Rest in peace, Baby Charlie
Monday, October 8, 2012
Joan Crown
Chicago, 1988:
A baby boy is miscarried at 16 weeks gestation. The grieving parents wanted their son’s body to speak to our society as no picture could, telling the pro-life story. And so, his perfect little body was medically preserved in a glass container for all to see the wonder of God’s “supreme gift”.
Miami, 2000:
The Respect Life Ministry is given Baby Charlie to use in educational settings to expel the myth that abortion is an innocuous way to end an unwanted pregnancy. Those who gazed upon him looked in wonder at God’s miraculous work. One cannot look at this baby’s little body —knowing that if he had been aborted he would have been dismembered and discarded as “medical waste” — and not cringe at the thought that very few understand this fact and fewer still are willing to fight to stop it.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said, “A religion that doesn’t interfere with the secular order will soon discover that the secular order will not refrain from interfering with it.”
We have been swept up in the ways of the world and we have bought into the lie that we can control life and death. Our society has decided that we will determine when and if a child is born; on our time and in our way. This is what John Paul II called a “contraceptive mentality”.
And, what happens when the contraceptive fails? This is the reason we have abortion. And the child is no longer seen as pure gift.
From the Catechism #2378: A child is not something owed to one but … the supreme gift of marriage. Only the child possesses genuine rights; to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents and the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.
Our sexual promiscuity has led to a tremendous infertility problem; which has, in turn, led to more and more ways of human reproductive manipulation. Sperm and egg donation, gestational carriers, and gender selection births have become an enormous financial business. Children who are born through these methods will one day face genealogical bewilderment trying to understand their biological beginnings.
We hear so many sad stories as we go around the archdiocese presenting our Life Issues Workshops. One of the latest: She received 10 rounds of IVF (in vitro fertilization), which produced two children brought to birth, but other children still remain in frozen storage and then she is diagnosed with breast cancer as a result of the chemicals injected into her body to produce the eggs needed for IVF.
A cradle Catholic cries....”Why wasn’t I told!”
A betrayal of how God made humanity can only end in moral and ethical chaos. Catholic teaching which is so rich in defense of God’s perfect plan for our joy, happiness and protection, is somehow withheld from the faithful for fear some will be offended. And now we face the fight of our lives standing on the brink of losing our religious freedom; a freedom we have taken for granted and kept in hiding for another day, another generation.
If every Catholic would step up to answer God’s call to live and defend our faith He would not let us fail. God has a purpose for each of us. Baby Charlie was called by God to serve even in death. We salute the generosity of his parents so many years ago who recognized the battle for life and death in which our Church must be engaged.
As you drive into Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Broward stop and say a prayer at the pro-life monument seen immediately as you enter. There lies Baby Charlie - buried 9/7/12.
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