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Editorial: Deadly School Shootings, Senator Obama and the Epidemic of Violence
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The horrible violence which occurred at Northern Illinois University is a part of what Barrack Obama rightly labeled an "epidemic of violence." Where does it begin? How can we end its growing impact?
Highlights
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
2/15/2008 (1 decade ago)
Published in Politics & Policy
LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - Like most of the Nation, I watched with horror as the news came of one more deadly shooting in the formerly tranquil environment of a rural College campus.
This time it was not Virginia Tech in my own self chosen home of Virginia. Rather, it was Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, a rural area about 65 miles outside of Chicago. It is the place of study of more than 25,000 students.
A gunman entered a crowded lecture hall and began to fire, killing and maiming the innocent until he turned the gun on himself.
The fatality count is now up to seven. The injured still struggle to recover. Families and friends grieve. A Nation mourns.
In an eerie turn, the campus spokespersons disclosed that the rural campus had been closed for a day in December after graffiti was found on a restroom wall warning of just such an event and making reference to the shooting in Blacksburg.
As I watched the reports, I thought of my own children, and now grandchildren. I grieved over what appears to be a growing climate of violence.
Then, I remembered a poignant expression I had heard from one of the most gifted orators of our age, the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President, Barrack Obama. Last year, in the beginning of his historic campaign for the Presidency, he told a congregation of Christians that,as a Nation, we are suffering from an "Epidemic of violence."
He is right.
I then remembered the speech as I reflected on this horrible tragedy on one more American College campus. It was given on the Lord's Day, Sunday, July 15, 2007. It was so eloquently delivered that here,months later, I have never forgotten it.
Clearly, Senator Barrack Obama, is one of the most gifted political personalities in recent American history. His speeches, throughout this entire election campaign have proven this to be a fact. He has captured the heart of so many.
At a time when the presumptive Republican nominee speaks of American troops possibly spending a hundred more years in Iraq, this bright, young, eloquent and dynamic candidate of the Democratic Party speaks of hope and promises to end our "epidemic of violence."
No wonder his popularity is surging.
On that day in April he stood before a congregation of concerned Christians on Chicago's South Side at the Vernon Church of God. Members of this inner city Church are certainly quite familiar with the malady that the Presidential contender addressed.
Included in their midst were mothers and fathers who have mourned the loss of their beloved children, brothers and sisters who have lost their closest friends and grandparents whose hearts ache for what might have been.
I could picture many sitting on the edge of their seat, eager to hear a message with meaning from this man who has captured more enthusiasm among the young, than any candidate I have witnessed since Robert F Kennedy. The presidential candidate spoke of what he called a "...sickening the soul of this nation", an "epidemic of violence" noting with great grief that three dozen children had been killed just that year.
The Senator, with his deep resonant voice, clearly made for political discourse, continued "...From South Central L.A. to Newark, New Jersey, there's an epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation...The violence is unacceptable and it's got to stop."
He sought to rally the faithful to join a crusade to end the violence, passionately proclaiming in that marvelous message, "...We need to express our collective anger through collective action."
He called for a ban on assault weapons and revisions to regulations which allow unscrupulous firearms dealers to fuel the flames by selling weapons to those who should not be able to purchase them.
He called more public funds for after school programs offering alternatives to kids who have entered into the culture of violence that has been unleashed on our urban streets.
He challenged parents to take more responsibility, along with the community, for the "at risk" children in their homes and to join together to reach out to the whole community.
This popular Presidential candidate then continued with a sobering assessment:"...We have an entire generation of young men in our society who have become products of violence, and we are going to have to break the cycle... There are too many young men out there who have gone down the wrong path."
Later as he concluded this well received message he offered the following insight "...There's a reason they go out and shoot each other, because they don't love themselves. And the reason they don't love themselves is because we are not loving them enough."
I believe it is entirely possible, many months later, that the one who spoke that message on that Sunday will be the next President of the United States. The campaign he has run has produced memorable political discourse. It could very possibly lead his candidacy to victory and make American Political history.
I can easily imagine my grandchildren studying his speeches in school in the near future.
He is that good, of a speaker.
Personally, I believe that Senator Obama is sincere. As a political observer and activist I see more political talent per pound in him than anyone I have seen on the American political landscape for many years. He rouses crowds and touches the hearts of the young in ways that remind me of my own youth and entry into what has become a life long commitment to the struggle for authentic social justice.
Of course, there are many issues with which I disagree with him. However, the major problem I have with ever supporting his candidacy is that he suffers from the same night blindness which has afflicted so many politicians in both major political parties in America.
He fails to see the real roots of this "epidemic of violence". He hears only selective cries from certain poor and disregards the cries of those whom a wonderful, holy woman once called "the poorest of the poor", children in the first home of the whole human race, their mothers womb.
The cries of the children in the womb do not seem to concern the Senator. All one has to do is look at his record and his words concerning his unequivocal support for the so called "Abortion Right." He simply turns a deaf ear to children in the womb. Yet, it is those children, our first neighbors, who have suffered the most from the very epidemic of violence he bemoans.
This serious foundational failure has blinded him to seeing the full picture, in order to assess the root causes of this "epidemic of violence." It will also impede his ability to effect the change he champions on many fronts.
Only by digging up the root of the "epidemic of violence" can any candidate help this Nation to till the soil of rebirth and plant the very seeds of hope which Senator Obama is trying to sow.
In 1994, at a National Prayer Breakfast, in the presence of then President Clinton, (the other Democratic candidates' husband), Mother Theresa, (now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta) addressed the root cause of this epidemic of violence. Speaking at a large podium where her small stature could barely be seen, she spoke these words:
"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion?
As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts... her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.
And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So, abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion".
I now address a sincere, heartfelt message to the frontrunner for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party:
"Senator Obama, like so many other Americans, I share your concern over this epidemic of violence. How I wish I could actually support you in your crusade.
Your youth, your manner, even some of your positions, are quite appealing to me. The tragic events which occurred on the campus of Northern Illinois University make it all so painfully obvious. You are correct. There is an epidemic of violence in this land which we all love.
However, your selective concern for only some of the poor currently precludes my supporting you. There is a horrid violence being perpetrated on our youngest children in the one place that was once the safest of sanctuaries, the womb. They are being killed by "surgical strikes", chemical weapons and the cruelest forms of "acceptable" torture.
All the while, these acts of war on the womb are not only protected by the positive law but are affirmed as a "right" by you and the platform of the Party you represent. Oh, I know there are many in that Party who are sincerely pro-life. However, the party that was once the voice of the poor has forgotten an entire class of persons, children in the womb.
You and I both know this is wrong.
This "epidemic of violence" you rightly address begins in the womb and has been given cover by the actions of unelected Justices who created out of whole cloth a "penumbra" in which they found a so called "right" to take innocent human life. To date, close to fifty million future students have now been killed in the bloody wake of the Roe v Wade decision.
Please, Senator Obama, you appear to be a man who sincerely cares about the poor and the disenfranchised. The children in the womb have no voice. Will you become their voice?
That "epidemic of violence" you rightly addressed in that message last year begins in the womb! So too the "empathy deficit" you have rightly addressed in this campaign finds its origin in our failure to recognize that the child in the womb, along with the disabled, and our elderly, are all our neighbors. We have an obligation in solidarity to care for them, to give them what my Church calls a love of preference.
Yes, you are right. There is an epidemic of violence. There is also an empathy deficit. However, in each case, the most vulnerable are its first victims, the ones who reside where we all resided when this great gift of life began.
There, in the first home of the whole human race, the first sanctuary of the womb, children are brutally killed by those more powerful than they are with weapons that are crafted from what were former implements of healing.
These victims cannot even be heard in their resistance, their cries are muffled by the living walls of their home. Is it any wonder that the people who never even got to know them have grown callous? This is a culture that calls this first act violence a constitutional right?
Senator, stop and think about what you are saying. Pray to the Author of Life and the God who hears the cry of all of the poor. I accept your witness that you believe in Him.
In the aftermath of the senseless killing on another College campus, will you rise to the moment? Will you consider the source of the epidemic? Will you hear the cry of all of the poor, including the unborn?
Include in your concern this group of the "poorest of the poor" and I might even reconsider my current decision to not support your campaign."
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