What Have we Learned? What Will We Do?
Deacon Keith Fournier
© Third Millennium, LLC
The last legal effort to save Terri has been denied. The portals of disinformation continue to provide their global platform to the ministers of propaganda of the new regime of the culture of death. They have all the airtime they could ever desire in order to feign civility, call evil good and good evil, and continue to numb what is left of the conscience of a nation that long ago accepted the lie that there is no truth, that freedom consists in the raw power to do whatever one wills and that liberty is really license.
Separation of powers, the political ones insist, while Terri breathes her last breath, starved to death, powerless, because solidarity has been replaced by the worship of individual autonomy. States Rights, cry some others, ironically some of those whose own ancestors were once called three fifths of a person. Still others insist that this evil act should not be remedied by Executive action because to do so would violate conservative principles.
The ones who compromise with darkness begin their efforts to compromise the magnitude of all of this. They speak the platitudes of this age of utilitarian nihilism. Yet, Prometheus has been unchained. It is not accidental that this triumph of the will is all being played out on the day when we remember the One who embraced the whole world from the tree on Calvary. How utterly prophetic and profound it all is.
The God of Love Incarnate who walked the way of weakness and suffering now walks through the barricade in Pinellas Park, Florida and holds His beloved. Soon, He will take her home and she will be at peace. We who feel so helpless will weep.
In a house in Rome, a holy, frail man sits and weeps, praying for Terri and for the modern Jerusalem which has failed to recognize the time of its visitation. Yoked to the One whom Christians will soon recall walking the Way of Suffering, he offers his own suffering as a prayer. Unable to speak with words, his message is more powerful than ever, at least to those who have the eyes to see.
We who are Christians now enter the great mystery of the next Three days. Not long from now we will hear once again the account of the stone that was rolled away and the testimonies of that Event which exposes the darkness with light and turns the world upside down.
Then we will be sent, once again, into a world that God still loves, desperately in need of hearing and seeing Good news. Then, once again, we will also be sent once into the public square of civic participation for the common good.
What have we learned? More than can be addressed in this short piece. Besides which, the moment deserves more. It is time to pray, to mourn, to intercede, and to worship. However, make no mistake,this event has forever changed the political landscape. I just heard one pundit say that this will all be forgotten within months and will have no real political effect.
Really? Stay tuned.
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Deacon Keith Fournier is a Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia and human rights lawyer. Long active in policy work, he has been an advocate for Christian activism and proponent of a new Catholic action built around four pillars of participation; life, family, freedom and solidarity with the poor.