On Not Grieving
It’s okay not to feel sad over the death of George Tiller. I know a lot of you are being told you should feel some sort of sadness. If you happen to be against abortion and find everything Tiller stood for to be repulsive, of course you are a Christianist that might as well have pulled the trigger yourself. Well, this is what you will be told at least. Or you might hear from fellow pro-lifers that we must express how terrible a thing has happened because not doing so will hurt “the cause.” (The quotes are there because like so many causes, “the cause” has consumed its object a long time ago.) Just because a rich, white guy is killed for the evil he has done doesn’t mean that we need to mourn the loss of society. George Tiller’s flouting of justice was reason enough to mourn the loss of society. I don’t speak merely of his performance of abortions. I speak also of his flouting of Kansas law, only to find himself acquitted when the Kansas Democratic establishment and a Kansas jury turned away from enforcing the very laws they had created. While one hates to speculate on the impetus that drove a man in Kansas to kill George Tiller, his acquittal on breaking Kansas’s abortion laws when his violations were so manifest should be given honest consideration by those not merely interested in polemics.
Does this mean I’m endorsing vigilantism? Not really. Like the socialists of old debating, I happen to find violent revolution to be a harmful means toward accomplishing the goal. For those still unsure, I don’t think violence is prudent. I’m a little distressed to see the argument that violence should be dismissed as a priori illegitimate except as exercised by the State. Oddly enough the nation that was founded in opposition to totalitarianism seems to have instilled an ethos that is decidedly totalitarian. That is probably a bit too esoteric for this post though. We have to keep in mind that a rich, white guy was gunned down by a serf in an act of vigilante justice. Lord knows if this would have been a gang banger in the inner city killed by another gang banger, we would be seeing all this wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming one should rejoice. I’m giving you permission not to feel bad though. For those that aren’t rich and white, it isn’t a tragedy when a person that does wicked things is harmed from doing those wicked things. When a drunk driver is found 50′ from his vehicle and his car wrapped around a telephone pole, we don’t all the sudden wonder what happened to civil society. Yes, it would be better if he weren’t dead. No one wishes death upon the drunk driver. Depending on your sources, roughly 60 people are murdered every day in this country. Many of these deaths will go unremarked upon, even in the very communities from where they occur. Some will want to celebrate Tiller as a political martyr. There is no reason the pro-life movement has to join that celebration. Check the obituaries over the next couple days if you are feeling guilty. There are plenty of men, including men that have done heinous things, that could use your prayers.
Your heartless comments regarding the murder of a fellow human being are disgusting. You might want to consider THIS:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/its-so-personal.html#more
And this writer makes it very clear that what you are discussing with thorough-going insouciance is actually TERRORISM:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/terrorism-and-state-lesson-again-right-and-left
You and the rest of the highly politicizing, right-wing Catholic crowd need to be very GRATEFUL that, in Obama, we have a President who will REFUSE to vilify the more decent, more conscientious and law-abiding elements of the pro-life movement, as a consequence of this act of TERRORISM. You should be grateful that he’s the President now, and not Dubya or “Hillbilly.”
This is an outrageous posting. You are doing an excellent job undercutting the authority of Catholic teaching on abortion.
Terrorism is traditionally defined as non-state actors extrinsic to a given society commiting an act against that society. The concept of ideological terrorists is just cheap polemic. The concept of vigilante murder has always bothered me. Vigilante killing seems more appropriate. The whole concept of vigilantism is the idea that the action would otherwise be just were it not for the actor lacking authority. One might as well call capital punishment “state murder”.
SOV,
That is just silly.
MZ,
I am with you on this. Kudos for saying it here.
Mr. Hargrave, whatever else one can say about MZ’s blog entry, it should definitely NOT have been said “here,” because it contributes, as “Spirit of Vatican II” has noted, to the discrediting of the Catholic Pro-Life movement that he’d publicly greet an act of “vigilante” justice, as he’d term it, with such insouciance.
No, this is quite wrong. Every death contains sorrow, and every death we should grieve. It’s not because of “what this does to the cause” (or confirm memos from the government about the kinds of threat some anti-abortion people might be) — it’s clear, the “cause” is so not pro-life, and hasn’t been, that this easily happens. No, what hurts the cause is one who claims to be pro-life sees no grief over any death. Sure, Tiller was a sinner; but many sinners have been turned around and become saints. The Christian is to look to the sinner and grieve for their sins, not to hate them and seek their death. The pro-lifer is to look at their life, to see God’s image remains in them, and to see why they remain of infinite value, and should not be obliterated from the world. Alas. Two people on VN supports this evil.
I for one, will say a prayer for George Tiller.
I will ask for God’s mercy.
Maybe George was attending church on Sunday to confess his sins only to be killed on the way.
We will never know.
I see and feel grief for the slaughter of innocents.
I will say that murder is wrong, but I won’t grieve for a butcher. I won’t deny or minimize the evil that this man did. He murdered innocent children. We must never forget what he did, and what others like him do.
I would have preferred to see him punished by society, and not a lone individual. I would have preferred he not brutally murdered innocent babies, that he did not rip open the back of their heads and suck their brains out through a tube. That would have been wonderful.
No, I don’t ‘support’ the killing of this man, I wouldn’t have done it myself, and I believe Fr. Pavone when he says that they were close to getting Tiller’s medical license revoked. If he came to me before he went there to kill Tiller, I would have told him not to do it and tried to stop him.
But I won’t join in the ‘Tiller as an American Folk Hero’ propaganda being spewed now by the left. I will not cower before this relentless ‘terror’ baiting. And I won’t grieve. If there is any justice in this universe Tiller has already met his maker and is living out his final judgment.
He doesn’t have to be an American Folk Hero to be a person who is made in the image and likeness of God. That’s the thing. When you deny that, when you don’t grieve because of his humanity, you show where you fall away from the pro-life position. It’s just that simple.
It isn’t that simple.
The pro-life position has only ever been that the unborn human being deserves the same protection under the law that you or I do, that he or she is a full human being with full human rights.
I do not support cold blooded murder. But I do not grieve for people who butcher children as if they were pieces of meat. And I will not be dragooned into feeling things that I do not and cannot feel.
You know what this man did, right? You know how the procedure works? It may not have anything to do with what we can lawfully or morally do to him – we live in sick, diseased ‘society’ (if the word can be used) that tolerates infanticide. But it does have something to do with how I feel about it.
It’s wrong for you or anyone else to act as the damned thought police. The Church never abrogated our right to use lethal force in self-defense or in the defense of another. This case doesn’t quite meet the standard of ‘immediate’, but if the sole argument here is that what Tiller was doing was legal and therefore we had all better act as if the children he murdered weren’t also human beings, then forget it.
Because that IS the premise here, of the left, of the pro-abortionists. The premise is that what Tiller was doing was, if not entirely legal (the jury let him off but the story was far from finished), something entirely moral. That he wasn’t really butchering children, but ‘things’, non-persons who count for nothing, and therefore any action to try and save them is just insane – you may as well try to stop someone from trying to take out their garbage.
I don’t deny that Tiller was a child of God. But that doesn’t entitle him to immunity from justice, here or in the next life. It doesn’t mean we are under an absolute obligation to cry for him. It only means we have an obligation not to murder him in cold blood.
“The pro-life position has only ever been that the unborn human being deserves the same protection under the law that you or I do, that he or she is a full human being with full human rights.”
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. The pro-life position is about the dignity of the human person, at ALL stages of life, no matter WHAT SIN they have done in the past. You are now confusing “anti-abortion” for being “pro-life.” Yet, that rhetoric ends up also shallow, because of original sin — all children, including infants, have “guilt” so if you want to say “it’s ok to kill guilty people,” then original sin would justify the abortionist to act (“it’s their guilt which makes them invade an unwilling host, and so it’s ok to take them out”). As long as you ignore the inherent dignity of the human person, you will end up allowing for abortion.
I didn’t say it was ok to ‘kill guilty people’.
I said I don’t grieve the death of a butcher of children.
Maybe when the hysteria dies down you’ll see the difference between these two very different things.
And, are you sure you aren’t confusing ‘pro-life’ with pacifism?
I’m quite sure I am not confusing pro-life with pacificism. The sacredness of ALL life MUST be affirmed and re-affirmed consistently, and when we start thinking “their sins make their life no longer valuable, and no one should care, and I sure don’t,” you indicate you have yet to grasp what it means to promote life and value its sacredness. Remember, there is no one who is such a monster that Christ’s grace can’t perfect them. Remember, we are called to love those who would do harm; we are to seek their conversion, not their death. God desires the salvation of all — especially the moral monsters. Our hearts must work to follow God’s lead. It’s not an issue of pacificism, it’s an issue of love.
Wow,
Say less. Pray more.
Could it be that M.Z. is saying that honesty with oneself in response to this situation is better than fabricating a feeling that seems to be the correct spiritual response? If he is not saying that, then I am saying it. There are natural consequences to each thought and behavior. Violence begets violence. The discussion above doesn’t appear to be based on love of one another but rather on love of one’s belief.
Honesty with oneself is the most important response here. Buddha said we must know our hate before we can love.
Do I love like Christ tells me to love? Am I willing to give up everything to follow him? Is it easier to “love” the unborn child than it is to love someone who has been born? It seems easier to “love” our belief about the unborn child because it gives us a sense of moral superiority and thus it is easier for us to identify who we are in opposition to “evil” and the sacrifice is minimal.
What are we willing to give up for the unborn and the born? That seems to be where the truth of our commitment to follow Christ will be found?
Are we willing to give up our comfort and security to make a bold statement of our love for all women who suffer with the crisis of fear of bringing their children into this world?
M.Z. is being open and honest and that is all he is asking us to do. From that honest with oneself we can discover the truth of how each of us does not love as Our Lord wants us to and then the path will begin to become clearer.
It’s one thing to be honest and say, “I know I should grieve, but I don’t.” Indeed, the emotions and how mixed they can become, can be understandable. However, when one says words which defend such behavior, explain it away, and says “it’s ok not to feel grief,” then there is a bit of a problem. Of course we are this side of heaven, and far from perfect; but it is one thing to say that, another to say “it’s ok not to be sad.” If I were not sad about death, though I know I should be, I would say it — instead of approving my lack of sorrow.
One can appreciate that he can no longer perform his type of last-minute abortions without cackling at the thought of his violent death. This is yet another example of what Roe v Wade has wrought. Both sides become extreme. Democrats basically pledge to abort with their own two hands and ‘pro-lifers’ at times rejoice over death. (add to that a frequent favoring of war and death penalty, although that’s ‘optional’, not all ‘pro-lifers’ are like that)
As someone who supports abortion regulation a la Europe, I find the American situation bizarre, downright obscene. Obviously, the life of the mother must always be an option. I’d actually been so naive as to have thought that the Catholic Church wouldn’t force a pregnant woman to die if there was no other way than an abortion, or to have needlessly complicated surgery with fetus-death as ‘unintended’ byproduct when abortion would be far less risky. The 9 year old Brazilian girl that the Church would have let die is a good example of this other extreme view.
I’m quite sure I’d choose the life of an actual person, i.e. my wife, over a potential person, i.e. a fetus. Granted, it’s akin to “Sophie’s Choice.” But, by all means, it’s a choice people ought to have.
I’d say the people have it quite right when they want to regulate but not outright ban abortion. Making this “doctor” a ‘pro-choice’ martyr is obscene, however.
“when we start thinking “their sins make their life no longer valuable, and no one should care, and I sure don’t,” you indicate you have yet to grasp what it means to promote life and value its sacredness.”
What does it indicate when you consistently twist another person’s words?
I never said his life was ‘no longer valuable’. But a man who made a living butchering innocent children won’t be doing it any more. Can I at least feel good for all of the babies that won’t be violently murdered now? Would that be alright?
I think its wrong for you to try and think for me, to tell me what my values are or aren’t, on the basis of how I react to this. In any case, I’m through discussing it. You want to say that my not feeling about this makes me ‘pro-death’ or whatever label you want to invent and place upon me, fine. I have my conscience, and you have yours.
Feeling good for the babies (if they really will not be killed, which is questionable) is a good thing; but it was not that which was rejoiced in, and indeed, the rhetoric has been about him and how great it is he is dead and — indeed, going to judgment now (instead of having more time for conversion). Imagine if he had lived and had a change of heart the witness he could have been — that will never be the case now. I’m sorry that we lost at least one more life to the culture of death.
Violence, murder and hatred is always something to mourn over, period. Just because it is hard to love—even impossible at times—does not absolve or diminish the command to love at all times.
Sam
Right. Even if the violence ends up being necessary like in a “just war,” it’s still something to mourn over, as I’ve written about many times on VN. But here it wasn’t even justified violence. Very sad day all around.
Henry,
You are correct in all you say here. I want to associate myself as well with the remarks of Spirit of Vatican II and digbydolben.
I am profoundly troubled by the post and some of its supporting comments. To me, these reflections unmask a radical weakness at the center. Its not just that they have the effect of undermining an authentic pro-life position. Even more, they reveal a casualness of thought that is not fixed in principle. If followed to its logical conclusion, such intellectual indifference would have the effect of subverting every noble end we seek to achieve.
Gerald.
I was quite saddened and troubled, but I hope that, once the event has worked itself out, perhaps people will have a conversion of heart. Feelings are always difficult to deal with, especially if one has a mixed reaction. I can understand that. But again, the core is still — love, as I have said many times. And that is where we find ourselves tried. When the love is challenged — do we come out on top or not? And even if we do once, we shouldn’t praise ourselves for it, but to work to keep that love going — in grace.
Hope you feel better M.Z. and Joe now that you shared with us that you do not have much use for the ‘love your enemy’ that is at the core of our religion.
From what I gather from you prior posts -you guys are generally smart, measured, decent people – to see you go down this bad path is scary if one imagines what less measured folks are willing to do perhaps.
Yes this is what the oh so ‘innocent’ Baby Killer meme leads too.
Not good.
There are a number of major flaws in this analysis. The first is a complaint against the notion that “violence should be dismissed as a priori illegitimate except as exercised by the State”. Well, yes, such violence is illegitimate. In perhaps her most complex essay, Elizabeth Anscombe tackles the issue of punishment. Noting that there is no private right of punishment in a state of nature, she points out that “civil society is the bearer of rights of coercion not possibly existent among men without government”. It is this that gives the civil authorities legitimate authority. She also notes that whether the person is truly guilty is beside the point, as “getting one’s deserts at the hands of someone who has no right so to inflict them” is a grave injustice.
That’s punishment in general. What about murder? Well, killing somebody can never bring about justice — it can only be legitimate when undertaken by the state in the most narrow of circumstances that practically never hold in modern societies.
I understand that America has often taken a more decentralized approach to justice. I can’t imagine the analysis of Anscombe sitting well with a culture of privately-held firearms to “defend oneself”. Vigilante justice has been more acceptable in America in in most other modern societies. Lynch mobs are part of her recent history. They were evil then, and they are evil today. And, yes, I mourn the death of Tiller. I mourn the death of inner-city gange members and drug dealers. I mourn the death of all who die on the battlefield, regardless of which side has the better argument for the “justice” of its fight. It’s all about a culture of life.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming one should rejoice.
Perhaps if people would address what I actually said rather than erecting a straw man, it would help.
Does this mean I’m endorsing vigilantism? Not really. Like the socialists of old debating, I happen to find violent revolution to be a harmful means toward accomplishing the goal. For those still unsure, I don’t think violence is prudent.
Yet somehow I’m endorsing vigilantism.
Before we can begin to know what is love it appears critical to explore what is not love. M.Z. was presenting an open and honest expression of the reality of not grieving the violent death of this man. It is not disturbing to me that this response exists. It is disturbing to me that others may be blocked from openly feeling this response because it is not spiritually correct to have this response.
Not allowing oneself the vulnerability to be open to the possibility that one does not feel grief for him is actually a step towards love.
My question is will anyone from the pro-life movement be attending his funeral services out of a sense of true grief related to this evil act of violence?
The first murder took place because someone did not feel loved enough and, consequently, did not feel good enough. He exhibits what is in all of us and that is the rage that is associated with the shame of not feeling good enough.
Grace came to me without my asking for it. Grace is God’s Love. I left the Church at 18 and returned at 58 due to God’s Love. My work for 30+ years has been being exposed to those who are the most obviously hurt by the loss of love and they have taught me that there is no small hurt that does not deeply harm someone. They are the canaries in the coal mine. They exhibit the symptoms of the toxic interactions we have daily with one another that we think are meaningless because we are not as sensitive.
Our Lord stated that if we have anger with a brother then we have already killed him. He is telling us that our thoughts have consequences prior to any action that is taken. He seems to be saying that we have a “quantum entanglement” with one another that is either love or not love.
The post does not upset me, rather, it motivates me to delve deeper into the darkness that is in me and others to find where I or anyone needs the healing of God’s Love.
M.Z. and others are merely bringing out into the light what we may also need to look at within ourselves.
MZ: Your post triggered this response from me.
http://vox-nova.com/2009/06/01/agony-the-mystery-of-grief/
My basic claim is that, unlike your argument here, we ought to both grieve and rejoice.
A wonderful and accurate post.
We must have empathy before we can truly grieve.
I cannot believe this post. For one, the man was gunned down at a Lutheran Sunday service.
I grieve Tiller, because the odds are he’s in Hell. He was a mass murderer shot to death while attending a Lutheran service, a false religion that, in the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, calls Christ a liar by its denial of transubstantiation.
I hope that he’s not. Jesus told St. Faustina He calls to every soul three times. Maybe Tiller was killed, providentially, in a moment of conscience, and he died while feeling sorrow for his sins.
But I grieve over any lost soul.
I don’t grieve when I’m confident someone’s in Heaven; I rejoice.
I think the post is really about feelings rather than about intellectual or even spiritual convictions. Whenever I read that another drug dealer has been shot and killed, my first “feeling” is Good Riddance. I know this feeling is not in keeping with my faith, but I really have to work at recalling that the young victim was a child of God whose chances to overcome the bad choices he made in life were wrongly cut short. As a Christian, I am absolutely convinced that killing George Tiller was an evil act, but my immediate feelings on hearing of his death were (a) a sense that he “had it coming” and (b) a fear that it would be used against the pro-life cause.
A few weeks ago, the state of Georgia executed a white supremacist who had himself murdered a follower who refused to carry out one of his violent schemes. At the vigil marking his death, we did not hear the usual tribute’s to this man’s good character or redeeming qualities. We were simply reminded that he was a fellow human being whose life did not belong to the state nor to any of us. Quite a few of those who gathered to pray for him were black people–people who might have been his victims. My reaction to Tiller’s death is similar to my reaction to that execution.
Good post, M.Z. While I unreservedly condemn the murder of George Tiller as an evil act, I find the notion that Christians ought to grieve his death to be absurd.
George Tiller routinely butchered healthy, viable children in the latter stages of gestation. One of those was the son of someone very close to me, and my friend has been grieving his loss for a long time.
The only Christians who could plausibly grieve for George Tiller are those for whom the unborn are merely an abstraction.
Tiller’s decades of butchery and Scott Roeder’s execution of Tiller at a Christian church and (presumably) in the midst of a worshiping congregation, including children, both stem from the same demonic inspiration and logic. Both should be grieved as instances of the many Pyrrhic “victories” of the principalities and powers; the rulers of this present darkness before the final and definitive establishment of God’s kingdom.
Br. Matthew
Right, both sides are different aspects of the greater culture of death we need to confront with the love of Christ, so to help transform it back to a culture of life (however imperfect); and the way to do it as you said is to always be just, and never justify a demonic response, even if it is to another demonic attitude.
Good job M.Z. Although I wonder. Is it wrong to rejoice when justice is done?
love the girls,
Justice is the fruit of reasoned deliberation, not the murderous impulses of the mentally disturbed. Justice must also be animated by charity and a concern for the common good. How is gunning down a man in church, in the presence of children, an act of justice. We shouldn’t prefer one demonic lie over another- we should repudiate both.
We should grieve because he was murdered, his God-given life destroyed. We should grieve because his death results from the structure of sin in our society, a society that both allows the death of the unborn and encourages an attitude that violence is the answer to one’s problems (glorification of violence in the popular culture, a military-first foreign policy, glorification of the “benefits” of the private ownership of firearms). We have much to grieve for.
As for “love the girls”, I would merely suggest he read what I wrote above. Murder is not justice. Nobody “deserves” death at the hand of their follow human beings. And, as Anscombe said, “getting one’s deserts at the hands of hands of someone who has no right to inflict them” is the opposite of justice, and therefore evil.
“Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
Congratulations. You prove the point. You by your rhetoric get others to do the deed you personally don’t have the guts for, but secretly relish. You by your hate mongering do all but pull the trigger by spewing your vitrolic nonsense to unstable ears who then think they are doing “God’s work.” You get what you want while all the time allowing yourself to think you are sinless….
Shame on you and all who preach this nonsense. Whatever one’s opinion on abortion, it is legal and thus no doctor who performs one is a “murderer.” He is acting lawfully until such time as the law changes. You denigrate the legal system because a jury doesn’t return the verdict YOU wanted, therefore it’s acting illegally. Your concept of justice appears to be whatever you wish it to be.
You condemn yourself. You pervert Christianity.
He is acting lawfully until such time as the law changes.
Positivism.
More generally,
So it wasn’t perfect justice. No one claimed it was.
Confront that he was killed because of the large numbers of abortions, mostly late term abortions, he performed. It wasn’t an act of cold blooded murder. It was an act of vigilantism.
I’ll tell you what my real problem with all this is.
The left would have us believe in all this outrage that Tiller’s murder was not only wrong, but insane and incomprehensible – as if he were nothing but an acupuncturist or a chiropractor. They want you to forget that Tiller was in the business of murdering children, or they want you to see those victims as nothing but the chattel property of their mothers.
And they want to say that if you see victims, if you see human beings, where they only see chattel, that you are dangerous, that you are a potential terrorist.
The logic is simple – if you believe Tiller was killing babies, then killing him does make a certain amount of sense, especially to people who may not even be Christian but still ‘anti-abortion’ (yes, it is possible).
Even if 99% of us reject cold blooded murder there will always be at least 1% who does not, who believes in justifiable homicide. That 1% will never go away, and I suspect it is more than 1% that would agree and sympathize and aid and abet a person who would do it.
Don’t you see that our backs are against the wall? The radical pro-choice left is making a powerful and accurate argument right now: that even thinking about abortion as a procedure that takes an innocent life, or thinking of late term abortion as infanticide, is a pre-crime. It is creating an atmosphere that gives rise to ‘violence’.
And yet we in good conscience can never abandon this belief about abortion – even if what they say is true. What good do our condemnations do anyway?
On top of all that, no, I’m not a saint, no, I don’t have perfect love for the most evil of evil men. I am just an ordinary human being, appalled at child murder, especially appalled at the gruesome and disgusting butchery carried out by the likes of Tiller. The most I will ever be able to muster for him is justice, to say that he should get what he is due, and that he wasn’t due a summary execution on a Sunday afternoon in his church – I cannot ‘love’ him according to any understanding of the word I am aware of, and I may well suffer my own judgment for that.
Joe
As long as you see it as a “left” and “right” issue, you have yet to see it as a Christian issue – with the call to love.
MZ
Talk of perfect justice only makes sense in reference to God. As humans, we simply judge some act to be just (and, considerations of prudence obtaining, we ought to do it) or unjust (and ought not to do it). There is no class of “kinda’ just” actions just like there is no class of “kinda’ pregnant” women.
Henry,
We have no choice but to see it as a political issue, no matter what else we want to see alongside it. And I say this as someone who is sometimes ‘on the left’ on many issues such as immigration or foreign policy.
You have to know by now that the pro-choice left is calling for the government to shut down the pro-life movement, and that their argument, furthermore, is at least partially true – that calling abortion what it is will always incite some people to violence.
I can already sense that there are people on the pro-life side who want to stop talking about ‘baby killing’, who want to adopt the same clinical language as the pro-choice movement.
The left would have us believe in all this outrage that Tiller’s murder was not only wrong, but insane and incomprehensible – as if he were nothing but an acupuncturist or a chiropractor. They want you to forget that Tiller was in the business of murdering children, or they want you to see those victims as nothing but the chattel property of their mothers.
And they want to say that if you see victims, if you see human beings, where they only see chattel, that you are dangerous, that you are a potential terrorist.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, provided you qualify it with “Some on the left…”. I quick trip to DKos is enough to establish this fact.
The logic is simple – if you believe Tiller was killing babies, then killing him does make a certain amount of sense, especially to people who may not even be Christian but still ‘anti-abortion’ (yes, it is possible).
I agree that the logic is “simple”, but also that it is flawed and demonic. See the first collation of Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaemeron for a critique of the subtle and deceptive logic of the father of lies- his major (and true) premise is that our destiny is to become god-like and his minor (and false) premise is that we are become so on our own initiative.
I wonder how the discussion would go were we talking about someone who assassinated Hitler?
Gabriel
The death of anyone is a sorrow. St Vladimir was every bit a “monster” as many of the 20th century dictators, and yet became a saint. The conversion is better than their death.
Br. Matt,
I don’t see why one must immediately conclude that killing Tiller was an attempt to become god-like.
It could have been as simple as just wanting to stop him from committing a terrible evil that an corrupt society was going to continue to allow him to get away with. I don’t think that in itself means a person wants to be God. It could be a person doing what he believes the so-called ‘authorities’ will never do, but what they ought.
That said, I hear that Tiller’s license was going to be revoked anyway… it would have been possible to stop him without killing him. But let’s not not kid ourselves. The pro-abortion movement doesn’t care about these finer points. Don’t you see? If you think abortion is murder, you may as well be the man who shot Tiller. You can argue all day that this is not so, that it is not logical – it doesn’t matter.
It isn’t logical because it is political now. There is an explosion of vitriol on the left and they aren’t making distinctions. You are either with them or against them.
God has the power of life and death; the attempt to put it in our hands is to try to become like God.
MM,
Those, like MM, who are grieving the passing of Dr. Tiller might like to know that the National Network of Abortion Funds has established the George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund to support women seeking late-term abortions. I challenge those in “grief” over the untimely loss of Dr. Tiller to continue his work by making a contribution.
Mark
One should always grieve the death of anyone, especially a sinner; that we feel grief over their death nowhere means we like what they did. Indeed, Jesus’ grief was over the sin of the whole world, which includes, the actions of abortionists. Therefore, since he has such grief, would you tell Jesus to also help fund abortion?
Gabriel,
Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn’t. It depends on the circumstances of the assassination. However, regardless of the terrible crimes of Tiller, the two cases are not analogous in any morally significant way with regard to the question at hand: Hitler, having control of the powers of the State and intent on murderous evil, seemingly could not be brought to justice through conventional means. Tiller could, though perhaps with difficulty. This is merely one way in which the analogy fails.
Tiller and his murderer both suffer from the same thing–loss of love and the inability to be vulnerable in the pain of that loss. This is what all human beings share in common. Until we are willing to admit that truth all forms of suffering continue to operate and we respond with the same rhetoric and behavior that forms the foundation for the culture of death.
So, Mark, if I grieve over the gravely unjust murder of Saddam Hussein, I am supposed to support dictatorial maniacs everywhere? Huh?
If you think abortion is murder, you may as well be the man who shot Tiller. You can argue all day that this is not so, that it is not logical–it doesn’t matter.
It isn’t logical because it is political now. There is an explosion of vitriol on the left and they aren’t making distinctions. You are either with them or against them.
This is the language of the rankest sort of fanaticism. It’s the same language as that of the Catholic priest-fanatics who encouraged Babington and Ravaillac to assassinate their sovereigns. It is not even remotely true, because it refuses to make the important distinction between “criminal homicide” and “legalized murder.” It is not even remotely true because the “leader” of the so-called “Left” in America is Barack Obama, who will not allow these distinctions to be made in the barbaric black and white terms–at least not as regards judgment of people and their motives–that you wish to cast them in.
I call abortion “legalized murder” and it is NOT TRUE that I might just as well have been the man who shot Tiller.
Obviously these words of John, Cardinal O’Connor don’t particularly resonate with you:
“If anyone has an urge to kill someone at an abortion clinic, they should shoot me. … It’s madness. It discredits the right-to-life movement. Murder is murder. It’s madness. You cannot prevent killing by killing.”
Roeder may not have explicitly thought to himself- “I want to be god-like”- in carrying out this act, but this is not a necessary condition of his falling into the logic of hell. All that is required is his wanting to enact justice for the sake of the unborn (such an intention being good and an imitation of God’s own justice) and doing so by publicly executing a man in front of his family and congregation (the demonic minor premise).
There is an explosion of vitriol on the left and they aren’t making distinctions.
Just because they’re not doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. Our humanity depends on us making crucial distinctions here.
I remember this issue came up with past death penaty discussions. I remember Cardinal Dulles making the point that human justice can only be a symbolic anticipation of God’s perfect justice. It can never be revenge, and it nearly always morphs into revenge. That is point one, and it is a primary reason why the death penalty is never truly just, and should only be used as an absolute last resort (much like war).
Point 2 is the Anscombe point, that there is no such thing as justice meted out by those who have no right to do so.
We should always be sad at the death of a human person.
We should always be sad at murder.
We should always be sad when people resort to violence and killing.
This sadness flows from the love of life which defines the pro-life movement.
God Bless
Another thought that may provoke even less significance may be that the murderer’s action represents our inability to comprehend the sacrificial love that is necessary to create a culture of life. The culture of life can only begin and continue with union in God’s Love.
If we are honest with ourselves we would see that we do not sacrifice to the degree Our Lord requires of us and as a result our action of faith fails and the light that is created is through friction.
Do you really want to convert hearts by showing the world what sacrificial love really is? Or is it easier to debate about feelings and beliefs?
Are you willing to go into the unknown?
Digby,
Whether or not the language is ‘fanaticism’, it is what people are saying.
And there is some truth to it. I’d rather be a truthful fanatic than – what? – a dishonest weakling, afraid of the truth. That’s not how I live my life, in fear, groveling, lest I look like a ‘fanatic’.
This week in my community 2 different parents killed their own children. Last night a teenager was shot to death in the park near my home.
I grieve for all victims of violent crime. But I think I see what MZ is saying: I don’t “feel” particularly any genuine sorrow over Dr. Tiller’s murder – not because I approve in any way, or that I rejoice. Simply there are plenty of tragedies in the world to grieve over. I don’t need to pretend to be particularly ‘moved’ by the death of Dr. Tiller
IMO Mr. Hargrave you are loosing your way –
you will come to regret some of your words in this comment section. Welcome to the club.
Henry,
My point is that the use of the term “grief” in this context is cheap and self-congratulatory, and that many of the comments here are more about self-righteous posturing than anything approaching genuine grief. M.Z.’s original post was brutally honest: He condemned Scott Roeder’s act (as did I), but refused to participate in some pretended sorrow over the death of a notorious killer of unborn children.
If you are genuinely bereaved over loss of George Tiller, demonstrate it by making a donation to his favorite cause, or write an encomium to him on his obituary guestbook. Or simply sit and weep bitter tears of remorse. But please don’t instruct those of us who know what he was and what he did to gin up some emotion we don’t feel.
This whole thread would be best served if it were simply erased.
I agree. It is the worst I have read here and make me feel ashamed and, well, grieve.
Oh please. The light from your halo is blinding me.
Given your inability to understand what tragedy is or to understand boundaries more generally Sam, I’m not exactly shocked. I don’t know Mark. I’m kind of finding the sight of preening sickening myself. I cherish the selective application of pacifist principles by some. I love the inability to recognize that that is what is occuring argument-wise. My favorite part though is the circling around of making sure that whatever is rich and white is protected.
I don’t think Joe and MZ have had much of a fair hearing here in the combox. It’s no use denigrating people’s honest feelings. What’s better is to recall the Christian response, and to remind ourselves of the Gospel approach to evil. It’s helpful to remember JPtG’s explanation of love:
“love is not a fleeting emotion, but an intense and enduring moral force which seeks the good of another, even at the cost of self-sacrifice.”
Joe, if your comment is intended to imply a certain self-righteousness about my assessment of this post and commentary, then, I take it all back. I didn’t mean to say that at all. I was only trying to relay the generally wrongheaded (not to mention hearted) way in which this promotes grief as a mere optional feeling, when, in fact, it is part of the greater command to love, in my mind.
Of course, you can see that argued in full in my own post on the matter, but, if that comes out as me saying that I can do much more than try to write homiletic-sounding, half-witted essays, and actually live it, then, please ignore me completely. I am no saint, not even close.
MZ: I never got a reply to what makes murder a non-tragedy. I may be blind but I will need you to show me where that is the case. Now, regarding boundaries: here I am quite confused. I don’t truthfully know or can even guess what you might possibly mean. Could you explain?
To you both: I am not sure why you keep defending this position here (i.e. in this thread) when there is at least one very strong rebuttal written by Nate, and a weaker one by myself, that remain untouched by your rejoinders here.
In the basic polemics of communication, I think, you need to address how your argument can withstand the critique made above. Unless, as I mentioned to Joe, you do not not trust the argument itself as such and only find it to be self-righteous poppy-cock. In that case, please ignore what I wrote and see to Nate’s post; which is much better and clearer, by the way.
Peace.
“My favorite part though is the circling around of making sure that whatever is rich and white is protected.”
This, of course, is laughable to me. Being so rich and white as I am or would hope to be. Its almost as fantastic a claim as Joe implying that I am a saint.
I think Nate may be right, though. For example, I do not take issue with the first line about sadness. But, as I argued, grief is not the same as sadness, in fact is pregnant with joy. So, all in all, I do not find anything terrible about your hearts, but I do reserve the right to say that connotation—that I am making up, to be sure, as we all do—of this piece is off the mark, which is love of course. But to be off that mark is not anything new or strange, but it does come in degrees and relations. The degree I find here is unsettling. That’s all I am saying.
Your rejoinder is premised on his death being tragic, something I reject. Nate’s reply is non-responsive, if we are to treat it as a reply. Having explicitly said twice that I wasn’t calling for rejoicing, I think that would be manifest. He goes on to gratuitously assert that Tiller’s death isn’t vigilante justice. One can of course maintain that vigilante justice is wrong. I in fact maintain it is wrong in this post. However, I am at a loss for how anyone could interpret the act primarily as anything other than vigilantism.
http://condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/tlove/comic-tragic.html
I’m failing to see how his death is particularly notable. We had two murders here in Pittsburgh just last week. I haven’t been called on to issue any great statements about how terrible they were even though I feel strongly that Pittsburgh is a great, safe, city in which to abide.
I have been called on by Democratic/liberal friends of mine to issue strong statements about how wrong this murder was. I admit I find the whole thing perplexing. Why must *I* condemn this murder both explicitly and resoundedly. Does the fact that I am (1) Christian (2) Pro-life make them suspect that I myself might be swayed towards murder? If not, then why the stressed demand that I do so? And yet, the two murders here in Alleghany county last week go without vigil, outrage, or calls for condemnnation.
This is why I’m glad you wrote this post MZ. He probably shouldn’t have killed, indeed, but I feel no more need to gnash my teeth over his death than the two mentioned above.
Thank you.
MZ,
Given that my preferred theological anthropology (Thomist) holds that everybody always acts with some (at least apparent) good in view and that sin is always due to a kind of misjudgment or ignorance, it should come as no surprise that I find Tiller’s death tragic. I can even pity the man, even if only given what he could have been if he turned his life around and done penance (think Bernard Nathanson). I can certainly pity Tiller’s family and congregation, who had to witness this act of violence and whose consciences may be irreversibly distorted and biased against the Pro-life viewpoint because of this act of vigilante “justice”.
Indeed, bonus est quod omnia appetunt!
For what it’s worth, here is some unforced grief over Tiller’s demise.
MZ: You are evading the question about murder. What makes murder a non-tragedy?
I am very familiar with Aristotle’s definition of tragedy in the Poetics. The most basic definition he give is that it is “serious, complete, and possessing magnitude.” I argue that this sense of tragedy is not optional to parts of life, but that life itself is fundamentally tragic which provides us with the reason for hope, faith and love.
Now, until you reply directly to what makes murder a non-tragic thing, you are failing to engage directly with my rebuttal. That is your option, of course, but I would expect much more from someone who I find to be quite reasonable and very smart most of the time here.
Oh, and the boundaries sideswipe you took at me is still opaque to me.
Br. Matthew Augustine Miller, OP Says:
June 1, 2009 [About assassinating Hitler].
“Gabriel,
Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn’t. It depends on the circumstances of the assassination. However, regardless of the terrible crimes of Tiller, the two cases are not analogous in any morally significant way with regard to the question at hand: Hitler, having control of the powers of the State and intent on murderous evil, seemingly could not be brought to justice through conventional means. Tiller could, though perhaps with difficulty. This is merely one way in which the analogy fails”.
A Dog of the Lord neatly sidesteps the issue. Do you know that Hitler did not have a greater good in mind, as much as he might have been misled?
Tiller was protected by the law. Not a law voted on by our polity, but a law imposed by nine judges [which is often criticised for its legal confusion]. Are we still a democracy?
Fr. Neuhaus wrote years ago that the abortion issue was so important, and so impossible to compromise with, that it might lead to another American Revolution.
Was the original revolution bad?
We read in Exodus 21:
22 “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.
23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,
24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise”.
On the one hand Our Lord said “I come to bring not peace, but a sword”.
So it perhaps not as straightforward as some bloggers would have it.
One has but to read the encomiums profferred by such as the Episcopalian priestess that Tiller was a martyr, to realize how bizarre the discussion has become.
I recall that Baal and Moloch were the gods to whom hundreds [thousands?] of children were sacrificed. Our country survived for decades with the abomination of slavery. It was finally halted by what some consider as an illegal war.
The comment above is a distortion of truth. The sword of truth is love. It takes strength of faith to love. Christ shows us what happens when anger is used to stand up for the faith when He was in the temple and throwing out the abusers of the temple. Did any conversions take place that day in the temple?
Then He shows us where the Truth of the faith is on the Cross. That is where you see conversion.
Your anger is influencing your misinterpretation of scripture. We are called to find our peace in the suffering at the Cross. That is a hard sword to swallow.
JC said that ‘Lutheranism was a false religion”, I am a Missouri Synod Lutheran. I and the Missouri Synod support the pro-life movement. Lutheranism is NOT a false religion. Dr Tiller was excommunicated from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Don’t confuse us with the ELCA which signed the JDDJ with the Catholic Church. The problem with most Catholics is that they pick and choose what of their church doctrine that they want to believe.
Harry, you are ABSOLUTELY right about “most Catholics,” and “most Catholics” think it’s ok to believe in “salvation by faith alone” nowadays.
Most Lutherans are good Christians, agreed, but “salvation by faith alone” is an egregious heresy. As a matter of fact, it’s the most egregious heresy of the Reformation period: it is contradicted DIRECTLY by the “Letter of Saint James,” which Luther called a “text of straw,” and it provides the most significant difference between Protestant heresy and orthodox Christianity, because it infects the politics and social morality of the Protestant countries of the modern West.
Unfortunately, many modern Catholics are nowadays replicating this egregious heresy by believing in “salvation by faith in the Magisterium alone,” and forgetting that the justice and charity of their WORKS of corporal mercy (i.e. love) are MORE important in determining their salvation than faith, which, without love, to quote the Scripture, is as a “sounding bell.”