Rise up and banish the evil in our land

THE EDITOR: Recent events in our nation indicate that we are spiralling ever deeper into the ‘Culture of Death’ as John Paul II calls it. 1) Increasing lack of moral integrity and leadership in private and public life. 2) Increasing loss of religious faith, personal spirituality and high ideals. 3)Increasing divorce and break-down of marriage and family life. 4) Increasing sexual freedoms causing promiscuity, disease, and even death. 5)Increasing problem families, adults and youths. 6)Increasing drug abuse and the violence and murders associated with it. 7) Increasing break down of law and order in private and public life. 8) Increasing pressure on the State to do something about it while most of us do nothing about it except talk. 9)Increasing pressure on the State to treat as rights’ what used to be considered as ‘crimes’ until very recently.

In this last category there is the group ASPIRE who are insisting that abortion should be legalised in TT because it is the right of poor women to have legal access to State abortions since rich women because of their money already have access to illegal abortions and are flouting the law. ASPIRE does not equate terminating a pregnancy with murder, they consider it a right. Furthermore, they are telling the State that it will cost less money to legalise abortion and prevent the cost of the medical complications of back street abortions being treated already in State hospitals, when in fact all the figures show that the costs to the State increase after abortion is legalised since there are many more abortions as they become legal. (In the USA 43,000,000 abortions since Roe vs Wade).

Currently there is the group AYSRHR (Advocates for Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights) who are openly distributing condoms outside some of our schools. This is causing embarrassment on the part of the State and an uproar among students, teachers and parents. You will notice that AYSRHR even have the word ‘rights’ enshrined in their name and so of course they consider it their right to distribute the condoms and that it is the right of the youths to receive them. Currently also there are those in our State who consider it their right to kidnap members of our society for ransom, and even now our children, who are among the weakest and most vulnerable of our society. These people are taking advantage of the fact that because these little ones are so loved by us, then we will be prepared to pay more money for their release. So now it seems, more love equals more money. This is the ‘Culture of Death’ in everything.

These are not political issues; these are not social issues. This is a spiritual battle with a spiritual dimension. This is a battle for the soul of our nation. Our last President told us in 1990 how to behave in these circumstances when he said: “Attack with full force.” The IRO and all religious groups with all their members should join together to attack these evils in our nation of TT so that we may banish some hatred, injustice, poverty and suffering and save the soul of our nation from the ‘Culture of Death.’ St Paul said; “With God on our side, who can be against us?” And recently John-Paul II has said: “Here though we shall concentrate particular attention on another category of attacks, affecting life in its earliest and in its final stages, attacks which present new characteristics with respect to the past and which raise questions of extraordinary seriousness.

It is not only that in generalised opinion these attacks tend no longer to be considered as ‘crimes’: paradoxically they assume the nature of ‘rights,’ to the point that the State is called upon to give them legal recognition and to make them available through the free services of health-care personnel. Such attacks strike human life at the time of its greatest frailty, when it lacks any means of self-defence. Even more serious is the fact that, most often, those attacks are carried out in the very heart of and with the complicity of the family — the family which by its nature is called to be the ‘sanctuary of life.’” For those Catholics and others who have left their faith, and those who ASPIRE claims have signed the Pro-Abortion petition to the Government of TT, I beg them to remember that Jesus said: “He that is not for me is against me.” Rise up and save your nation. Stop talking; do something. Organise yourselves; return to God who is ever loving and merciful and waiting with open arms for the return of His prodigal sons and daughters.

DR PETER GENTLE
Archdiocesan Family Life Commission
Chaguanas