Dear Editor: I just had the opportunity to read the Tablet from Aug.17, and was struck by the article by Christopher White (“Going Beyond Guns,” Aug. 17) examining the factors motivating gun violence in the U.S.
I felt compelled to respond to what I just read, because there is not one mention with respect to the most obvious reason — our culture’s utter degradation of human life. As long as we, as a culture continue to welcome and embrace the destruction of the most innocent life, in the womb, we will continue to witness the unraveling of any respect for any life that follows.
All that we are witnessing today is a direct result of society’s refusal to recognize that man does not “create’ life, we are not the arbiters of who lives, and who dies.
We have turned away from the Truth that should be apparent to each of us, and we are suffering because of it. Our churches, our schools, our governments, and parents, are utterly failing in their obligation to instill a moral “compass” in our young.
The inherent dignity and value of the human person is not explained, and our young are bombarded with constant reminders of all the unrealistic “achievements” that society dictates. When they “fail,” according to modern standards, life can become absolutely without meaning or worth.
We are being lead down a path to darkness, and too many are so blinded, that they apparently cannot, nor will not, lift the veil from their eyes.
It seems that every possible reason is evaluated, the most popular of which, is to “blame” the guns. Ironically, in the daily Mass readings for Aug. 27, the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus says: “… Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel…..Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside may also be clean….”
Abortion has claimed the lives of countless innocents, millions of children, yet no guns are responsible. Let us start valuing life at the beginning, and perhaps, once we “cleanse first the inside of the cup,” the outside may also be clean.
Pamela Menera
Douglaston
Editor’s note: The writer could see both abortion and gun violence as expressions of the culture of death, instead of seeing one as the direct cause of the other.