The March for Living

I love the March for Life. This year, it's being held on the 27th of January.  I've walked in it, I've covered it for a story, and I've met people who came from all over the country and braved horrible weather to walk in it.  

I am pro-life, and that means I believe abortion to be a grave evil that harms the mother, the father, the abortionist and the child.  Abortion is the world's solution because it doesn't require involvement, it doesn't involve commitment, sacrifice or love.   It seems like a quick fix.  As a Catholic, as a human being, I believe we cannot solve an evil (being alone and pregnant), (rape), (incest), (lack of access to medical care), (poverty) with another evil (abortion).   It is to my sensibilities, a means by which society can ignore such evils and allow them to persist.    I am pro-life which means I know there aren't easy or simple fixes to the problems of life, any problem of any weight requires involvement, committment, sacrifice and love.   The question always thrown to the pro-life advocate is, "What are you going to do?" and that's where we need to make a visible sign to the world that we are more than just against something, we are for life.

To be pro-life is to wish we could fund crisis pregnancy centers providing obgyn care in every city across the country so that women wouldn't feel they needed to turn to abortion, and reduce adoption regulations and fees so that it could be considered more often as a viable alternative.   To be pro-life is to ponder, how do we change hearts (which is much harder), than merely defunding something.  

We have organizations like And Then There Were None, and Sisters For Life and National Life Center, and Project Rachel which provide help to practitioners who want out, expectant mothers who need help both during and after the pregnancy, and those who suffer from having experienced an abortion, both recent or deep past.  

However, we do not always focus on the reality, to love, we always need to expand outward, to do more.  The march is a great way to hearten those who know, the child in the womb needs protection, but it needs to be about more than abortion, as grave and hard as it is.   We need to be talking about the innate dignity of each person, so that we are pro-life from conception to natural death.

The unborn child has dignity.
The pregnant mother has dignity.
The father of the unborn child has dignity.
The unborn girl has dignity.
The unborn boy has dignity.
The unborn tripplet has dignity.
The unborn child with Down Syndrome has dignity.
The unborn child with any other condition one can diagnose within the womb, has dignity.
The born child with an addiction has dignity.
The child born in poverty has dignity.
The child born with a fragile medical condition has dignity.
The toddler who is behind on benchmarks has dignity.
The toddler who struggles with a temper has dignity.
The child with hyperactivity has dignity.
The child who doesn't like school has dignity.
The child who struggles with reading has dignity.
The child who never turns in homework, has dignity.
The child who doesn't speak, has dignity.
The child diagnosed with autism, has dignity.
The child diagnosed with cancer, has dignity.
The child who is depressed, has dignity.
The child who is overweight, has dignity.
The child who never seems to be clean, has dignity.
The child who is hungry has dignity.
The child who is always sick, has dignity.
The child who is homeless, has dignity.
The child diagnosed with whatever it is, has dignity.
The teen who is rude, has dignity.
The teen who is loud, has dignity.
The teen who is always late, has dignity.
The teen who struggles to pay attention, has dignity.
The teen who doesn't struggle and doesn't pay attention, has dignity.
The teen who leaves early, has dignity.
The teen who has it all together, has dignity.
The teen who seems hopeless in all things, has dignity.
The young adult who doesn't have a job, has dignity.
The young adult who doesn't go to school, has dignity.
The young adult who isn't going to the best school, has dignity.
The young adult who dropped out of school, has dignity.
The young adult who still doesn't know how to be an adult, has dignity.
The young adult with young children, has dignity.
The young adult without children, has dignity.
The middle class adults have dignity.
The poor adults have dignity.
The well off adults have dignity.
The adults without jobs have dignity.
The adults with jobs have dignity.
The adults with houses have dignity.
The adults without homes have dignity.
The married have dignity.
The single have dignity.
The divorced have dignity.
The degreed have dignity.
The skilled have dignity.
The adults lacking degrees have dignity.
The adults lacking skills have dignity.
The older have dignity.
The injured have dignity.
Those with handicapping conditions have dignity.
Those with handicapping conditions we can't see, have dignity.
Those with metal illness, have dignity.
Those with addictions have dignity.
Those with deterriating conditions have dignity.
Those who are dying have dignity.
Those who are alone have dignity.
Those who have nothing, have dignity.
Those who are powerful, have dignity.
Those who are powerless, have dignity.

Everyone, regardless of age, sex, gender identity, race, creed, economics, education, career, politics, capacity and development, has dignity.  I could go on, but the idea is everyone. All ones.  Every single one.  There is no person here now, or ever before, who is not innately a person of value not for what they've done, or how far they've come or the power or riches they may or may not have, or the skills they've acquired and talents they've harnessed, but for being.  

We should be about celebrating the innate dignity of all.  

To that end, we should be extending an invitation to create a summer event, parallel to the March for Life, about the Dignity of All, The March of Living.  We'd hold it in the summer when it would be easy on families and in multiple cities across the nation.  This march would not based on a concensus of political values or one sex or against anything.  Such a march for all would be an attempt to reach out and make sure everyone knows about all the magnificient ministries out there which can help anyone who fits into any of these categories plus any I failed to mention.

We could invite charities of all kinds to be part of the march, and have it every year, as a grand celebration not just of life, but of ministering to life at all of its stages, so that people who might not agree with those who advocate against abortion, could discover we are more than merely against abortion, we are for life and here is how.  We could show the world, "Look how they love each other."
There would be ministries for caring for the sick, for the dying, for the hungry, for the homeless, for the veteran, for the incarcerated, for the addicted, for the recovering, for the jobless, for the struggling, for children, for legal help, for financial help, for whatever kind of help, for elderly, for the educating of all, for inviting all to be part of how we would be the hands and feet of Jesus, ministering to all.   It would be a celebration of service and life.

At the end of the day, we would have a concert, celebrating our gifts and our grattide for all, and give everyone a lit candle, and ask all of them to recognize, they are that singular light in the world, and that if every one were allowed to be nurtured and remain lit, the world itself would be luminous. Now go, and nurture someone else's light, to make the world lighter.

Through the Looking Glass to See No Evil

I have been told I am wrong to be upset with Fr. Pavone by no less than the internet; that there is no difference whatsoever between we display on a crucifix, and Fr. Pavone's altar.

Arguing that Sacred art depicts realities, even ugly ones that God made redemptive like the martyring of Stephen, the Pieta and every image of the crucified Christ whereas displaying the naked crushed body of an infant to prove Abortion is ugly is to shock, I was told, this was a minor difference.

The difference between stone and flesh is easy to see unless one wills one's self to have a stony heart. However, I don't believe that anyone really thinks there isn't a difference between sacred art and an actual dead body.  

We would be horrified and rightly so, if someone took dead bodies to depict a scene from scripture and called it art.  We would be horrified and rightly so, if someone profaned sacred art.

Using the body of a child to make a political point, ignores the moral reality of what we are called to do as Catholics for the dead, and what he was called to do as a priest when entrusted with this child in particular's, body.  He gave a 45 minute lecture on abortion with a baby's remains exposed on what looks to be an altar. It is meant to look like an altar, even if it is not an altar.  Oddly enough, it is a warped version of what horrified everyone when Dr. Gosnell was arrested.  Displaying rather than properly caring for the remains, is inappropriate.

Someone said, "Well, what about open caskets and wakes?" Those incidents are grieving processes for those who mourn the loss of a loved one.  They aren't done as a stage for a political/moral platform.  They aren't done for a youtube video to stump for a candidate or a political position the day before an election and I won't defend it even if I agree, and I do, abortion takes a life, it is always wrong.

But again, I don't for a moment think people don't recognize a difference, I think people want to defend a priest they love, and a position they hold dear.

This child was discarded by his or her mother as thing, destroyed by an abortionist as a thing, and then (however temporarily), used by the priest, as an illustration of abortion.  People are NEVER things, and we can NEVER use them as such, without committing great harm to our own souls and those who find themselves agreeing, the end justifies the means.

What about relics? I've seen Saint Anthony's tongue.  I asked and did research, "Relics and incorruptible bodies are testaments to the saints." He was buried, and when they cannonized him, they dug him up (30 years after death), they found his tongue incorruptible.  This sign of santification, of holiness, led to the veneration of his tongue.  We need the relics of the saints, because we are physical beings.  We need to know the saints were flesh and blood, real, not esoteric philosophical constructs created by imaginative manipulative scribes or poets.  Pieces of the true cross, the Shroud of Turin, the Tilma, hairs of Saint Maximiliam Kolbe, these things bring us into touching distance with Our God, with the Blessed Mother, with saints.

I've already seen the next layer of the argument, "Some of these were not saints before they were made into relics."

I do not feel I must fend every argument to still state, this was not a good act.

This baby was to be buried.  The baby should have been treated as one would any other baby brought for Catholic burial.  In not treating this infant like any other infant one would bury, this was forgetting the moral underpinning of the Pro-life position, which is to treat every child, all children, regardless of age, developmental status or capacity, with absolute dignity.  Exposing any other child naked and deceased to the internet, would be unthinkable.   This child deserved the same dignity afforded any other child one would mourn.  Love this baby first, and let that be your testimony.

When we hate something, we sometimes get so zealous, we can become a parody of the very thing we hate.  In reference to Fr Pavone's wrong decision to place a child on the altar so as to highlight the evil of abortion, you cannot justify a bad action (which this was) to bring about a good (end of abortion).  This was an inappropriate witness as a priest and as a person who professes to be pro-life because it did not put the actual child's dignity first.

Far more compelling a witness to the dignity of life would be to give that child a name, to dress him or her, drape in a blanket, and give a mass for the child.  Open casket if he likes, and invite all to pray for the souls of this child's family.   There is a temptation, when we seek a political solution for a moral issue, to put the movement before individuals. It is an understandable temptation, when people feel frustrated or powerless, but that is a secondary failing of despair because things are not happening according to a fast enough schedule.

So please, pray for Fr. Pavone and for his Bishop who must counsel him and for all who might want to not see how this act is wrong and fails to properly witness to the world, all humans are made in God's image, and all should be treated at all stages of development, with dignity.