Another manifestation of the Culture of Death
CNN is reporting on a young woman who killed herself with the aid of a web site entitled "Alt.Suicide.Holiday". The young woman killed herself with the assistance of a man who goes by the name "River". Mr. "River" told CNN that, "No one in ASH [Alt.Suicide.Holiday] encourages anyone else to commit suicide. ASH is pro-choice." Pro-choice? Have we come to the point where not only are you permitted to kill yourself simply because you want to?
Not surprisingly, the language used is the same used for the pro-abortion movement. The culture of death is the culture of me, me, me. It is a culture in which loneliness is promoted in the name of individuality and succumbing to despair becomes liberation. It is a culture in which a young woman kills herself alone in a hotel room and the family learns of this as a result of a short e-mail. There is nothing noble about it at all.
Unfortunately, I don't expect things to get any better as long as the social structures of family and community are assaulted in the name of the primacy of the individual.
Not surprisingly, the language used is the same used for the pro-abortion movement. The culture of death is the culture of me, me, me. It is a culture in which loneliness is promoted in the name of individuality and succumbing to despair becomes liberation. It is a culture in which a young woman kills herself alone in a hotel room and the family learns of this as a result of a short e-mail. There is nothing noble about it at all.
Unfortunately, I don't expect things to get any better as long as the social structures of family and community are assaulted in the name of the primacy of the individual.
posted by Fr. Seraphim Beshoner, TOR | 9:31 AM
2 Comments:
Somewhat related to this, there was a story not long ago about a teen who went on a shooting rampage and killed himself and two others after being more or less egged on to do so by an online forum that took the whole thing as a joke.
Interesting thoughts on how the primacy of the individual is wrong.
Especially from a representative of a religion whose leaders have done everything they can to cover up sexual abuse - which of course leads to suicidality in some people. You mention in another of your posts that there is evidence from millions of priests in times past that celibacy has been observed; what evidence is that? When it takes numerous subpoenas for the Roman Catholic Church to come clean about abuse in modern times, it's pretty clear that there's no "evidence" from fifty, let alone five hundred, years ago that priests honored their celibacy vows then.
When the social structures which have set themselves up in society as providers of comfort - such as the Roman Catholic Church - are revealed both to harbor sexual abusers and to move them from jurisdiction to jurisdiction to protect them from prosecution... what do you expect the overall effect on society to be?
I think there's something in your Book about motes, beams, and eyes... before you criticize the mote of others' coping strategies, maybe you should do something about the beam of sexual abuse coverups in your Church.
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