True peace calls for reverence for life.

No society can live in peace with itself, or with the world, without a full awareness of the worth and dignity of every human person and of the sacredness of all human life. When we accept violence in any form as commonplace, our sensitivities become dulled. When we accept violence, war itself can be taken for granted.

Violence has many faces: oppression of the poor, deprivation of basic human rights, economic exploitation, sexual exploitation and pornography, neglect or abuse of the aged and the helpless, and innumerable other acts of inhumanity.

Abortion in particular blunts a sense of the sacredness of human life. In a society where the innocent unborn are killed wantonly, how can we expect people to feel righteous revulsion at the act or threat of killing noncombatants in war?

Keith Gallagher

Gooseberry

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