I come
not to make a fiery speech, though the times indeed do call for such.
Indignation is a fire that burns justly on many fronts, but I fear our nation
has become cynical about honest human responses. It distrusts the primal
sources that move our spontaneous reactions to horrible things. Cynicism has effectively
stifled our natural desire to stop what horrifies.
But
there is something horrific occurring in our country, and in the world at
large. Unborn children are being shepherded to the brink of birth and beyond
solely for the purpose of being cruelly harvested for their organs and parts,
to be sold on a market that profits from the killing harvest.
We know
this evil is being done. The profit-takers are recorded admitting to it and
laughing at the mechanics of it. There are no words in this or any language to
describe the callousness and barbarity of this merchant enterprise.
Horrified
indignation, sorrow and anger at so cruel a calculus, if you feel it, should
tell you that your heart is not yet completely stone, nor dead while still
beating. And if you cannot feel it, weep at least for yourself.
Let the
sorrow take its rightful place, and ask the Lord for a sincere anger. Not the
kind of anger that seeks vengeance, but the kind that steels determination.
What is needed now is a determined will. One that is not moved only when videos
are made public and pictures make the news.
For we
know the media will shortly look elsewhere for headlines when this cycle is
done; if, that is, they have up to now taken any notice at all.
What is
needed is a relentless persevering drumbeat that says, this cannot be allowed
to stand; this is cruelty unleashed. It sells and devours the child, and
destroys us as a people in the process.
Congress
may someday act to defund those who profit from babys' eyes and intact limbs,
but it may not. Politicians may choose to see what is before us, but they may
not. Or if they choose to see, they may choose to find justifications in
loopholes in the law. Or they may continue brutally to justify a tortuous means
to some imagined and profitable end.
But
despite the lack of political virtue that may for a time seek to cover the
naked status quo, we will not stop praying and working, speaking and praying.
By faith we know, life wins; Christ is risen. But by experience we know life's
enemies are slow to yield. We must persevere.
Ours is
a wounded world and no wound is so deep as the cynical alliance between power
and money. The deepest wounds are healed only by much prayer and fasting. We
know this. And we ask the Lord to keep us true. But make no mistake it is power
and money that drive an industry that profits from denying humanity to a child
whose all too human parts make some people wealthy.
Pope
Francis speaks of this when he says the market must be made humane by a humane
society. Unchecked, the market uses people and throws them away. We can justly
apply his teaching to this ugly reality of organs harvested from unborn, or
nearly born, or barely born children.
The
practice is a black market even if loopholes allow justifications to sprout
like weeds. Many are not aware even today that this barbarity goes on in
respectable looking buildings spread through the nation and the world.
And
many do not know that similarly monstrous market exists for immigrant children
from Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, and indeed around the world. They too are
trafficked and sold to harvesters who see not children but profits when they
receive a gagged and bound bundle.
Human
trafficking for organ harvesting is real, and any law enforcement official from
Homeland Security can tell you about it. The abortion industry, though, has
found a way to traffic in children with the acquiescence of a government and a
people.
Life,
as the Holy Father says, has become throwaway. Only, these cruel markets do not
throw anything away until they have squeezed out the last ounce of gold.
We must
let the sorrow and the anger and the pain move us to be relentless. Speak of it
to your neighbors. Write to the Congress. Send emails to the White House. Let
state and local officials who are slow to express the truth to higher levels of
government know that the nation is bleeding and the trafficking in unborn
children must end. And safeguards must be put into place to make sure this is
never allowed.
If we
do not stop it, we will find that the monsters our ancestors of old feared in
the night have simply morphed into a polite citizenry too weak to act for
goodness anymore.
We will
continue to sound the drum, today and tomorrow and beyond. Let all
persons who can feel the movement of compassion join in this call to humanity.
As human beings we must stop this. A conscience is not a possession only of
Christians, it is in us all. But it must see and feel the human pain to have a
chance to help us humanly respond.
As
believers we have a special vocation in our society: to quicken the conscience
of all by pointing to the reality, and praying and begging for a humane
response. And we do not give up this vocation because news cycles shift.
Let our
witness be sincere. The world must know that on the road of life the Lord comes
to meet us: he asks only two questions: Where are you going? And, where are
your brother and your sister? Even those who do not share our faith can hear
these questions. And how a people answers those questions determines the whole
course of human history.
The
Lord promised that the Church would not lose its faith; he did not promise that
entire societies could not lose their reason. That is what we are facing. Let
our faith in the Lord's promise strengthen us to fight unceasingly to help our
nation find its soul and reason again.
Let our
faith remind our neighbors that the answer to "where are you going?"
is determined by how we answer for the well being of our littlest brothers and
sisters. On the last day they, the dismembered children, will rise to judge us.
The
Crucified is victorious, and he asks us to extend the power of that victory
into the darkest places. This requires courage, and faith. We cannot relent.
The dawn will not be denied. In him hope does not waver, and grace will be
given. It is still possible for mercy and justice to prevail. And may the Lord
of justice have mercy on us all.
Thank
you for being here today. May God bless you for what you do. Amen.
+df
