(Twenty-ninth Sunday of the Year
(B): This homily was given on October 21, 2018 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly,
R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read
Isaiah 53:10-11; Psalm 33:4-22; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-ninth Sunday 2018]
Kermit Gosnell was an abortionist
in Philadelphia for more than thirty years.
He’s been called “America’s #1 serial killer”—and with good reason. He utilized some of the most gruesome
procedures imaginable to perform late-term abortions. (Abortions, incidentally, are illegal in
Pennsylvania after twenty-three weeks of pregnancy—but that didn’t matter to
Gosnell.)
As for his clinic, it was a
disgrace. It resembled a pig sty more
than a medical facility. Investigators
described it as a “house of horrors”.
In 2013 he was convicted of first
degree murder in the deaths of three of his infant victims, and of involuntary
manslaughter in the death of a 41-year-old woman, who died during a botched
abortion. He was also found guilty of
twenty-one counts of illegal late-term abortions, as well as a host of other
charges.
He was sentenced to life in
prison without parole.
Even many who identify themselves
as “pro-choice” were horrified at what went on in Gosnell’s abortuary. Of course, science teaches us that human life
begins at the moment of conception—which means that every abortion that takes place in every abortion mill is “horrific.”
A movie came out last week about
all this which I highly recommend.
Unfortunately, it’s only playing in one theater locally—the Marquee
Cinema in Westbrook (about a 40 minute drive from here). The film is entitled “Gosnell: The Trial of
America’s Biggest Serial Killer.” One of
its stars is actor Dean Cain, who played Superman in the TV series, “Lois &
Clark”.
And it’s not filled with
gore. As one commentator has noted, the movie
“stays true to the trial record without having to resort to gratuitous graphic
imagery.” Thus it’s rated PG-13 and
appropriate for a younger, teenage audience.
So if you’re looking for
something to do in the next few days that will make you very glad that you’re
pro-life, take a ride to Westbrook and see this film. It will be time well-spent.
I thought of Kermit Gosnell and
his tragic story when I was reflecting on the words of Jesus in this gospel
text from Mark 10, especially where our Lord says, “For the Son of Man did not
come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus came, as Scripture says, so that we might have life and
have it more abundantly. That’s why, as
Philippians 2 tells us, “He emptied himself … and was born in the likeness of
men … and humbled himself … accepting even death, death on a cross.”
Jesus came into this world to serve his Father and to serve us, by giving his life for
us for the forgiveness of our sins.
Well, Kermit Gosnell also came to “serve”—at least that’s
what he said. He maintained many times
that he ran his abortion business in order to serve women—especially poor, inner city women.
But his idea of service, and Jesus’ idea of service, are
polar opposites!
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, served by offering his own
life; Kermit Gosnell served by taking lives (of babies—some of whom were
already out of the womb, and of at least one woman in a botched abortion).
To Jesus Christ, serving involved the giving of himself to
others (and the giving of himself for
others); to Kermit Gosnell serving involved taking from others—especially their
money (the movie makes clear that he got filthy rich from the dirty deeds he
performed in his abortion mill).
Jesus Christ came to serve others by giving his life
as a ransom for them; Kermit Gosnell came for the service of himself, and to destroy
as many innocent lives as he possibly could in the process.
Those are two very different understandings
of what it means to “serve,” proceeding from two very different definitions of
the word “service”. One of those definitions
is rooted in the truth, the other is rooted in a perversion of the truth—since
it equates service with murder.
Kermit Gosnell, in effect, tried
to legitimize his sin (the sin of killing babies) by perverting and re-defining
a word.
Which is something that happens a
lot in our society these days, with a lot of words besides "service"!
Think of how people have tried to
re-define the word “marriage” in recent years to justify certain sinful behaviors;
or how they’ve tried to re-define the word “gender” to include 60 or more
possibilities.
Think of the prevailing cultural
notion of love—which involves the approval of another person’s actions, even if
they’re objectively sinful. As we all
know, if you openly disapprove of certain activities in our society right now,
you are immediately labeled a “hater”—as if “hatred” and “disapproval” are synonyms. Well they’re not (as I said in a homily I
gave a couple of months ago); neither are “love” and “approval”
synonymous. For example, all good
parents love their children—but they
certainly don’t approve of everything
their children do.
Nor should they when their children
do things that are wrong! Love and
approval are not synonyms—at least in the real world they aren’t. But they’re being re-defined as such in the
alternative universe that some people are trying to create for themselves and
for the rest of us.
That’s the same universe that
Kermit Gosnell currently lives in with his warped understanding of what it
means to “serve” women. I don’t know
about you, but personally I’d rather live in the real world with Jesus Christ and
try to serve others as he served them.
Because I know that that will help to make the world a much
better place for me, for women, for unborn babies—and for everyone else.