Fr. Paul Schenck: 'The Imam was Wrong, The Imam was Right'

This past week, cable news and talk radio played a recording of the project's sponsor, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, in which he states that the US has more innocent Muslim blood on its hands than Al Quaeda has innocent non-Muslim blood on its hands. The statement was met with shock and outrage. How could the Imam claim that America is responsible for killing innocents?

P>HARRISBURG, PA (Fr. Paul Schenck) - The controversy still rages over the plan to build an Islamic cultural center, including a mosque, in a building damaged by the 9-11 attacks.

This past week, cable news and talk radio played a recording of the project's sponsor, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, in which he states that the US has more innocent Muslim blood on its hands than Al Quaeda has innocent non-Muslim blood on its hands. The statement was met with shock and outrage. How could the Imam claim that America is responsible for killing innocents? The victims on 9-11, as well as others throughout the world, were innocents, non-combatants, unwary bystanders deliberately and brutally murdered in an instant conflagration of impact, explosion and jet fuel. Others have died in a hail of nails, flack and stones at high velocity from a desperate and often deluded suicide bomber.

Imam Feisal was wrong, and right at the same time. He was wrong because he claimed that 500,000 children died as a result of US sanctions against Iran and Iraq. He claimed the UN had proof. Those numbers seem exaggerated, but I cannot prove that, just a hunch. Nevertheless, there is no moral equivalency between the mass murders of 9-11 and deaths that inadvertently resulted from measures designed to bring an end to a dictatorship's threats to world peace and repression of its own citizens, including children. It is always a tragedy when innocents die, but the intention of the sanctions was not to kill children, it was to protect innocents. If the sanctions were a failure, that does not retroactively transform an effort to protect life into an act of murder. Therefore, the Imam was wrong.

But when the Imam said that the US has more innocent blood on its hands than Al Qiada has on its, he was tragically, regretfully, and even shockingly, right. The US allows, funds and even encourages by law what no Muslim country does - the deliberate and brutal killing of her own innocent children before, during and after birth. Not only is this reprehensible crime against human life permitted, it is promoted by politicians and courts as a necessary component of the economy.

The most innocent, vulnerable and promising members of the community are regularly poisoned, burned, decapitated and suffocated inside and outside the womb. After they're dead, and sometimes before, they are cut to pieces and sent down the garbage disposal. Even though many are given a death certificate, they're routinely denied burial. This happens about 3,700 times a day in the USA. In addition, abortion injuries to women, sometimes causing their deaths, go unreported and are not prosecuted.

I know Imam Feisal, I have traveled in Muslim countries and I have spoken with Muslim people here and there. Abortion (forbidden by Muslim law for all but a threat to the mothers life), as well as our open practice of sexual abuse and disregard for modesty and chastity, scares them. Ancient cultures know there are dire consequences for sexual irresponsibility - abortion, sexual disease, and the suffering that results from adultery etc, is a real threat to common folk struggling to care for their families. The US foists a disregard for marriage and sexual irresponsibility on traditional cultures around the world by funding abortion promoters like planned parenthood. That threatens traditional cultures and lives.

So I'm sorry to say that my friend, Imam Feisal was wrong and right. Wrong - the sanctions were not designed to kill Muslim children, right, the US has more innocent blood on its hands than Al Quaeda.

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Fr. Paul Chaim Benedicta Schenck is a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg where he is Director of the Respect Life Office. A former Anglican minister, he was founding Director of the National Pro-Life Center on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC where he is now Chairman. Father Schenck was raised Jewish. He was baptized at 16 years old and was ordained in the evangelical and Anglican tradition. He and his family came to the Catholic Church in 2004. Today, he conducts pro-life ministry in three capital cities, Harrisburg, Annapolis and Washington, DC, as well as throughout the country.

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Fr. Paul Chaim Benedicta Schenck is a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg where he is Director of the Respect Life Office. A former Anglican minister, he was founding Director of the National Pro-Life Center on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC where he is now Chairman. Father Schenck was raised Jewish. He was baptized at 16 years old and was ordained in the evangelical and Anglican tradition. He and his family came to the Catholic Church in 2004. Today, he conducts pro-life ministry in three capital cities, Harrisburg, Annapolis and Washington, DC, as well as throughout the country.