Monday, May 18, 2009

Scandal


There are several videos up on YouTube by now that document the bizarre happenings at Notre Dame these past few days. This is only one of them. An elderly priest with some 20 years of service in the armed forces and many arrests for protesting at abortuaries was arrested again at Notre Dame for carrying out a peaceful protest. This is hard to watch.

Why ND didn't want protesters on its private grounds, I get. You have a highly controversial event, lots of protesters, and inevitably some wacko is going to sneak in and take a pot shot at the President. 

But for goodness sake, being arrested for living your pro-life conviction on a Catholic campus is worse than nightmarish. A Catholic university bestowing honors on a politician who unequivocally supports abortion, denial of medical care to babies who survive abortion, the creation of human embryos for scientific "experimentation," etc.,  and then pretending it's all just an opportunity to "dialogue" is horrendous. 

And these praying men and women arrested for trespassing, and those people ejected from the auditorium for shouting out about abortion during Obama's speech.... smacks of repression. Think Nero. 

What about the students who chose not to attend their commencement, and instead gather for Mass and prayer at the Grotto? I would surely love to see some of their videos up on YouTube. You can bet the media won't give them even a sidelong glance; this story is all about how a rabble-rousing rag-tag team of adult activists with graphic representations of the slaughter that is abortion ruined the lovely, happy, triumphant commencement for ND grads and their families while they were feeling so warm and tolerant of everybody, too. 

Please. 

Now, I might be more pragmatic than most, even to a fault; I skipped both high school prom and college graduation ceremonies for the same reason-- I didn't see the point of going. I plowed through college because graduating was what I needed to get out of it and find a place in the real world; I graduated in the summer, and I considered it very much a business deal. I paid tens of thousands in tuition; academia granted me a bronze ticket to help me find a job. Academia got the better end of the bargain, too, money instead of months and months wasted in useless (but Required!) classes that dumbed down the brain instead of honing it. Maybe it would have been better if I'd been after a B.S. degree despite my math/science handicaps. 

Anyway, all of that might have something to do with why I don't really understand ND students who were upset about the protests occurring and "ruining" their big day. Grow up. Everything is not about you, and you should have learned that in college. The sanctioned massacre of countless innocent pre-born human beings ought to be foremost in everyone's minds. It ought to be spoken of and explained to everybody, even if they're just kids and supposedly unconcerned with the 'issue.' Every single one of us is concerned when it comes to this issue. 

"Be fair. Be open-minded. Compromise. Meet us halfway." Hmmm, lemme think if there is any dichotomy sharper than this, the act of killing a child en route to birth, or the act of birthing a child. There is no compromise here. If it is wrong to kill a boy or girl at 5, or 6, or 50, it is equally wrong to kill them at 5 months, or 5 weeks, or 5 hours from conception. 

This is not difficult to figure out. 

Indeed, increasingly news writers and bloggers and 15-minute-celebrities begin to make statements like this: "Sure I know abortion is taking the life of a child. It's a difficult decision and no one's happy about it. But I also know that it was the right choice for me and I stand by that."  How much more sick and twisted can you possibly get?

I'm telling you, though, that that's going to be the refrain heard from every corner of America in coming years. And then who's going to stop the ones in power from advancing further on the rights of the powerless? Sick, handicapped, elderly and special needs people are already on precarious ground. Infanticide carried out on babies outside the womb will follow. There's already a proposed bill about it in Texas. The people in power will do everything they can to permanently silence the voices of the Church and other people of good will who oppose the killing; they'll call it anti-hate-speech legislation or tolerance legislation or something. 

We cannot be silent about abortion. We MUST not. 

2 comments:

Sue said...

AMEN! You said that so well. I caught snatches of the speech yesterday on the radio, and it really made me feel sickto my stomach.

Mom said...

Wow! I read your post and thought, "Jas is really fired up!" - then the video finished loading and I watched it. You're right, it is hard to watch. There is a lot of bad, bad news every day, but I am encouraged by the good people out there who are waking up and taking notice.