In the past when a person died, even of old age or natural
causes, there was deep mourning by family members, relatives, friends, and even
the community at large. It was considered a deep and sad tragedy by
everyone...the loss of a life.
Yet today, this respect for life appears to be lost. There are
now over 16,000 murders per year in the United States, about 45 per day. In
Chicago alone murders in 2012 are on track to reach 504, approximately 43 per
month. There is hardly a pause for sadness. Approximately 4,500 U.S. soldiers
have been killed in Iraq and over 2,000 in Afghanistan. Yet they appear to be
reported as "numbers" without the deep sadness over the loss of human life, most
of them young people who had everything to live for.
Across the world there is even deeper tragedy in regard to the
loss of life. In the Sudan the slaughter of Christians goes practically
unnoticed and unreported, yet goes to lengths that are difficult to comprehend.
Houses are burnt; churches are leveled; women are raped and mutilated. Children
and whole families are murdered. Since 1983 over 2.5 million Christians have
been slaughtered and it goes mainly unnoticed and unreported. The holocaust
continues to this day. Nobody seems to care, 2.5 million!
In Pakistan, a beautiful and bright 14 year old young girl,
Malala Yousufzai,
is fighting for her life after she was shot by the Taliban as she was
returning home from school. The reason? She was promoting the education of
girls. Militants who oppose the education of girls in Afghanistan were
responsible for the recent poisoning of over 100 girls. This was preceded by the
throwing of acid in the faces of school girls in Afghanistan. Young boys are
used by radical Muslims as suicide bombers where they have blown themselves up
while killing thousands of innocent men, women, and children. Terrorists
continue to launch thousands of rockets into Israeli civilian populations. Our
society has come to the point where hundreds of billions (even trillions) of
dollars are being spent for security at airports, train stations, and at other
public transportation sites. The reason, someone may try to plant a bomb that
will kill innocent people. This is what we have come to in regard to the respect
for life. Yet most all religions have some rule about not killing people,
although some apply it only to their "faithful". Nonetheless we are headed down
the path of an increased propensity to kill others. Life is losing its'
sacredness.
Since 1973, in America alone, over 50 million lives of helpless,
innocent, beautiful children have been taken through abortion, the worst
holocaust of humankind. Yet the president of Planned Parenthood, an organization
that takes the lives of over 350,000 children a year, was an honored speaker at
the 2012 Democratic Convention. What have we come to? The slippery slope of
euthanasia in on the ballot in Massachusetts, and so it goes.
Blessed Pope John Paul II called our current era, what we are
becoming, as the "culture of death". Very profoundly Mother Teresa said that
"the fruits of abortion are nuclear war". By that she meant that if there is no
respect for the life on an innocent child, then that will escalate to the lack
of respect for ALL life, ultimately leading to nuclear war, the most destructive
of all weaponry for eliminating life. If we stop for a moment, and look around
us, listen to the news...it is very evident that human life is no longer
sacred.
Life may not be sacred to many today....but it is to God and
that will never change. Those that are wise should see it coming. We had better
change course before it is too late.
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