April 13, 2015
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Alleluia! Alleluia!
In the joy of this season
of Our Lord's Resurrection, I would like to greet my brothers and
sisters in Christ who have been praying for me and supporting me along
this journey. I pray that the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ, has
indeed risen, would engulf our hearts and lead us to a great thirst
for God, a great hunger to live for Him, and, as Bl. Teresa of
Calcutta said, to “make out lives something beautiful for God”.
Maybe there is a little doubt in our hearts, like there was in
Thomas', and we need to hear anew the words of Jesus, “do not
doubt, but believe” (Jn 20:27). The more deeply we believe, the more we will
open the doors of our hearts and allow His Kingdom to come here on
earth as it is in heaven.
I would like to thank
everyone who is writing or who has written to me. I wish I could
reply to all of you but I am unable. Please bear with me!
In some of the letters
and conversations there have been questions or comments that have led
me to see that some clarification would be helpful, so I would like
to try to address this in this letter.
First of all, with regard
to the circumstances of my arrest it may be helpful to know that my
charges (as previously), are “mischief: interfering with lawful
enjoyment/operation of a business”, and breaches of a probation
order (which I did not sign yet is still considered enforceable)
forbidding me from going within 100 m of any place where unborn
babies are killed. On Dec. 23rd, 2014, when I was
arrested, I was inside the waiting room of an office used for the
primary purpose of killing unborn babies.
People have often asked
me if I could not simply stay outside the area I am forbidden to
enter, and in that way, avoid arrest. But this question forgets
something: the children scheduled to be killed will have no one to
stand up for them. We will stop being present to them and to their
mothers out of obedience to an immorally imposed restriction by those
entrusted with authority. If we think in terms of getting arrested or
not getting arrested, we lose sight of Christ, hidden in: "the
distressing disguise of the poor” - those so poor, we cannot
even see or hear them. If we think of someone we love very much and
imagine this person planning to commit suicide, would we not do all
we could to protect them, to stop them?
When I think of it in
those terms, I realise how little I in fact love these
helpless babies and how utterly abandoned they are. But each child
hidden in his or her mother's womb is made by God than the most
loving parents could ever love their children. Because He loves them,
we are called to love them. We know that love is not for tomorrow;
love is the call for today. Linda and I, (as others), go to love –
to strive to love – these little ones who only have minutes to
live; they are scheduled to be killed today. We may not succeed in
protecting the babies; but we strive to be faithful and to do the
best we can while relying and trusting in God “who works all things
together for the good...” (Rom 8:28), not stopping at a legal
boundary unjustly imposed.
At this point it is
important for me to say that although I am grateful for the great
support so many have shown me, I believe that there is far too much
of a focus on me in some parts of the world and especially on the fact that I am (unjustly)
incarcerated. My time incarcerated is a small fraction of Linda
Gibbons' (who has again been arrested time and again for witnessing for life) and the hardship is nothing compared to what the babies go
through, which is the worst brutality ending in their deaths. I would
like to share with you some of the words from Joan (Andrews) Bell,
who is a great inspiration to me and to Linda, and whom I consider a
true apostle of the Gospel of Life:
"I'd like to liken it to
the situation of two friends: say there are two friends, and one is
black and one is white. And in this society the black person is
treated as garbage, like the pre-born children are. And the friend, the black friend, is brutally killed, and the white friend is roughed up
a little bit, not more than being tripped, and falls down, bruising
his knee. And let's say that the churches and the people in society
become aroused by the injustice that is going on. They all flock to
the person with the bruised knee and demand, “this is terrible
injustice, this person was pushed and shoved”! And they showered
all kinds of attention on that person. I don't think that person who
truly loved his friend who was murdered, and brutally murdered, would
feel very good about that nor would want it; or would feel bitter if
the attention did not come to him. You know, I think that person
would be grieved and upset that attention continued not to be given
to the friend who was murdered, but only to himself” (excerpt from an
interview with Joan (Andrews) Bell *, taken from the book, A History of
Operation Rescue. Richard Cowden-Guido).
Please know that I deeply
appreciate your prayer and your love and encouragement and am most
encouraged when we focus on God's littlest ones. If we appeal to the
government or to the public in general, let's always keep the focus
on the responsibility we have to assure the establishment of the most
basic justice. What is a more basic duty of a government than to
assume protection – the right to live – of each human being?
Linda and I are happy to
embrace this cross (which is not too heavy) and strive to receive it
as a normal result of wanting to be faithful to Christ and to love
Him in “the least of these” (Mt 25:40). We do not want to focus
on ourselves. We are in jail willingly and we hope that others would
be encouraged to stand strongly in faith. We ask you to pray not so
much that this cross be removed but for the strength to carry it and
to grow in trust in God, to the point where we love the cross.
Of course, however, we look forward to the day we hope will come when
we are no longer being imprisoned – only if this means that the
killing has ended and all of us are permitted to live – and to live
freely as dedicated Christians.
A good friend, has made an important observation: there is pro-life work
and there is Gospel of Life work. If we are Christians, we want to be
Gospel of Life workers! We see not only the problems (of abortion,
euthanasia, etc...); we are called to see everything in the light of
Christ (crucified, died and risen from the dead)! We are called to
see that the greatest injustice today is not abortion but the root of
it: the failure to adore God, to put Him first. We have lost respect,
reverence, for the human being because we no longer adore God, to
whom alone our worship and adoration is due.
Whether we be Christians
or not, we are all called to defend human rights. But as Christians
we are called to aim even higher. Bl. Teresa of Calcutta said it
simply and beautifully, “Let our only ideal be Christ”. As
Christians, we are led to discover Christ in each person, not the
“crowds”, to paraphrase this saint. We are called to much more
than to struggle for a good cause. We are called to live of the
greatest Love and to love in return – to lay down our lives for our
friends as Jesus said and did: “Love one another as I have loved
you” (Jn 13:34). We can never be satisfied with our working for a
good cause because the Christian vocation demands of us a constant
conversion, a growing conformity to Christ, our Life. We must do what
we can to establish a just society but without the commitment to
strive to love as Christ loves us, we would, as St. Paul says, “be
nothing” (I Col 13:2).
I'd like to share with
you more insight attributed to Joan (Andrews) Bell, paraphrased by
Cowden-Guido):
“The abortion culture
holds that comfort is not just a good, but the greatest good, greater
than truth or justice or charity, and finally of more importance even
than God. That culture is confident that in the end, Christians agree
with it on this, and so can be counted on to reject the very real
suffering that it will provoke” (A History of Operation Rescue).
I believe this statement
is well worth pondering. In the more developed nations, we do cherish
our many and various comforts (especially in Canada!), and while God
may not demand we renounce them all, we are called to renounce
anything that stands in the way of faithfully following Him. This
might be our own reputation or human respect, or it could be a job,
career, or an opportunity for these. It could be a relationship or
our freedom; but as St. Paul reminds us, “In your struggle against
evil you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood”
(Hebrews 12:4).
I am no less fearful of
physical torture than most people, yet I know that if one day it
comes to the point where resisting evil (and striving to do good)
results in this, - as it is currently a reality for so many of
our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world – God will
give the grace. He shows that He is always faithful, that He sustains
us as long as we place our trust in Him. Even if our lives are
demanded, we should never fear, because Christ has truly overcome the
world (Jn 16:33): Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is truly
risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! He says again to us, “Peace be with you”
(Jn 20:21); “It is I. Do not be afraid” (Jn 6:21); “Do not
doubt, but believe”.
*Joan spent five years in solitary confienment for entering abortion mills
An excellent article on Joan Andrews Bell by Fr. Paul Nicholson may be read here.
http://fatherpaulnicholson.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-gates-of-hell-and-joan-andrews-bell.html
Witness thanks Mary Wagner for her gracious permission to publish her Open Letter.
Those who would like to re-publish her Open Letter, please contact us at :torontocatholicwitness@rogers.com
*Joan spent five years in solitary confienment for entering abortion mills
An excellent article on Joan Andrews Bell by Fr. Paul Nicholson may be read here.
Witness thanks Mary Wagner for her gracious permission to publish her Open Letter.
Those who would like to re-publish her Open Letter, please contact us at :torontocatholicwitness@rogers.com
3 comments:
Luciano, certainly you should pass this Open Letter along to any Prelate who is open to learn about the truth about Mary.
What I regret is that Mary didn't run argument that abortion was determined to be a crime against humanity under international law by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal in the case of United States v Greifelt [1948].
By statute, crimes against humanity are offences under Canadian law.
Acutally, "crimes against humanity" form part of what is known, in public international law, as the jus cogens ("compelling law"). These are considered peremptory norms of international law "from which no derogation is permitted" (Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 53). When a jus cogens rule is applied in a particular case the relevant source of law is considered custom.
I hope this is useful.
Iain Benson PhD (Professor of Law, Notre Dame University Sydney Australia)
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