A quick survey of my 17-year old’s bedroom reveals the following artifacts strewn across the floor of this most inhospitable terrain: “The Portable Dante”, ESPN magazine, The Communist Manifesto, College application from Fordham, Harvard, American University and other such places that are beyond my budget comfort zone. My child is steering his small ship into the world of ideas. It is all new, fresh and exciting. He’s even thrown his hat into the ring, most passionately for certain causes that he would go to the wall for: civil rights and economic equality to name two. He has a good (bleeding) heart. So far so good. Oddly missing from his repertoire of causes to fight and lions to tame was anything on the pro-life movement. And the silence is deafening…
Yesterday, the world recognized the 65th anniversary of Operation Overlord, known today simply as the D-Day invasion of the beaches of Normandy, France. Allied troops departed England on planes and ships, made the trip across the English Channel and attacked the beaches of Normandy in an attempt to break through Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall” and break his grip on Europe. Some 215,000 Allied soldiers, and roughly as many Germans, were killed or wounded during D-Day and the ensuing nearly three months it took to secure the Allied capture of Normandy. This bloody conquest, one could say, was to emancipate Europe from a totalitarian hold by a dictator who’s corrupt social system was designed to annihilate certain members of our society that were not ‘acceptable’ to his way of thinking. Hitler would not have stopped his bloody assault on Europe and on the rest of the world unless he were stopped by outside forces.
In our day, there are more Normandy beaches that require our storming. The assault on human life in our culture is become radically and profoundly disordered. 40 million deaths have occurred in the name of “medicine” since 1973. That is over six times the amount of Jews who were murdered in the holocaust. This is worse than the holocaust, this is worse than slavery, this is worse than not getting the right to vote. This is a very clear and present evil among us and we need to call it out. It is not enough anymore to stand on the sidelines and lament. We must elect pro-life leaders who will stand in the gap and change our legislative habits. We must stand on the sidewalk and face the calamity of mothers in crisis with love and tenderness. We need to be eager to provide solutions (yes, with our wallets) to those among us who are struggling to make the choice for life. We need to embrace adoption enthusiastically and bring to our media the light of a new way, a new day that affects the way each and every human being thinks about life and death. There is a role for every one of us on the pro-life side.
Yesterday, the world recognized the 65th anniversary of Operation Overlord, known today simply as the D-Day invasion of the beaches of Normandy, France. Allied troops departed England on planes and ships, made the trip across the English Channel and attacked the beaches of Normandy in an attempt to break through Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall” and break his grip on Europe. Some 215,000 Allied soldiers, and roughly as many Germans, were killed or wounded during D-Day and the ensuing nearly three months it took to secure the Allied capture of Normandy. This bloody conquest, one could say, was to emancipate Europe from a totalitarian hold by a dictator who’s corrupt social system was designed to annihilate certain members of our society that were not ‘acceptable’ to his way of thinking. Hitler would not have stopped his bloody assault on Europe and on the rest of the world unless he were stopped by outside forces.
In our day, there are more Normandy beaches that require our storming. The assault on human life in our culture is become radically and profoundly disordered. 40 million deaths have occurred in the name of “medicine” since 1973. That is over six times the amount of Jews who were murdered in the holocaust. This is worse than the holocaust, this is worse than slavery, this is worse than not getting the right to vote. This is a very clear and present evil among us and we need to call it out. It is not enough anymore to stand on the sidelines and lament. We must elect pro-life leaders who will stand in the gap and change our legislative habits. We must stand on the sidewalk and face the calamity of mothers in crisis with love and tenderness. We need to be eager to provide solutions (yes, with our wallets) to those among us who are struggling to make the choice for life. We need to embrace adoption enthusiastically and bring to our media the light of a new way, a new day that affects the way each and every human being thinks about life and death. There is a role for every one of us on the pro-life side.
My sons read about D-Day from their history books something that they reckon will never happen again in our time. I have another feeling. So long as there is an ever-widening chasm between that day 65 years ago and now, I have a very real fear that history will once again reveal that we have not done a thorough enough job of supporting and maintaining that which our forefathers said was so easy to be evidenced: simply that the truths that our creator endowed us with – the unalienable Rights of LIFE Liberty and pursuit of happiness - are not being upheld. They are fading away on our watch. In the words of Father Pavone: “The biggest danger is the enemy within. It is the fear and self-doubt to which we can all too easily fall victim. It is the voice inside that makes us feel guilty for saying “Abortion is murder” or “Abortion is a holocaust” or “The babies who are being killed need to be defended now.” It is the fear inside that keeps us from going out to the abortion mills and intervening to save the children scheduled to be killed there each day.
The world of ideas does not need to be as complex as the floor of my son’s room. There is still a beach to be stormed. Let us never lose our resolve to defend the most precious gift that God has endowed to us. Let us link arms and steel ourselves to continue to fight on. Simply and unapologetically.
“All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, duty, mercy, hope.” (Winston Churchill)
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