SABMA 9-11 Memorial Edition

We all watched as they slowly rose within twelve years and were obliterated in less than two hours... It was a splendid but lazy NYC Election Day morn, with the most magnificent weather in months. On that infamous 9-11 forenoon three years ago, four jetliners hijacked by Islamic jihadists slammed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, massacring 3,052 innocent people in this WW III *sequel.

At 8:46 A.M. here in Queens, I was still having my wake-up coffee while IM'ing with my first partner from my college days of three decades ago. Although Floyd lives down coast in Delaware, he mentioned that he was watching live coverage of a plane crash which had just hit the North Tower of the WTC. We initially thought it was a small Cessna or private plane which strayed. So I quickly signed off and went into John's room where he was calling me in while waiting for TV talk show superstar Oprah Winfrey to appear. All stations were being interrupted with live, calm coverage of the blazing fireball...

Seventeen minutes later at 9:03 A.M., my present partner and I watched as the South Tower was still being targeted by an incoming jet in what seemed like slow motion... Our family and close friends worked in these towers. Often, our routine business and daily commute still took us through them, that morning being a rare exception. Twenty five years earlier our Tribeca high rise apt. and recreational haunts were just a few blocks from there. My NYC street ministry ("Street life memories...") began and was once served under their shadows...

The impact of that second jetliner knocked us to our knees, loudly sickened and in shock. Fortunately, we didn't have breakfast yet. Being well informed, I immediately knew and angrily exclaimed that this was Osama Bin Laden. As we watched this close horror develop, I dressed; grabbed my ribbon stole, ritual, holy oils and clergy hard hat and rushed towards the door. Priests and disaster counselors were obviously needed there.

Our express "E" line subway would have taken me directly to the WTC site in less than a half hour. However, a serious mental health crises unfolded near by which prevented my departure. I was begged to delay my emergency response which I did. Reasoning that adequate clergy were already responding and that I was also needed where I was, I first contended with that sudden urgency before setting off. Providentially, that surely saved my life because the South Tower collapsed just minutes later at 9:59 A.M. and the North Tower half an hour later at 10:29 A.M. We're convinced that I would have been under one by then.**

The highways, bridges, tunnels and tubes into Manhattan were closed almost immediately which barred any possible entry into Gotham except via foot. That day everyone around us seemed to be shell shocked and impacted from the percussion. Our actions were robotic but purposeful. The only predominant sounds I recall that day were the reassuring punctuations of the patrolling F-16 fighter planes guarding us overhead.

It wasn't until rescue efforts had already became a recovery operation that I eventually ministered to the walking wounded at Ground Hero -- as my partner John first renamed it -- and at St. Paul's Chapel. Jet fuel was still flaring up; the acrid and over powering stench was still smoldering; deep ashen cremains were everywhere while body parts were being hoisted from pits by reverent bucket brigades. All we clergy could do then was bless these 1st Class relics while praying and weeping with our heroes. Chaplains then escorted them in procession to their transport. Our eyes were caked with dried tears of gray mud.*** Ears and hands became more instrumental than any words we could possible muster. Sharing the unabashed grief and rage of uniformed service men was one of the most effusive experiences I ever encountered. But priests are ordained to console, spiritually support and also be vented towards in whatever manner that may take. I "defused and debriefed" with my peers much later and in private so my PTSD was minimal. As horrific as it was, my strength and abreaction was given from God in "strangers" on side streets as usual and within those emotional and unified prayers while huddled around bits of human tissue. That was a healing catharsis for me. However, this isn't my story since I don't really have one that fateful day.

... Meanwhile, across the East River in NYC, a brother ORC archpriest was also putting himself into high gear. This is his first hand story, "The Sentinels", as he immediately responded to the various Sept. 11th emergency scenes -- his full account of that event and the aftermath being in two parts.

A much edited version was first published in the New Perspectives quarterly journal of the ORCC. However, I am republishing it "raw" -- unabridged and unedited as Father Roger first wrote and intended it soon after 9-11. (Copyright 2001)

* Our national sacrifices in WW III began eight years earlier on Feb. 26, 1993 when the WTC was first bombed here in NYC. Last Wednesday our American KIA roster in Iraq tolled 1,000 troops in our response against international Islamist imperialism. They started it here . We will finish it there.

** Unbeknownst to us, our mutual friend and associate, Father Mychal Judge, O.F.M., the WTC "Victim No. One", was already felled in action, not that it would have dissuaded any of us. His stronger FDNY chaplain's helmet made him better visible, but still vulnerable.

*** Weeks later, while descending "The Pile" on Oct. 4th, my blind right eye failed to notice a loaded NYPD van approaching from that side. It rolled over my right foot and threw me to the ground. The horrified Catholic cops were aghast that a priest was hit. Like a Feast Day sign from St. Francis of Assisi, a large cadaver dog ran up and sniffed my face. I began to pet it before his police handler warned me not to interfere with its scent. Anyway, I stood and brushed myself off while declining their unnecessary offers of medical attention. It was while later limping home via the tubes that I noticed my toes were broken. Although they later healed, I was apprehensive to return to duty there anymore since I didn't divulge my blindness to anyone lest I be denied entry to that core site or any future one. My reckless fault: not theirs.

THE CROSS IN THE RUBBLE (Atop this page) : Discovered two days after 9-11, the 20-foot steel I-beam cross found in the World Trade Center wreckage was a potent symbol of hope for rescue workers dragging bodies and human remains from the rubble. Priests said Holy Mass in its shadow. American Atheists, a group that claims to represent the interests of America’s “nonbelievers” has charged that incorporating the WTC Cross into a taxpayer-funded September 11 memorial at Ground Zero “would violate the separation of Church and State….” Last year's commemoration ceremony there focused on the children who lost loved ones; this year's ceremony will focus on parents and/or grandparents.

A PRIEST REMEMBERS 9-11

Rev. Msgr. Roger Fawcett, S.T.L., author of the 9-11 recollections BELOW; a priest for 17 years and renowned NYC actor, playwright and spiritual retreat master, is the pastor of Christ The King Old Roman Catholic Church in Midtown Manhattan.

He also serves as Vice President of St. Anthony's Bread Mission Apostolate. His Parish celebrates the English Vernacular Tridentine Liturgy ("1962 Missal Dialogue Mass") every Sunday at 1:30 P.M. at the Catholic Church on 343 West 25th Street (at 9th Avenue). He can be reached at RFAWCETT@skadden.com or via (212) 691-9587.

"The Sentinels" By Msgr. Roger Fawcett

I don't think I can remember a more beautiful morning in New York. Everyone here has said so: weather wise it was perfect. The sun was bright and glistening; the air, all cleaned up in recent years, without the grit and grime that in previous decades made hordes of tourists call this town "dirty old New York." It was, for want of a better cliché, sparkling; and there was just a mild hint in the air of autumn on its way. I thought of the half-century's worth of autumns in New York that I've known and had to admit -- this was one of the best. But that was all out my bedroom window in Greenwich Village, from my cozy little apartment, my home of thirty years. I'd just been in a dead sleep fifteen minutes earlier. Something seemed to grip my unconscious, though, and I awoke without the usual beep-beep of my Tiffany's alarm (a gift, I assure you).

But then it happened. All that hell had to offer was here. Here. This was, you see, September 11, 2001, and my neighbor of many years, Adolfo Simonetti, was trying to rouse me by ringing the bell and then calling on the phone. "God, Roger, are you aware that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center?" " What? Are you kidding?" "Turn the TV on, for God's sake ... " "I'll get back to you ..." and with that I hit the switch and got a fuzzy CBS -- and that's all I got (because the relay antenna -- for all of New York -- was atop the World Trade Center... I didn't quite put that together yet) ... The phone rang again ... More friends, crying, some screaming. "Father! What will we do?" Ah, some folks still think the Roman collar brings with it all the answers! And there was Dan Rather, really looking worried, and then I got the gist of what was going on .. then, if hell hadn't been enough -- a deeper, more ferocious pit in the Inferno. Incredibly, unbelievably, the second tower -- and then the buildings beginning their fall to earth. And here I am in my little apartment, less than a mile from "ground zero" -- and wondering if I'd live to see tomorrow. Well, that feeling is somewhat still with every New Yorker -- it just won't go away. We leave our homes -- and we wonder ...

But that morning, I had to move fast. Directly across the street from my home, on Seventh Avenue South, in the very heart of the historical district in Greenwich Village, is the famous St. Vincent's Hospital -- the original, the one actually appointed by St. Elizabeth Bailey Seton's good Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul and staffed by them since 1848 ... It was Edna St. Vincent Millay who got her middle name because an uncle of hers, 'way back when, got himself into a pickle -- literally -- when he was himself pickled and trapped in some bales of cotton down there on the waterfront and it was those good Sisters in their widows' weeds and bonnets who nursed him back to health. Edna's mom and pop were apparently so grateful, they gave their newborn -- the poetess herself -- the "St." appellation and it lasted. There are folk tales, of course that have insisted that old Edna was born there, and that's how she was named after the august institution; but evidently they aren't true.

Out my kitchen window I could see the commotion, and the huge skeletal cranes with their antennae on top, indicating that the networks and their news hawks had arrived ... This was serious. This was -- and now I got a somewhat better picture on my Channel 2 reporting -- this was calamitous.

The horror unfolded, but I couldn't stay much longer with the television. A quick shower -- If I was going to meet Armageddon, I was going clean. And a pot of coffee in my Melita carafe ... I go nowhere and I begin nothing without a mug of java -- wow, there's a word that had nothing to do with computers when I first heard it ... (funny the thought processes you have when you're in utter confusion), but coffee it was and a shower -- a very quick one.

After all, I am a priest. A man of God. Ordained. My life, as they promise in times like these, flew before my eyes though, as I wondered if this were the end of the world -- little did I know it was the end of the world I knew and loved -- for I'd seen those Towers, those glorious gates-of-the world's greatest city, that said "welcome to New York" -- along with "Our Lady of the Harbor", to millions and millions. The Lady, a gift from the people of France to the people of America, for over a hundred years -- and the two glistening towers for a mere thirty-or-so ... And now it occurred to me -- what I'd never given a thought to before -- that I could remember, as they say, "as if it were yesterday" when those two gigantic glass "boxes" went up. New Yorkers have some very viable landmarks by which we mark the passages of our lives -- and many of those landmarks are Landmarks! So I remembered the young man I once was ... and I remembered my small waist (of all things) and my brown hair and the fact that -- when those towers were going up -- I was in a space that if you'd told me, "one day you'll be celebrating the Holy Sacrifice for a congregation in midtown Manhattan ..." I'd've told you that there were comfy asylums for guys like you!

I was the young, arrogant, "Mr. Broadway" then. It was heady and the greatest of fun; it was a life in the theatre. Broadway, Off-Broadway, road shows, commercials, soap operas, the glamour, Sardi's, "21", the Tony Awards dinners, opening nights, limos and big stars of Hollywood and New York, reviews after openings -- and we had seven dailies then ... I was, as a director friend used to say, singin' and dancin' a ragtime tune! And wherever those thirty years went, they were gone -- and so's the waistline and the dark brown hair ... but then I was back -- pulled back -- it was Dan's voice -- Dan Rather ... almost looking like he was going to lose it ... Hang on, Dan, don't fall apart. We need you. You're Uncle Walter's spiritual son, for God's sake! And I was, sadly, back in the present, in my apartment, drying off, calm, strangely calm, but less than a mile from Ground Zero. I took hold of myself.

You're a priest, Roger, remember? They need you. Look out the window again. St. Vincent's. So I quickly gulped down the mugs of steaming black coffee and dried off that tortured, plump body and found a clerical shirt. I started buttoning from the bottom as I always have, and realized I hadn't lined the damn things up right -- nerves, nerves. Never a recipient of the "Mr. Housekeeper of the Year" award, I started -- very unpriestly-like -- to curse like a drunken sailor ... Where was the pocket Collectio Rituum? Where the holy oils? a portable stole? Luckily (luckily?) I found them all, as I pushed my way into my clericals ... Now the nerves were starting to work on me. My God, dear God, -- holy, merciful God -- this could be it ... we might be leaving here -- and I mean LEAVING ... I remembered the reserved Sacred Hosts which I had in a locked little tabernacle in my bedroom. I fumbled with shaking hands, found the right key, and opened the little chamber. I must've made the fastest genuflexion on record; there were four Particles of the Body of my precious Christ. I could not leave them in the apartment. So I quickly -- and as reverently as possible for a man racing faster than a race horse now -- consumed them and made a very very quick prayer.

Now -- quickly -- down to the street, down to Waverly Place and to the corner of my block ... a corner where I have stood each day for thirty years ... what a wonderful, exciting place it's been -- and what a blessed life I've had -- I have -- for on the corner of Seventh avenue and 11th Street, every day for all those years, I've begun each day there -- I've looked north and, even from so far away, I could see the twinkling lights of Times Square and the tops of some of its better-known buildings. And when I looked to the south -- ah, there they were, always there for me -- the two Beacons, the two sentinels.

[Continued BELOW...]

"The Sentinels" (Continued...) -- Pt. 2

So I raced down those steps that awful September 11th morning and... and... Oh, my God -- ohmyGod, ohmyGod ... they were ablaze like no fire anyone in America has ever seen. What on earth was it? An atomic bomb? The anti-Christ? (well, yes, I was later to come to the conclusion -- and am still of the opinion -- that he is indeed here -- but that's a discussion for another time; a theological one) -- My God, all we could exclaim was a plaintive calling on the Holy One ...

I couldn't believe my eyes ... the horror ... None of us who were there (and I was to be there at Ground Zero within the first 24 hours of this calamity) ... none of us who were in the City or who looked upon the horror -- no one seems to be able to find adequate words to describe for you what that looked like. And for those of us who knew New York before those Towers -- and during those Towers -- and now, watching them, seeing what appeared to be pieces of building flying off those towers -- but we would later find out -- oh, dear heaven, those are human beings -- and they are making the choice to jump to their deaths rather than roast ... Who could've done something so evil? Who could imagine something so hideous? For, this early on that Tuesday morning, we knew this was not an accident ... and the second plane was all we needed to know that ... and here I was, my home only yards behind me, and only walking distance from those clouds of burning fuel! Those clouds of burning carnage, of pulverized cement, stone, humanity, causing clouds of soot and flame taller than most of the skyscrapers I'd grown up with! I could only think, thank God I consumed the Blessed Sacrament ...

But then, across the street, I saw the crowds and the medical people in front of "St. V's". There were the ambulances lined up like soldiers from all over the city, and the gurneys, the wheelchairs, and -- wow! -- they'd even taken out office chairs -- all in anticipation of hordes of patients, victims of this holocaust, this twisted, misguided burnt offering. And there were the reporters, the television cameras, the lot of them -- all of New York seemed to come out for this -- all of New York seemed to be quaking, shaking, frightened of what might be happening, of what might happen next. I approached the police stanchion at the corner of 11th. A man wearing gold -- shield, buttons, insignia ... a captain, perhaps. "Go right through, Father," this tall, gray and exceptionally young looking cop said with the closest thing he could muster into looking like a smile. And so there I was suddenly being handed rubber gloves, a mask.

Suddenly limousines and armored cars came swerving to that intersection and our now legendary, (Mayor) Rudolf Giuliani suddenly was in our midst. Another limo. Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York was suddenly there with only one monsignor serving him -- his faithful secretary -- but he, His Eminence, without the fanfare of his exalted office -- just joined the rest of us -- priests, rabbis, ministers and the doctors, the volunteers, the nurses, Sister Mary. Sister Alberta, the wonderful Polish nun who'd shared so many moments with me inside that hospital, as we served God's loved ones over the years.

The AIDS folks, for example, who'd ask you one day, "Hey, Father, when you come tomorrow, would you bring me some cigs and a couple Mounds bars?" And you'd come back the next day and the bed would be empty and the kid would've left for the Father's house. And Sr. Alberta was such a rock to me when those times came, early on in my career -- and here she was, staring like I was -- looking "downtown" -- waiting for the ambulances. And every once in a great while, there'd be one -- with one fireman or two -- some severely burned ... within that first hour, I saw one of those "boys" die just as they'd lowered the gurney off the ambulance ... and I pushed my way to him, but they didn't know what the contamination level was, so they kind of held me back -- and I had to "anoint" the corner of the sheet they'd shrouded him with ... God understands, I had no doubt.

And the Cardinal, looking for all the world like a simple parish priest, with oil stock in hand and violet stole in place -- like the rest of us -- waited for someone, anyone, who might need the suffrage of a priest. He watched us, though. He didn't reach the height he has for nothing. He's a bishop, I thought, he knows everything that's happening! And he came to two of us -- my friend and colleague, Fr. Richard Weinkauf and me -- and embraced each of us in turn with the word, "Good work, Father." That day, he and Rudy entered a new chamber in my personal Hall of Fame ...

All that day, the next and the next and the next -- in fact, that whole week, I thought might soon become a blur .... On the contrary: it has burned into my soul the most vivid memories I think I will ever have ... It was the week the world stood still. It was the week that the Homeland was violated ... the week that cries to heaven for mercy ...

That first day, Fr. Richard and I and a priest we "picked up along the way", Fr. Damien, who assured me he was not a leper, stood there with all the medics -- waiting, waiting. We spent many unbelievable hours tending to the "walking wounded," because contrary to the talking heads, there were many at St. V's who were civilians and were brought after escaping the falling inferno. It was the eyes at first. That look of shock that is unmistakable and that pulls at the heart -- that makes you feel sorrow for the one who is in that place, mostly because you know, you know how much it's going to hurt when they come out of it ... So many different stories ... the one's who got away were a really assorted lot ... but New Yorkers all. Like the security guard who'd been sitting on the ground level of Building One and because of the implosion, was thrown through a plate glass window completely across the street without a scratch on him. But, wow, the guy was out there, may God bless him wherever he is. There were those we could only feed fruit salad to, because they just couldn't handle anything more -- and the sugar kept them from "going under."

Then I turned around and there in the midst of the chaos in the ground level of St. V's was an old friend, Fr. Chris Keenan, o.f.m., of the community of Franciscans who run St. Francis' church in midtown -- an oasis for generations and generations for almost all the Catholics -- and many others -- in New York ... Even as ruffians in Brooklyn, when you wanted to get an "easy absolution", it was St. Francis' to the rescue. Good Father Chris, doing miracles all over the place, hugging people, loving them out of shock, a bowl of fruit salad in one arm and that Irish smile that could melt a traffic cop ... He saw me and came over with a hug ... then he gave me the shocking, almost unbearable news: his brother in the order, another old friend -- of all of us -- the celebrated Fire Chaplain of New York's firefighters, the beloved Mychal Judge, o.f.m., has been killed a short while before ... Oh, God, not Mychal ... not that hero of legend . .. but, yeah, he was out there giving one of his beloved fire boys the Last Rites of Holy Mother Church (and, yes, I know, we're now not supposed to call it that -- it's the Sacrament of the Sick -- but in this instance ... it was very last rites!) when a piece of that building that those who hate had destroyed took this gentle, loving, godly man -- a martyr not only for the faith but for his beloved city and his beloved fire guys ... The picture of him, dead, being carried out like Christ to the tomb of Joseph of Aramathea, was a pieta for the world to see ... a reminder that those who follow Christ are really and truly asked to follow him to Calvary ... And these enemies of my country and yours, they claim they do this in the Name of God ... Not my God, Taliban boys!! Not my God!! See, I've got a God who loves! And an evangelist who tells me in three little words what God is -- I'm talking about St. John, Taliban-boys, St. John who says very simply: "God is Love ...'

But, thank that God, we, Richard and I, really didn't have time to mourn much ... We were needed at the impromptu "family center" -- over there at the New School University -- long before the "professionals" took over and placed it uptown. Hey, God, you know how much I love You -- Please, please, give me words -- any words -- to say to the frightened, shocked and bereft who are streaming in with pictures of the "missing" -- their beloved wives, lovers, husbands, children ... What to say to a man my age, looking for his 30 year old "boy"? How can I tell him that the son he adored is gone forever? and on it went through the evening ... until my feet were numb just like my head ... and somehow I lost Fr. Richard ... but later found out that he and Fr. Damien hitched a ride to Ground Zero. I went back to St. Vincent's, though, to see whatever else I could do ...

A city in shock -- in horror ... All I could do after that day was fall into my bed ... Then, then I allowed myself the cry of a lifetime ....

There was no sleeping through Tiffany's beep-beep the next morning ... so I raced to meet Richard and Damian at good old St. V's -- By now, we knew that our country, our city, and civilization -- all of us -- had been victims of a kind of viciousness, a hatred, we will never be able to understand ...

This time, however, we were able to leave the hordes of newsmen hanging out at the hospital around the clock -- even though, for just a moment I was called over by Joe Torres of Eyewitness News and asked for an interview ... It must've been the quickest one on record, because in minutes I was on a mini-bus with my priestly pals, two cops and a couple of docs, resting on some relief bottles of water and a few oxygen tanks ... Hope nobody lights up a ciggie, I thought ... but then again, what the hell's the difference? We're visiting Armageddon anyway ...


.... Down Seventh Avenue we sped ... through streets I was as familiar with as I was with the sound of my own voice, the back of my own hand. And suddenly -- it took the breath out of you, it made you feel like you got a belt in the chops ... there it was -- oh, man, and when I think of it today, I'm so miserably aware of why no one can describe it. Imagine the end of the world, with a blizzard of ash, cinder, debris swirling around you ... and then -- oh, dear Holy Mary Mother of God -- the 100 foot mountains of ash, the debris, the bodies in bags -- the pieces of bodies in bags -- everything, every-goddamn-thing covered in mountains of ash -- and a gigantic hole in the sky ...

We did simple things ... we washed out the eyes of the firemen with saline solution -- and they were grateful ... and we gave them some water and an apple and some orange juice ... and they were like these massive little boys (and a few girls, I should add) who were having their faces and eyes washed by these old men in Roman collars, covered in gray ash and mud, just hoping, praying they could be of some service -- Hoping we could do what our Boss would've done ... And he would've wept too ... There were the very rare moments of lightening it up ... One big, handsome Irish boy with eyes as blue as your backyard pool, got to my "station" and I was privileged to clean that singular face which I can see now, and which I will never forget, with a little white towel, and flush those blue pools out with some solution, and I couldn't stand it another minute. "Oh, my God, man ..." "What, Father, what?" "Oh, man, I don't know how it happened ... must've been the saline solution ... " "What, Father, come on, what's happening?" "Well, it's your eyes, they're ... they're crossed!" The look on his face -- this kid who'd just come out of hell and carried people to life -- these kids saved maybe 25,000 people down there -- well, he just looked at me with all this belief that a good Irish Catholic boy brings to a relationship -- even of one minute or so -- with a priest. And then he realized I was having him -- and that face beamed, "Oh, Father, you're a piece of work ..."

I'll remember that forever because at the end of the week, I was honored to participate in Mike Judge's funeral ... and when I left the church, I went to see "Mike's Firehouse" -- only Mike could have his fire house directly across the street from his church and his monastery. And after looking at the makeshift shrine to Mike and that wonderful picture that has been seen by the whole world ... there it was ... a picture of that boy -- at least I was certain it was. But I was at the "site" on the second day ... Weren't those kids all out of harm's way by then? I can't remember his name, but I am quite sure it was him ... Our moment together may have been one of the last of his young life ...

And I'm so grateful to God -- before he went on, went back down into that pit -- he asked, as all good Catholic boys do, for my blessing (which we all know is not my blessing, but the priest blesses in the Name of his Master) -- and I gave it -- and then, strangely, he asked me to anoint him -- and I make a quick cross on that broad forehead ... and I wished him everything good ... he's somewhere in the Heart of God now and there's a New York mourning him and 4,000+ others -- all of whom were loved in life -- and might be loved even more in death ... But I keep hoping I'm wrong -- that it was not that face I saw in that picture ...

We spent some more hours there at Ground Zero. We had to run like hell once because it looked like One Liberty Plaza was going to fall on our heads ... and I never saw three decrepit old padres -- one bearded, one on a cane, and one on feet whose arches collapsed a long time ago ... run like hell -- Sorry, no building's falling on these three old padres today -- you've already taken a priest -- leave us alone ... And I know my heart will never again be the same -- and yet somehow I know that -- and don't ask me how it can be, because I don't know how He works ... but somehow I have 3,000+ new friends who walk with me and protect me in a way I've never known before.

UTRECHT KILLS BABIES!

UTRECHT KILLS BABIES!
WHERE ARE OUR BISHOPS?

"Your Hands made me and fashioned me;
give me insight to learn Your Commands."
(Psalms 119:73.)

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
Before you were born, I dedicated you.
A prophet to the nations, I appointed you."
(Jeremiah 1:5.)

....Jesus said,
"Let the children come to Me, and do not prevent them;
for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
(Matthew 19:14.)

There are six things The LORD hates,
yes, seven are an abomination to Him;
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood;
(Prov. 6:16-17.)


"Seek not death in the error of your life,
neither procure ye destruction by the works of your hands.
For God made not death,
neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living."
(Wisdom 1:12-13.)

"You shall not kill!"
(Exodus 20:13.)

"Your Hands have formed me and fashioned me;
will You then turn and destroy me?

Oh, remember that You fashioned me from clay!
Will You then bring me down to dust again?

Did You not pour me out as milk,
and thicken me like cheese?

With Skin and flesh You clothed me,
with bones and sinews You knit me together.

Grace and favor You granted me,
and Your Providence has preserved my spirit."
(Job 10:8-12.)

Dutch Euthanasia

from
Archpriest Anthony Augustine

The "pro-choice" camps promised that this would never happen, but it finally did... A week ago, the Netherlands legalized the euthanasia of children. On Aug. 30, the Dutch judiciary allowed Groningen's University Hospital to induce the death of children under 12, including newborns, when they are suffering from incurable sicknesses or enduring unbearable suffering.

To date, we have yet to see or hear of even one of our Utrechian-rooted bishops issue a pastoral letter on this ontological and deontological contradiction of bioethics and/or react in any way. Their loud SILENCE is deafening!

[The Dutch parliament legalized euthanasia November 2000. A 2002 law regulated the practice of euthanasia in that country. Belgium and Switzerland also condone euthanasia. In the United States, Oregon state law permits assisted suicide. Last week a bill to permit euthanasia was introduced in the UK Parliament.]

Therefore, this Old Roman Catholic archpriest calls upon ALL our "independent" bishops who hold a common Apostolic Succession via the Dutch Catholic Episcopacy of Utrecht to end their loud silence and speak out as one unified voice! Let all the sundry Old Catholic councils of bishops finally be heard and/or read. They must stand up as one organic body opposed to this new politically correct "contractualism" where ethics follows the majority. Inevitable, the liberals will soon be calling for this in our own land. Next we will have more "Dr. Kavorkians" and Irish Democrat "catholic" politicians boldly supporting such options and shamelessly approaching our altar rails and Communion lines.

Although human beings, as living bodily beings, possess connatural dignity just in virtue of their existence as human beings, secular modernists are devaluing human dignity by justifying infanticide and advocate the legitimacy of killing newborn infants who suffer from medical problems such as Down syndrome, etc. Their moral relativism maintains that killing is only wrong when the victim is a human person, and to be a person "an entity must be rational, self-conscious, aware of its own existence over time, able to communicate and so on."

Those who think that certain human beings possess no connatural dignity -- and acquire a kind of dignity only in virtue of developing the abilities to decide what is to count as worthwhile and to choose accordingly -- also include a large number of human beings who to them seem to appear to lack dignity: the embryo and the fetus, infants, those suffering from mental impairments, many of the comatose and those whose intellectual abilities have been damaged through dementias. The characteristic secularist view of their lives is that they are disposable and/or utilitarian.

This is why secularists defend embryo experimentation, abortion, and non-voluntary euthanasia (induced either by poisoning or starvation) of the mentally immature or impaired. And since human beings in the earliest phases of their development are considered by them to lack intrinsic dignity, modes of generating them which treat them as manipulable products -- IVF, cloning, etc. -- are regarded as entirely acceptable. To them, procured abortion and euthanasia are misconstrued as acts of "compassion" toward the suffering.

The first and foundational human right is the right to life, and the first duty of the state is to protect that right by safeguarding the lives of its citizens. Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide would directly breach this duty because it would be legalizing intentional killing. It would radically undermine the moral and legal basis of society. From a Christian perspective it directly contravenes the Gospel imperative to love and care for our neighbor.

Our churches and "independent" clergy must speak out against instrumentalizing human beings. Our autocephalous bishops must finally condemn the non-therapeutic experimentation on non-consenting subjects. They must affirm that human beings should not be generated in ways which treat them as products, only conditionally acceptable, depending on the desires of others. They seem content to leave it to our present U.S. President to speak out against such evils. Therefore, I respectfully petition our various Old Catholic and Old Roman Catholic bishops and clergy to immediately include this issue on their pastoral teaching agendas and give it their highest priority.