The War Within

Our world is a violent place.  War is being waged in Eastern Europe as the invasion of Russian forces into a peaceful Ukraine enters its second month. Our hearts have been broken and our minds astounded by the unprovoked violence against innocent civilians, including women and children. Bloodshed and assault against persons who are considered disposable and insignificant have caused many tears to be shed. Our reaction of horror and outrage is certainly justified. It is a war playing out on the world stage with global consequences.
           
We who have faith in God and His loving providence must recognize that there are also wars being fought on a less public field that are no less detrimental to the good of all. We know that every struggle against evil and for love and human dignity matters.
 
We are called to be on the front lines of these struggles.  Our Savior said, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).

In the wars fought within our hearts much is at stake. Just as in the very visible wars fought between nations, so, too, in these hidden wars, we must seek the will of God in choosing salvation and life for those who are often considered disposable and insignificant. On the fields of nations where wars are fought, people of good will must seek the way of the Prince of Peace in ending the killing and violence against others. Likewise, on the fields of human hearts we must seek the way of the Prince of Peace to end killing and violence in families, in communities, on our city streets, and in the wombs of women who have conceived and carry the most innocent and vulnerable of all human persons.

Violence against others often happens when words are used as weapons to wound hearts and souls. Whenever violence and attacks occur, often they come from choices people make for evil over good. The result is disregarding the welfare of others and denying them life and peace.
           
At her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance lecture in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 1979, St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “Abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between!”

This is a stark reminder to us that there is a real and direct relationship between the conflicts waged among peoples throughout the world with missiles, bombs, and bullets, like the war in Ukraine, and the war being waged against tiny babies in their mothers’ wombs with scalpels,  drugs, suction apparatus, and saline destroying innocent human persons.
           
In a time when the innocent lives of Ukrainians of all ages are being assaulted and destroyed, we must pray with all our heart and work with all our might to stop this terrible carnage.
           
We find ourselves in a time when the Supreme Court of the United Sates will make a ruling in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health case that could, please God, ban abortion after 15 weeks. Likewise we, as followers of the Prince of Peace, must pray with all our heart and work with all our might to stop the terrible carnage of abortion that destroys over 600,000 babies each year in our nation.
           
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must work to eradicate violence against all human persons, no matter what age they are, no matter what is their ethnicity, no matter whether already born or still in their mother’s wombs.  Just as we rush to aid those poor people in war-torn countries, we must also rush to aid mothers in crisis pregnancies and in difficult life situations.
           
We see that the war against the most vulnerable of human beings, those in the womb, is directly related to the war against innocent lives on the battlefield.  Both come from a callous disregard for the life of God’s precious sons and daughters.   We must beg God for mercy that the violence on human life might end on every battlefield, those without and those within.

Our Lady, Mother of the Author of All Life and Queen of Peace,
protect us from all war and violence!

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh