prematurely. During the war in 1991, many maternal and infant deaths occurred because patients
were unable to reach the hospital. In the late 1980s, 117 mothers died per 100,000 live births, but
now the rate is more than three times as high 379 deaths per 100,000. Mortality rates for infants
and young children have also increased dramatically, according to the United Nations Population
Fund."
We can be sure that God cares just as much about these unborn and newborn Iraqi babies
and their mothers as He does about the American unborn, and, if we are serious about our
commitment to life, so should we.
"Collateral Damage" and "Products of Conception" are both euphemisms for the killing of
innocents that takes place when society turns to violence to resolve its difficulties. Abortion, war,
euthanasia, and the death penalty as problem-solving all flow naturally from our culture of death.
People talk about hard questions. They say that there are no easy answers to the situation
in Iraq. But just because a question is hard doesn't mean there isn't a right answer. I would
venture to say that the right answer is almost always the hard one, or else we would be living in a
perfect world.
Our President may be acting as his conscience dictates, but then he is not a Catholic and
doesn't have a responsibility to consult the Catechism, the Gospel of Life, and our Holy Father in
forming it. We do, and we need to pay attention. To President Bush, the Pope is just another
world leader. He doesn't have to give his opinion any more weight than he gives to Jacques
Chirac's. But we should.
Pope John Paul said, "When war, like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity,
it is even more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that only peace is the
way of building a more just and caring society . . . Violence and weapons can never resolve the
problems of man."
If the war ends quickly, with minimal casualties, and with the end of the threat of Saddam,
as we all must fervently pray, there will be many who will rejoice and say that we did the right
thing. But we must remember that the grace of God often works miracles, creating good from the
ashes of evil. A person may grow through tragedy. A woman's grief over an abortion may cause
her to seek healing and reconciliation within the Church and lead to a renewal of faith. Yet
tragedy is not good and abortion is not defensible. A good end never justifies immoral means.
"Because of the evils and injustices that all war brings with it, we must do everything
reasonably possible to avoid it. The Church prays: 'From famine, pestilence, and war, O Lord,
deliver us" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2327).
posted by Leslie at
11:29 PM
