"Knights explain the donated statue"
Letter to the Editor
I speak on behalf of the Knights of Columbus in response to Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece's Feb. 22 letter. In it, she castigates the Knights and the University itself for daring to suggest that the abortion of millions of pregnancies every year is wrong.
I would first suggest a close look at the form of the statue in question. It depicts the Blessed Mother holding the infant Jesus, below which appears a memorial inscription for the millions of lives taken via abortion over thousands of years, although especially since the Roe v. Wade decision. We chose the Blessed Mother's image for this statue specifically in her role as mother: illustrative of the holy vocation of each and every woman who conceives to bring the life entrusted to her into the world. We also chose her because of the peculiar circumstances of her own pregnancy. She chose to carry Jesus to term in the face of a society that would at the least publicly disgrace her and at worst stone her to death for doing so. If the experience of those modern women who abort their pregnancies is no "walk in the park," certainly Mary's journey was not either, especially considering her likely age and economic status at the time of her conception: very young with no prospects of financial support (for Joseph, her affianced, would almost certainly desert her). Why would she choose this new child's life, product of a hurried decision, over her convenience? Simply because she recognized the sanctity of human life in all of its forms and that the child whose heart beat within her was no less a person than she was.
Our attacker attributes to the Knights charges of bigotry and close-mindedness. I wonder whether she would have attributed the same to those few Catholics who stood up to Hitler's extermination machine during World War II, for we Knights believe as Catholics that the crime of abortion is no less horrific. Perhaps it is more so, as not only is one human killing another but a parent kills a child. There can be no room for "choice" here: there is no real choice to be made.
Our attacker also claims that we are unfair to those women on campus who have had abortions by making them remember their actions. If abortion is a justifiable choice, then they should not be concerned with our reminding them that God thinks otherwise. If however their alarm at our memorial comes from the deep sense that they have done something horrible, then our memorial serves its purpose. For these women we serve in two ways: to call them back to the Gospel and to encourage them to reconcile themselves back into the Church, to undo the excommunication that they inflicted upon themselves by having an abortion. We welcome them with open arms.
We hope that our memorial continues to make people remember. I can speak categorically for all of the hundreds of Notre Dame Knights who remain a part of our council that the Knights will remain advocates for life. We shall continue to remind people of the harsh realities that they choose to forget until the world comes to the perfection of the Kingdom. To do any less would be unfaithful to the truth and it has nothing whatsoever to do with "seeing both sides of the issue."
Nathaniel Hannan
junior
Notre Dame Knights of Columbus Council #1477
February 25, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Monday, February 26, 2001
