The “Human Rights” of Chimpanzees

According to a recent article in the New York Times, a committee of the Spanish parliament last month voted to extend “limited rights to our closest biological relatives, the great apes — chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans,” in accordance with the precepts of the Great Ape Project. The proposal would make it illegal in Spain “to kill apes except in self-defense. Torture, including in medical experiments, and arbitrary imprisonment, including for circuses or films, would be forbidden.”

Pro-Life Prayer in Münster

Yesterday afternoon, I participated in a Gebetszug or prayer procession here in Münster called “1000 Crosses for Life”. Organized by Euro Pro Life (European Voice of the Unborn Children: “Protect our Life”), it was one in a series of prayer marches that have been held by the organization throughout Europe. Founded a year and half ago, the organizers travel from country to country, a large white van in tow that contains one thousand white crosses, each about a meter tall and made of 1x4’s, weighing about ten pounds each. Although I would estimate only about three hundred people showed up for yesterday’s march, each of us bore a cross in hand to form what the organizers called “a moving cemetery” of the innocents. Although the organization is international, it was founded in Germany, and the inspiration for the 1,000 crosses comes from the fact that, on average, 1,000 unborn children die in abortion clinics in Germany each day.

The mustering of the march began in front of the Aegidiikirche at around half past three, and by shortly before four o’clock, we were formed in three single-file columns, each with a cross on our shoulders and led by an icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe (afterwards, the head of the march explained that, although the event was ecumenical, this icon was chosen because it represents the pregnant Mary praying to her Son—thus making her the ideal protectress of the unborn). We were instructed not to engage in conversation with passersby (though there were certain young people whose task it was to hand out explanatory leaflets), for this was primarily a time for prayer.

We set out singing the hymn “O komm herab, du Heiliger Geist” (“O come upon us, Thou Holy Ghost”), aided by the excellent male and female voices that were broadcast over a series of loudspeakers distributed throughout the train. After this hymn, we recited the “Way of the Blood of Christ”; this devotion involves seven stations (1: The Lord shed His Blood at His Circumcision; 2: The Lord shed His Blood in Prayer on the Mount of Olives; 3: The Lord shed His Blood at the Scourging at the Pillar; 4: The Lord shed His Blood at the Crowning of Thorns; 5: The Lord shed His Blood on the Way of the Cross; 6: The Lord shed His Blood at His Crucifixion; 7: The Lord shed His Blood and Water when His Side was Pierced), each of which begins with a passage from scripture and a meditation. The first six stations are followed by the recitation five times of the Lord’s Prayer, while the last station has four “Our Fathers”: the 34 total “Our Fathers” represent the thirty-three years of Christ’s life and the one year of His unborn life in Mary’s womb. Finally, each station was closed by the “Glory be”, sung in German to the tune of “Amazing Grace”. As we finished this devotion, we arrived in front of the Lambertikirche, where we halted (above photo). A meditation on the work of Blessed Clemens August Kardinal von Galen was read over the loudspeakers; Bl. Clemens August was the Bishop of Münster from 1933 until his death in 1946, and was beatified under Pope John Paul II. His motto, Nec laudibus nec timore (“Neither because of praises nor because of fear”), exemplified his stand against the oppression of the Nazis in his own time, and has become a watchword for the stand against the injustice of abortion today.

As we continued from the Lambertikirche, we sang two antiphons, Laudate omnes gentes, laudate Dominum (Psalm 117: “O praise the Lord, all ye nations”) and Misericordias Domini in aeterno cantabo (Psalm 89(88): “My song shall be always of the mercy of the Lord”); and we concluded with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and a reprise of “O komm herab, du Heiliger Geist”. The entire procession took about two hours, winding its way throughout Münster and stopping up traffic at very points along the way. Most bystanders watched in respectful silence; some even joined us in reciting the Lord’s Prayer. A few teenagers and twenty-somethings either laughed at us or yelled at us about individual rights (the latter charge came from a group of punked-out homeless kids who routinely solicit money along the city’s streets).

Perhaps the most moving part of the experience, for me at least, was the little old lady who walked beside me the whole way. Though she must be in her seventies, she carted that cross the entire two hours, shuffling along with the rest of us, and never yielding to the oft-repeated offers to lighten her load. If the stiffness and aches in my limbs that greeted me when I awoke this morning are any indication, she truly bore her cross for Christ and for the unborn children yesterday.

At the end of the procession, which returned to the Aegidiikirche, the head organizer gave a short speech describing the efforts the group have undertaken in the past year, and inviting us to join them in their upcoming prayer marches throughout Europe. In addition to the events in Germany and Poland—yesterday’s march was cosponsored by “Adler”, a German-Polish youth group; I would estimate that up to a third of the marchers were of mixed stock, enough, at least, that one of the decades of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy was said in Polish—they have held marches in the Czech Republic and in Britain.

The lead organizer was especially keen to describe the march in London this past December 30, held to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in Great Britain. He traveled to London a few days before Christmas to make the final preparations, in which he was being aided by an English group called the Helpers of the Unborn Infants. They wanted to end the procession in front of Westminster Abbey; since they needed the cooperation of the Anglican Church for this, he needed to meet with the Dean of the Abbey. To the astonishment of all, within five minutes of arriving at the Abbey, he was in the Dean’s office being offered the complete cooperation of the Church of England. The Dean suggested that they finish the procession at the Memorial of the Innocents within the Abbey itself; when the chief organizer demurred, since this would require the hundreds of people to squeeze through the small side doors of the Abbey, the Dean had a ready solution. Thus, when the prayer march arrived at the Abbey on December 30, the uniformed guards of the Abbey solemnly opened its great front portal doors, the same doors through which Queen Elizabeth passed on the way to her coronation.

The power of this pro-life movement, however, far surpasses the abortion debate. After the march in London, an elderly English chap approached the German organizer (“he look a bit like Winston Churchill”) to express his thanks. “I’ve held a deep hatred against the Germans for a very long time,” the Englishman said. “They did some horrible things to me and to my family in the war. But today, during this march, that all changed. The hate melted away.” The Englishman then embraced the German, who was speechless and blurry-eyed.

If this movement, founded upon the Christ’s love for all humanity, including the unborn, can bring relief to the deep-seated prejudices of old, what power has it not? Dare we to hope that in this movement, the Orangemen and the Catholics in Northern Ireland might finally be able to come together in common to support the innocent lives of unborn children? Perhaps thus we can bring also the Serbs and Croats together?

Respecting Life in All Its Forms

In today’s issue of The Heights, Boston College’s student newspaper, Mr. Jon Sege, a member of the Global Justice Project (GJP), wrote an opinion column exploring the relationship between the university’s Catholic tradition and the GJP’s decision recently to protest the presence on campus of recruiters from the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC), a private company that contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense. The crux of Mr. Sege’s argument has to do with what he claims is the incongruity of allowing such recruiters on campus but denying access to abortion advocates.

While Mr. Sege has offered an eloquent and thought-provoking analysis of the implications of the right to life, his logic is nevertheless flawed in indicting abortion clinics and the U.S. military in the same breath.

The fact is that every one of the more than 1,000,000 children who were killed by abortion last year in the United States was an entirely innocent life, and as such, every one of their deaths was homicide. Hence, the practitioners of those homicides are morally culpable.

The U.S. military, on the other hand, derives the legitimate and moral authority from the lawful and sovereign government of the United States to defend the same. When they kill enemy combatants, they do so rightfully. Every fetus is innocent; the average enemy combatant is not. When innocent lives are lost in warfare, it is nevertheless a tragic injustice, and I have never yet met a soldier who contended otherwise. This is why the willful killing of innocent bystanders is punishable as homicide under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

When that loss of innocent life is, however, an unfortunate accident in the course of legitimate warfare, such moral culpability is not incurred, just as when someone dies in an auto accident that was truly an accident. We must also recognize that the enemy combatants we face in Iraq and Afghanistan often hide themselves among innocent people and use innocent civilians as “human shields”; hence, if anyone is to be held culpable for the deaths of innocents in such situations, it should be the cowardly enemy combatants, not the U.S. military.

Finally, while I am gladdened to see that Mr. Sege has recognized that Boston College’s Catholic tradition places a premium on the respect for all human life, I must unfortunately note that many members of the Global Justice Project do not share his views. One can often find links to Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups in their annual Freshman Disorientation Packet (go to page 32 and look under “women's liberation and women's rights”), and I have personally met GJP members who participate both in protests against the likes of Raytheon and JWAC, and in events put on by the Women’s Health Initiative that promote access to contraception and abortion. There was a time several years ago when the GJP and Boston College’s pro-life organizations were united in a Partnership for Life; I call on both sides to attempt to renew this partnership, to stand together in a commitment to promote life, and to make an unequivocal statement that we will not stand blithely by while the sanctity of innocent human life is violated, whether in the abortion clinic or on the streets of Baghdad.

It's still a human fetus

In an insightful and provocative story in this weekend’s issue, the New York Times Magazine examines the possible existence and extent of a fetus’ ability to suffer pain while in the womb. While approaching the topic initially from the perspective of fetal surgery (a fascinating and amazing example of the advance of medical technology), the article acknowledges and later examines the impact of the ability of a fetus to feel pain on the issue of legalized abortion. While I commend the entire article to my readers, I want to focus on an anecdote offered early in the article:

Most invasive of all is open fetal surgery, in which a pregnant woman’s uterus is cut open and the fetus exposed. Ray Paschall, an anesthesiologist at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, remembers one of the first times he provided anesthesia to the mother and minimally to the fetus in an open fetal operation, more than 10 years ago. When the surgeon lowered his scalpel to the 25-week-old fetus, Paschall saw the tiny figure recoil in what looked to him like pain. A few months later, he watched another fetus, this one 23 weeks old, flinch at the touch of the instrument. That was enough for Paschall. In consultation with the hospital’s pediatric pain specialist, “I tremendously upped the dose of anesthetic to make sure that wouldn’t happen again,” he says. In the more than 200 operations he has assisted in since then, not a single fetus has drawn back from the knife. “I don’t care how primitive the reaction is, it’s still a human reaction,” Paschall says. “And I don’t believe it’s right. I don’t want them to feel pain.”

Mr. Paschall is among several medical personnel quoted in the article (the most prominent being Kanwaljeet “Sunny” Anand, who has been a tireless advocate over the last three decades for infant and fetal pain management) who also support, at least in limited terms, a woman's right to have an abortion. Yet, what I find most provocative is Mr. Paschall's statement, “I don’t care how primitive the reaction is, it’s still a human reaction. And I don’t believe it’s right. I don’t want them to feel pain.” I would echo his words to say, no matter how primitive the fetus is, it’s still a human fetus.

This brings me, however, to a point on the debate over abortion that I've been meaning to make for quite a long time (and I should make clear before we start that in the following argument, I appeal only to human reason and the natural law; my conclusions do not rely on any revealed truths peculiar to Christianity). As I've alluded to previously, this year’s election once again represents a showdown between those who would protect human life at all stages of development (represented by their presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain), and those who insist that the government not guarantee the right to life that was once so eloquently named “inalienable.”

Supporters of candidates like Sen. Hillary Clinton will tout that she believes that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Yet, what they don't realize is the logical contradiction behind such a statement. If one believes that a human fetus is an innocent human life (N.B. the adjective innocent indicates that the fetus is guilty of nothing by which it would deserve punishment, an assumption that I hold to be self-evident), then the natural law that informs us that homicide is immoral also informs us that abortion is immoral. To put it into syllogistic form: (A1) It is immoral and legally punishable to purposely kill an innocent human life. (B1) A human fetus is an innocent human life. (C1) Therefore, abortion (the killing of a human fetus) is immoral and legally punishable.

(N.B. I have included the adjective "innocent" in the major premise because, at least according to the natural law, there are certain situations where it is morally and legally permissible to kill a human life, e.g. in warfare. The revealed beliefs of religion may place additional restrictions on these situations, but as I have said, I am arguing here from the natural law.)

The corollary to this syllogism is that if one believes that abortion should be legal, then one denies either one or both of the premises. Since I've yet to meet an abortion supporter who denies the major premise (indeed, many abortion supporters offer more comprehensive versions of the major premise than some pro-lifers do, i.e. they extend the immorality of killing to capital punishment and even to warfare), then it is clear that abortion supporters must deny the minor premise, namely, that a human fetus is an innocent human life. Furthermore, since I've also never met an abortion supporter who claims that a human fetus is a guilty human life, then it is also clear that abortion supporters deny that part of the minor premise that declares a fetus to be a human life.

If, therefore, one believes that a fetus is not a human life, that is, if one believes that the fetus is simply an extension of the body of the mother, and that the mother therefore exercises the full sovereign rights over the fetus that she exercises over the rest of her body, then one's moral judgement on abortion is reduced to a judgement concerning those sovereign rights. The syllogism would then follow: (A2) Without extenuating circumstances, a human being exercises personal sovereignty over his or her body. (B2) A fetus is a part of a woman's body. (C2) Therefore, a woman exercises personal sovereignty over her fetus.

If this is really what Sen. Hillary Clinton believes, then her position in favor of abortion is logical. What is not logical, however, is her claim that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." It is this last factor that leads her into trouble. She must have some reason for wanting abortion to be rare. Yet, as far her logical position is concerned, it shouldn't matter to her whether abortion is rare or not, just as it shouldn't matter to her whether a woman dyes her hair blond or black, or pierces her navel or her ears, or gets breast implants or breast reduction surgery. Each of these decisions are made out of the woman's sovereign rights over her body, and Sen. Clinton doesn't have anything to do with those decisions.

Yet, Sen. Clinton does say that she wants abortions to be rare. In fact, one is unlikely to meet any abortion advocate who claims that they don't want abortion to be rare. And the reason for this is simple: as much as abortion advocates try to delude themselves into believing their syllogism, they do not, in fact, actually hold to it. Despite their attempts to ignore the prods of the natural law, they do, in fact, conceive, at least subconsciously, of a moral dimension to the decision to have an abortion.

Where they in fact fail is in the first part of the major premise: Without extenuating circumstances. This caveat to the premise is necessary for its logical cohesion, because both individually and as a state we acknowledge that there are circumstances under which a human being does not exercice personal sovereignty over his or her body. For example, we place age restrictions on things like drinking and smoking and getting body piercings; we also admit that convicted criminals have abdicated, at least temporarily, certain of their rights, like the right of free movement; we even go so far as to refuse certain classes of the clinically and criminally insane of almost all their rights of personal sovereignty over their bodies.

For the abortion syllogism to hold, there must, therefore, be no extenuating circumstances. Yet, it is evident that there are extenuating circumstances when a woman is pregnant. Whether you believe that a fetus is a human life or not, we all agree that, if carried to term, it will be a living, breathing, moving baby. Furthermore, the woman cannot produce the fetus by herself; the fetus is as much the product of its father as it is the mother's. Finally, especially given our modern ability with ultrasound technology to visualize the fetus, we all do feel, despite our views on abortion, that twang of amazement, wonder, and awe when the fetus we have fathered or mothered sucks its thumb or kicks its foot in the womb.

The fact is, the natural law is squeezing its way into Sen. Clinton's views whether she likes it or not. What she doesn't realize is that in calling for abortion to be "rare", she admits that there are compelling reasons to discourage the practice. For these compelling reasons to exist, the logical syllogism that allows abortion to go unopposed falls apart. Sen. Clinton's own humanity undermines her support of abortion. Although abortion advocates will tell you that there is a grey area, they are simply trying a trick of sophistry in order to have their cake and eat it too. The choice is simple: either abortion has absolutely no moral consequences and should be perfectly legal; or abortion does have moral consequences, and the first syllogism that we proposed is the proper one. As we have shone the former conclusion to be false, there remains but one logically consistent, proper conclusion: (C1) Abortion (the killing of a human fetus) is immoral and legally punishable.

What to do with $350 million?

According to a recent report from the AP, Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has placed an order with Airbus for his very own A380 - the new super jumbo that dwarfs the old standby, Boeing's 747. Of course, the prince won't be happy with the standard configuration of ca. 500 seats, which comes in at about $330 million. No, he'll want to customize it and turn it into a flying palace with spacious bedrooms, a jacuzzi or two, lounges and bars, an exercise room, and probably a movie theater - at an additional cost of between $50 million and $150 million. Let's say he decides not to be too extravagant and charts the middle course between them: he's still looking at paying $400 million for an airplane, for himself.

I've heard of the wealthy extravagantly flaunting their riches, but really! This super rich, super pampered Saudi prince will sink $400 million into a plaything for himself, while his country's infrastructure languishes (say what you will about the film Syriana, it did make this point very well: Saudi princes have a tendency to invest in their own luxury rather than the future of their country). While nearly a billion people on this planet languish in the deepest poverty and privation, a man in Saudi Arabia, grown rich off his oil, will luxuriate in his own, private flying palace.

Does he think that the world will respect him more for his monumental waste of money? Does he really think that he can buy himself happiness upon that flying monstrosity? Is he really so blind to the abject needs of so many, both in his own country and around the world? Can any man really be so blind? While I dare not to judge the thoughts of his heart, which are known to him and God alone, I will most certainly pronounce judgment on this particular action of the Saudi prince: he mocks all of humanity with so selfish an act, and proclaims to the world that his own private luxury, which exceeds all heretofore known bounds of extravagance, is of greater priority than the charity which could well be done with his $400 million.

Thank God that there are still some in this world who do care: I refer you to the "Anonymous Friend" who has gifted Erie, Pennsylvania charities with $100 million--a fraction, to be sure, of the prince's palatial payout, but done anonymously, not to boast of the having of money, but to be kind in the giving of it.

Ne Obliviscaris: Alma Shippy and the Racial Integration that Nobody Noticed

I just came across this wonderful story on CNN.com about a young man in 1952 named Alma Shippy, who became the first black man ever to attend Warren Wilson Junior College in Swannanoa, North Carolina — and he did it without a court order, without armed escorts, without mass protests and violence. It's a story that tells us a lot about what really matters when it comes to tearing down the hateful barriers of racism that divide our country. It was no militant march on Warren Wilson's campus that integrated it, no students striking and taking over the college's buildings, no rallies met by police with attack dogs and fire hoses. Instead, it was the realization by the administrators of the school that it was Alma's shared humanity as a creature of God and not his skin color that dignified him, and it was the compassion of the school's students that they realized how much they really had in common with this unassuming young man. Alma Shippy should be an example to us all: he didn't walk around wearing his race on his sleeve and demanding reparations for the discrimination he had faced in life. Rather, he quietly but confidently taught in the Sunday school at his local parish and let the Truth of God's Word and Love, by which all men are made equal and set free, live in his heart, shunning the bitter enmity engendered by racism's deprecation in favor of the peace that comes with accepting Christ's message.

SWANNANOA, North Carolina (AP) -- There is no monument to Alma Shippy.

No plaque describes how, in 1952, the shy teenager packed a bag of clothes, caught a ride in a friend's pickup truck and walked into history on the campus of Warren Wilson Junior College.

It's an obscure vignette in civil rights history. Shippy not only was Warren Wilson's first black student, but one of the few to attend any segregated college or junior college by invitation -- and not by court order and armed escort.

A core of Shippy's family and friends -- some of whom paved his way and some whose path was paved by him -- want wider attention for what they see as a bright moment of brotherhood in one of the South's darkest eras.

"There were no dogs, no guns. He didn't have to be shot at. There was nobody that was beaten up, nobody died because he came here," says Rodney Lytle, a 1974 Warren Wilson graduate and now the school's multicultural adviser. "And that -- that story -- that is beautiful!"

And it didn't happen by chance.

Shippy's presence was the culmination of a decade of work by leaders of Warren H. Wilson Vocational Junior College and Associated Schools, created in 1942 from the merger and expansion of two high schools run by the Presbyterian Church.

Arthur Bannerman, born in Africa to Presbyterian missionaries, was named the school's new president. With new Dean Henry Jensen, he opened the school's doors to a variety of outsiders, starting with two Japanese-American girls from an internment camp in Arizona.

They were missionaries, says Warren Wilson graduate Marvin Lail, with a philosophy of "not just telling you but showing you."

Bannerman began writing to church-connected schools for blacks, seeking a student who might want to come to Warren Wilson. It wasn't until the spring of 1952 that the men learned of Alma Shippy, a 17-year-old who had befriended some Warren Wilson students in local churches where he helped teach Sunday school and Bible classes.

Lail, then 16 years old, was deputized to walk across the Swannanoa Valley to Buckeye Cove -- "truly on the other side of the tracks" -- where Shippy lived with his grandmother, Ludie White. He invited Shippy to speak at the campus evening prayer service.

Jensen watched Shippy's brief address, and afterward joined Lail in asking whether he might like to attend Warren Wilson. Then, as now, students help with their expenses by working at the school. Shippy, who had no money for college, said yes.

"I think he was really taken aback that white men or peers -- I was just a boy -- would come and invite him to a white college," Lail said.

There was a hurdle: The college had one dormitory for male students and Shippy would have to live there. Jensen called a meeting of the 55 Sunderland Hall residents.

Jensen "was a very smart man and was a good speaker and (said), 'We're going to integrate the college and we want it to be sooner rather than later, because it's coming down the road and everything will be integrated,"' Lail recalled.

Listening was Billy Edd Wheeler, about to start his final year at Warren Wilson. He was brilliant and athletic, a popular campus leader who later became an award-winning country music songwriter.

But he knew what it meant to be a misfit -- born poor and illegitimate in a West Virginia coal camp and sent to Warren Wilson four years earlier to appease an unloving stepfather. The question of accepting this stranger struck at his heart.

"I had that ingrained in me, that I could never be better than anybody else," Wheeler said. "I think that was part of it, being able to empathize."

Lail, too, was moved by a childhood spent in the company of black sharecroppers on his family's farm who cared for him as his mother began a slide into mental illness.

"They were very good to me, fed me. I thought, 'Why do we treat these people so bad?"' he said. "I thought, 'This should be changed."'

The vote was 54-1 to accept Shippy. He began classes at Warren Wilson Junior College in the fall of 1952.

Support from classmates

After the first few days, his presence drew little attention on a campus that already housed students from China, Cuba, Europe and South America, Wheeler said.

"It sort of settled into just a routine of life and you didn't think much about it," Wheeler said. "But for the people here in the valley, it was a pretty big deal."

At night, the college phone rang through to Bannerman's home. His 11-year-old daughter, Mary -- now Wheeler's wife -- fielded a couple of calls offering the traditional slur for whites who befriended blacks.

It was "scary, and proud," she recalled. "I can wear that badge of honor."

Classmates did, too. Shippy later told the Asheville Citizen-Times about going to an ice cream parlor in the Swannanoa community with a group of students.

"They sat me in the middle of the booth and that just did not work," he recalled in a 1994 interview. "(The manager) said, 'We can't serve you. You can get it to go and take it outside.' I had a hard time convincing the students not to tear up the place."

Instead, they all left.

The college tried to downplay Shippy's presence. Bannerman was friends with the editor of the Asheville newspaper and asked him to keep it quiet "for safety, for Alma's safety and the students' safety," Mary Bannerman Wheeler said.

The first newspaper story about the school's integration appeared in September 1955. By then, Warren Wilson had five black students and its first black graduate, Georgia Powell, who had earned her associate's degree that spring. And by then, Shippy was long gone; he left after one year, to make some money for his family, his brother Michael said.

He joined the Army, then moved to Indiana, where he married and fathered two girls. Except for occasional correspondence with a few friends, Shippy vanished from Warren Wilson life until 1987.

Reconnecting with campus

Then, his marriage over, he returned to the Swannanoa Valley to care for his aging grandmother, going to work at a state-run long term care facility. He again became active in his church and enthusiastically backed local youth sports teams, sitting behind the umpire at Little League games so he could cheer for both sides.

That's where Rodney Lytle first encountered the stranger who had a silent, but major impact on his life. A friend nudged him and pointed to Shippy. "He's one of you," she said.

Lytle was confused. He had two cousins who attended Warren Wilson in 1959 and knew blacks had gone there for years, well before it became a four-year college in 1967, well before he met his wife there, earned his degree, got his job.

But he had never seen this older man or heard the name Alma Shippy. He walked over and struck up a conversation, "and from that moment on we were friends."

Lytle became Shippy's champion, determined not only to commemorate his accomplishment, but to help him live a more comfortable life.

Though Warren Wilson had long required students to complete service projects to graduate, no one had done anything to help its first black alumnus.

A pair of students organized a crew to fix Shippy's house. In 1994, the college included Shippy in the centennial celebration of its original farm school. And eight years later, on the 50th anniversary of his enrollment, the board of trustees passed a proclamation honoring Shippy, Bannerman, Lail, Jensen and all those involved.

Shippy had prepared a three-page speech, but when he stood to read it, the pages rattled in his shaking hands, Lytle said. He took his seat again and began to cry.

"I can't say anything," he told Lytle. "I'm overwhelmed."

In early December, his friends gathered once more, crowding into the college chapel for a memorial service, a few days after Shippy's death at 72. They are determined that it will not be the last time the school marks his memory.

One former classmate has proposed a scholarship in Shippy's name. Shippy's family, Lytle and other college officials are discussing a permanent memorial -- a marker, or perhaps a tree outside Sunderland Hall -- for Shippy and all those who welcomed him into their lives not because of a court order, but as a matter of fairness and faith.

"This group of people at Warren Wilson College was open-minded and willing to accept Alma not as a colored guy, like they called us then," Michael Shippy said. "They accepted him as a man."

Pro Vita: "The Grassroots Aboriton War"

TIME Magazine's cover story this week explores the "new face of an old movement: kind, calm, nonjudgmental, a special-forces soldier in the abortion wars who is fighting her battles one conscience at a time." The incredible work being done by pregnancy resource centers (PRC's) around the country (which today outnumber abortion clinics) is rarely covered by the mainstream media, and rarely will one find the word "compassionate" coupled with the pro-life cause. Kudos to TIME for seeing, if dimly, the light that Christ shines forth from these centers and their workers of divine mercy.

I say dimly, of course, because, with as much praise as the article does give to the strong hearts fighting with love this battle for life, they do also chronicle the reports from NARAL and other groups that when women go to PRC's, they are "harassed, bullied and given blatantly false information." While certainly they can produce limited evidence of misinformation by PRC staff (like pamphlets and recordings of phone calls), what the article fails to document is the far more serious bullying, harassment, and outright lies many women face at Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics. The article fails to mention the scores of women who enter a clinic because they are being forced by boyfriends or parents, nor does it mention the extreme lengths some abortionists will go to convince a woman, especially a young or poor mother, to have an abortion.

One of the most shocking secrets that the article fails to disclose and that Planned Parenthood will go to the greatest lengths to hide is their widespread practice of covering up cases of statutory rape, that is, when young girls come to them, the victims of older men, the clinics are for more likely to provide them with an abortion and cover up the sexual assault than they are to follow their legally-bound duty to report the crime to police (click here for more information on this disturbing phenomenon).

Despite such failures to provide a balanced reporting of the failures on both sides to provide accurate information to expectant mothers, the article nevertheless ends on a positive note, profiling the unexpected partnership that has developed between an abortionist and a Presbyterian congregation in Asheville, Tennessee—a partnership to work to reduce abortions by focusing on the positive, that is, by focusing on our compassion for the mother, especially the mother who is in great distress. The most important thing that the pro-life movement can do today (especially since, with a Democrat-controlled Congress, our legislative agenda will likely be stalled) is to increase the visibility of our efforts to take care of women both during and after their pregnancies. It is not enough for us to prevent the mother from having the abortion: we must come together to support her and her child, especially since the majority of mothers who do consider having an abortion do so because they don't have the financial or or other means or support to have a child. We need to change that—we need to help these women be able to have their child and to rear that child in a good, safe home both by providing them direct support and by working to build a social fabric and a community that values and supports the bearing and rearing of children.

Cursus pro Vita

As many of you know, I will in Washington, D.C. this weekend to attend the Students for Life Conference at Catholic University and to take part in the annual March For Life on Monday. When I return, I will, of course, offer my thoughts on the weekend here on my blog. At this time, however, I simply ask your prayers for a safe and productive time in Washington.

Almighty Father, Who art the author of peace and lover of concord and Who knowest every child in the womb; Pour forth, we beseech Thee, the strength of Thy awesome love into our hearts and into the hearts of all thy people, born and unborn, that we, marching under the banner of Thy rigtheousness, may in Thy holy Name promote and protect that beautiful mystery of Life in which Thou hast by Thy grace created us; Through Jesus Christ Thy Son Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in unity with the Holy Spirit, ever One God, world without end, Amen.

De Vita Humana

"Students, faculty protest weapons" declares the front-page headline of today's Heights, while inside, the Editorial Board proclaims that "Peaceful protest makes clear point." These reference, of course, what has become a tradition at Boston College: the protest of aerospace and military contractors like Raytheon and BAE Systems by the Global Justice Project at Boston College's annual Career Fair. This is the third year that the GJP has organized to protest the presence of such firms at Boston College, citing a conflict with the university's Jesuit mission of promoting peace and social justice. In 2004 and 2005, the protestors were met with resistance from the university. This year, the university allowed the protest to go forward owing to the presence among the protestors of several faculty and Jesuits.

Another "protest" that has become a regular part of Boston College life is the biweekly Boston College Pro-Life Prayer Vigil on the Dustbowl, which consists of several students praying a decade of the rosary in watch for the lives of the innocent unborn. Have these prayer vigils been covered by The Heights? No. Has the Editorial Board ever recognized these prayer vigils for being peaceful? No. Has the GJP ever recognized these prayer vigils as coinciding with the university's Jesut mission of promoting peace and social justice? No.

In fact, the GJP has long supported pro-choice movements on campus, like the Women's Health Initiative, a group not recognized by the university, that attempted to hold events promoting "dialogue" (to which pro-life representatives were not invited) last year. That the pro-choice stance is counter to the Catholic values of Boston College doesn't seem to have entered their logic patterns, though they were quick to denounce the bestowal of an honorary degree last May on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being counter to those same values.

Some of you may remember that I wrote an article in The Heights two years ago criticizing the first of these protests at the Career Fair. I have been recently reflecting, however, on the nature of the call to protect all human life. For me, that call the past few years has expressed itself in being Pro-Life, i.e. being against abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and infanticide. My socially just passions cried out for the innocent, born and unborn; for the infirm (and increasingly disrespected) elderly; and for the souls of men who had sinned, for though we may punish them on earth, the punishment of death is reserved to God.

But that passion has cried out for more. I distinctly remember sitting on the couch the summer before last watching the nightly news: the lead story was about the famine in Niger; it was followed by an Israeli soldier who blew himself up on a bus in Gaza; after the first commercial came the reports (daily then as now) of more deaths, both American and Iraqi, in Iraq. By the end of it, I was reduced to tears: what possible reason could we have to continue to inflict such violence against each other, or to neglect the poorest of the world?

Today, while praying before Mass, the thoughts began to coalesce in my mind and in my heart: if I am pro-life, then I am for all Life. As I cannot countenance the destruction of a life in the womb, neither can I countenance the taking of an innocent human life by other means, whether it be by neglect (e.g. most of Africa) or by "collateral damage" (e.g. the continual conflicts in the Middle East). Furthermore, I have a responsibility not only not to countenance it, but to actively oppose it.

Yet, I have started to feel that my responsibility goes even further. As I researched the origins of the First Crusade and of the idea of crusading this summer for my Mediaeval History course in Germany, I naturally had to read much concerning the development of the theories of "just" and "holy" war.

The theology of war has its origin in the works of St. Augustine. He enunciated three criteria that define a “just” war: auctoritas principi, i.e. that the warring party must have the authority to declare and carry out war; the causa iusta, i.e. that the war must have a just cause and be carried out to right an injustice; and the intentio recta, i.e. that one must carry out the war with a just intention so that there are no ulterior motives and there is no other way through which the injustice can be righted. It is important to note that the end goal of a just war should be the establishment of peace.

It is, however, equally important to note that, according to Augustine and almost every other Christian theologian into the 11^th century, war only originates from evil and is itself always evil. Even when the war is just, it is yet a sin to kill somebody. Further still, many doubted even the idea of a just war; in the middle of the 11^th century, Peter Cardinal Damiani said, “In no case should one arm himself for the defense of the Church; still less should one rage in war among men over worldly goods.”

Under the reform popes of the 11^th century, this idea changed. When in 1053 Pope Leo IX led an army against the Normans in southern Italy, the idea first appeared that men could engage in combat in defense of the Church. Later, under Alexander II, several secular rulers fought under the vexillum sancti Petri, the banner of St. Peter, e.g. Duke William of Normandy in England in 1066. Yet, even though he fought under papal authority, after the battle, every one of William’s soldiers had to go to confession and receive absolution for the sin of murder.

Under Pope Gregory VII, however, appeared two evolutions in the theology of war without which the Crusades would not have been possible. First, Gregory morphed the meaning of the terms militia Christi, “the soldiery of Christ,” and milites Christi, “the soldiers of Christ.” These are ancient terms that appear at least as early as the letters of St. Paul, but previously they had always denoted the spiritual battle of the martyrs and monks: the exact opposite of worldly warfare. Now, however, Gregory spoke of a worldly aspect of the militia Christi: the defense of the Church through the now just arms of her secular faithful. Second, he began to speak of the so-called soldier-saints, e.g. St. Maurice, St. Sebastian, St. Gregory, or St. Martin, as no longer holy despite being warriors but as holy because they were warriors. Therefore, a man who receives absolution before battle, kills men during the battle in defense of the Church, and then dies himself, dies not a sinner but a martyr. Essentially, it was not longer a sin to kill enemies of the Church.

All of this is to say, then, that while doing this research, it occurred to me that maybe those early theologians were on to something. Maybe it is a sin to kill a man, even in a just war. Maybe the GJP people are right when they tell me that I always seem to speak the Ten Commandments but never the Beatitudes. Maybe I do need to wake up and listen to some of the words that Christ has taught us: "Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God." "Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you." "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone." Maybe I ought to have been there with them, silently kneeling and praying at the Career Fair. Maybe I should join them in November when they travel to Georgia to keep watch at the School of the Americas.

At the same time, I recognize that we live in a world full of evil men; I recognize that we are at this very moment locked in a battle with the forces of oppression and tyranny; I recognize that there are extremist Muslim terrorists who would rather destroy the world than let freedom and democracy flourish. I know that this battle will not be won by putting down our guns; I know that these men are so depraved that the language of peace and justice means nothing to them; I know that the call to spread peace in the world is now the call to stand and defend ourselves against the annihilating powers of extremism and terrorism.

But I pray nevertheless that the day may soon come when we will be delivered from these present evils; when we can put down our guns and embrace each other not as men divided by differences of race or creed but as men united in our common humanity; when the Peace of God will reign in our hearts, filled with love for that singly precious gift that He has given us: human life.

De Honore Hominis

Scene: Corcoran Commons (FKA Lower Dining Hall), Friday evening around 6:30 p.m.:
Guy 1: Hey man! Jen said she's bringing four female friends over tonight!
Guy 2: From her floor?
Guy 1: No, they're from out of town.
Guy 2: Awesome! Fresh meat!
----------------------------------------------------
"Fresh meat"? This is why feminists should be mad. Most people would peg me as being a little on the conservative side to identify with feminists, but when a man refers to a woman (or to women in general) as meat, my blood boils. One could describe me as a feminist, but in this sense, I'd prefer to be called a humanist (though not of the secular bent). My blood boils just as much when women refer to men as "meat", or as anything, for that matter, that objectifies them and reduces them from their full dignity as men - or I should say, human beings.

It is a dangerous characteristic of our so-called "enlightened" society that we yet fail to recognize that every human being (and that includes the unborn) is as much a human being as any other, and ought to be accorded therefore all rights, privileges, and honors pertaining thereto, for each one is, like you and like me, made in the image and likeness of God. This is the dignity of the human person, and it is vital that we come to respect that dignity in every one of our neighbors as in ourselves.

I cast my eyes about, and they fall upon the television and an episode of "Desperate Housewives"; they fall upon a magazine rack and the latest issue of "Cosmopolitan"; they fall upon my email inbox and ads to see the latest teen hottie strip for me: why? Why do television executives need to show me that women must sleep around and get mixed up in strange murder mysteries in order to be happy? Why do magazine executives need to tell me all about 101 things that will turn a man on? Why does website after website force a girl barely out of high school to degrade herself to the lowest levels to earn a few dollars? And why, above all, do we respond to the television, magazine, and website executives with a throaty "Yes! I want to sexually objectify women!"

Though American culture suffers under this particular brand of dishonoring its fellow man, yet, the problem is not fundamentally one of placing the woman's flesh above her humanity. In the East, especially in the oppressive, extremist Islamic regimes, a woman's humanity is annihilated beneath a dark veil, not only of fabric but of denial of rights. A woman is not a human to the extremist Muslim man: she is an object, a piece of property to be bought, sold, and used as he sees fit. And honor? Her only honor is such that if it is violated, she is liable to be killed for it.

This question passes even the gender divide and enters into the womb. Western culture has seen fit to rob the child in its womb of its humanity: the child who is at that moment most defenceless and most dependent on others has yet its only defence stolen away - its worth as a human being.

We, and by that I mean every human being on this face of this good earth, must find it within ourselves to see our own worth in others: otherwise, I fear that we are doomed. For what reason have I to love, cherish, and protect my neighbor, and by that I again mean every human being on the face of this good earth, except that I first recognize that he is worth loving?

De Incompatibilitate Violentiae cum Natura Dei

We have all seen the tumultuous response received by the Pope's comments last week on the incompatibility of violence with God. When quoting the late 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos ("Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."), did Pope Benedict mean to say that Islam is faith beholden to the sword? Did he mean to decry all Muslims as "evil and inhuman"? Clearly, the answer is no; for just previous to this quotation, the Pope mentions Surah 2, 256 of the Qur'an: There is no compulsion in religion. It seems exceedingly clear to me that the Pope's true intentions were to set the following axiom as a starting point for his discussion of the relationship between faith and reason:

"Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."

(Note: I highly recommend that you read the entire text of the speech, for as we all know, words taken out of context can be twisted and manipulated to the vilest ends).

Unfortunately, it seems that this message was lost, especially in the Islamic world, and it is this point which I find most puzzling. I have often in the past heard many Muslims, horrified by the continued violence that stains the sands of the Middle East red with blood, echo this very sentiment: Violence is incompatible with the nature of God. I am most frightened by the response from the jihadist groups (I quote from CNN):

"We tell the worshipper of the cross (the pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya," said an Internet statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq's branch of al Qaeda, according to the Reuters news agency. "We shall break the cross and spill the wine. ... God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome. ... God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen."

They are outraged that the Pope should decry the spread of Islam by the sword, and so they threaten precisely that: to spread Islam by the sword.

My real point, however, is not to point out the hypocrisy of the jihadists: their hypocrisy and irrationality is well known to all rational people of this world. What I want to stress is this theme which the Pope laid bare: Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. When we say the Prayer of St. Francis, we ask God to make us instruments of Peace - we ask him for nothing more than that he fulfill our basic Nature: we were made in the Image and Likeness of God, and so we, too, in our very nature, abhor violence and uphold peace. Unfortunately, we seem to have lost that innate desire for peace, and rather rage in war than strive to establish peace amongst ourselves and with all peoples. Have we not learned in the last 2000 years that blessed are the peacemakers? Have we not mourned the carnage of war waged through the history of the world for our own greed? Have we, a world of one common humanity, not understood that the destruction of one life is the destruction of a little piece of all?