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GUEST COMMENTARYIs our reverence for life diminishing?MARY ST. PIERRE Over the past several months, our U.S. bishops have reviewed the health care reform bill and fought openly and aggressively for two most important rights — the right to life and the right to health care for the poor. Oftentimes they have been ridiculed and misunderstood. Two weeks ago, I found myself wondering where we as Catholics stand in our commitment to respecting life and fully caring for the poor. It began Thursday morning, Nov. 5, as news was reported of 13 killed in Fort Hood during a shooting rampage by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, engaged in a profession to help others heal. His name alone struck a profiling chord in most of us. Our respect for life and the loss of 13 rightfully turned to the victims and their families, but how many of us said a prayer for Hasan, a child of God who was mentally poor, drained, deficient, disturbed? Until now, not I. Friday, on my morning drive to work, the road became a parking lot. After 45 minutes I could see two county workers and the lane of oncoming traffic being diverted to my side of the street. My first thought was, “Why in the world would they line the street during rush hour?” In my frustration as I inched closer, a car bumper and damaged motorcycle came into view. The reality of the situation turned from frustration to grief as my eyes fell on a blood-drenched cloth covering the face of a man dead in the road. I found out later the accident had occurred at 2:30 a.m. Now, six hours later, lay the body of a 32-year-old man. No police car, no ambulance, nobody holding him close as Mary held Jesus upon his death — no apparent respect for the end of his life. Ninety minutes later, with the scene still vivid, I arrived at work and received news there was a bomb threat. A suitcase with an airport tag had been found outside a vacant office building. An hour later, news channels reported a fired worker entered his old place of employment, killing one and wounding seven others. His profile revealed several failures in his life, much anger and in his words, the sense he was left on this earth “to rot.” Saturday morning on the cover of the local newspaper, the alleged killer’s photo spread across a quarter of the front page. The murdered young man, a dad and revered co-worker, was recognized briefly in print with a picture smaller than a sticky note. One might question if Page 1 represents our diminishing reverence for life. I turn back now to health care reform. Our bishops took a stand since introduction of the bill to include strict language prohibiting federal funding for abortions. They also took an unpopular stand of pushing for health care reform to help our poor in America, legal, or not. While one stand is popular with most Catholics, popularity wanes when a general blanket is placed on providing health care to all our poor brothers and sisters in Christ. As Catholics, let’s just think for a moment — where would Jesus stand on these issues? Mary St. Pierre is senior editor of the Florida Catholic.
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