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.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Introduction: The Feast of the Assumption celebrates Mary’s journey to Heaven – body and soul. It includes two very important aspects of this event: Mary’s dormition (or her “sleep”, rather than death) and her coronation as Queen of Heaven.
So let’s quickly review the Church’s teaching is this regard –
-A long and ancient tradition tells us that Mary did not die – as we normally do – but ended her earthly life when she “fell asleep” and was “assumed” into Heaven. This tradition is very early, by the fifth century AD. Why did it develop? The Church reasoned, and Revelation confirmed, that Mary was conceived without original sin. Since death and corruption were the result of sin’s effects, Mary must have been assumed into Heaven. Pope Pius XII affirmed that this is the belief of the Church.
I. What does Mary’s Assumption teach, or show us?
I think it brilliantly affirms the dignity, even the glory of womanhood, and in particular, the vocation of woman:
1. Mary was/is a daughter (we know her parents, Joachim and Anna).
2. Mary was/is a cousin (in ancient times cousins were as close as sisters) And we know her cousin, Elizabeth.
3. Mary was/is a wife (we know her husband, Joseph).
4. Mary was/is a mother (we know her Son).
5. Mary was/is free, she said “Yes” of her own accord, constrained by no one).
6. Mary was/is a Virgin (The Church tells us she made a perpetual vow of virginity)
So, do you see in these all the aspects of womanhood? How Mary so wondrously reflects all the dimensions of woman’s vocation? The joys and sorrows – the fulfillments and disappointments associated with the vast variety of responsibilities and realities of woman’s life.
John Paul II wrote “Mary, the woman of the Bible, is the most complete expression of this dignity and vocation.” (JP II, Mulieris Dignitatem).
II. The Assumption demonstrates the enduring nature of woman’s relationships: Pope Benedict recently wrote –
As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authentically he or she lives these relations, the more his or her own personal identity matures.
-The encounter with Elizabeth shows the joys of being a woman, a sister, a friend (a girl-¬friend), a wife and a mother (in this case, mother-to-be).
There is a distinct dynamic when women get together with one another. Men, you know what I’m talking about! In fact, so dynamic that when the women get together the men tend to flee the scene (we find Nascar racing and Professional Wrestling less intimidating than a baby shower!).
**Back when we were expecting our twins, we were confronted by demonstrators who opposed our pro-life efforts – and they were chanting, “We’re feminist, we’re fierce and we’re in your face!” – To which my wife and her girlfriend responded, “We’re pregnant, we’re hungry, get out of our way!” – Now that’s scary!
Mary’s and Elizabeth’s role as wife and mother was not a disease or a disability. It was intrinsic and indispensable to the Gospel and is still today essential to the administration of the saving mission of the Church.
Conclusion:
Mary’s Assumption shows us that there is no contradiction or deficiency in the variety of woman’s roles, but that each contributes to her essential value and dignity. In fact, the woman’s personality and roles uniquely reflect the personality and roles of God. Whose is the first face the child beholds and embrace the child enjoys? Mother, nurse, provider.
Is this perhaps why the Psalmist wrote –
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
The Almighty is one of the most sacred names of God in the OT, from the Hebrew word Sha’ad, meaning “breasts”.
In The Dignity of Woman, John Paul II wrote –
The Bible convinces us of the fact that one can have no adequate interpretation of man, or of what is “human”, without appropriate reference to what is “feminine”. There is an analogy in the Gospel: if we wish to understand it fully in relation to the whole of human history, we cannot omit, in the perspective of our faith, the mystery of “woman”: virgin-mother-spouse.