Easter Sunday

Sunday, April 24 was Easter Sunday and as we witnessed, it could not have been a more beautiful day to celebrate Jesus' Resurrection.



In reflection, as incredible a miracle as Jesus' rising from the dead was, it is only half the story for us Christians: we, too, believe that we will rise from the dead as Our Lord did. Like Jesus, we will rise to have a fleshly existence and will be rejoined with our souls. Scripture tells us that we will either rise again to take part in the resurrection of the just or the resurrection of the damned. This, of course, is the difference between heaven and hell. Of course, I any exclude mention of purgatory, as when the general resurrection takes place, there will be no more purgatory. Of course, our salvation or damnation will be based on our faith and coupled with living out that faith in Jesus Christ.


This is a common belief that Christians hold and explains why Easter Sunday is such a widely celebrated holiday. May this holiday and the Easter season be a time of renewed belief in Jesus Christ

--Fr. Marc A. Vicari

Roe v Wade: the 38th Anniversary

One of the most monumental United States Supreme Court cases was the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford case. In summary, the case was of a Missouri slave named Dred Scott who was considered the property of John Sandford. A few years prior to this, Scott tried to sue his slave master for his freedom, taking his case to the Federal court, but the federal court judge determined that he did not have jurisdiction to rule because Scott was black, therefore, he could not be a citizen of the United States. Thus Scott brought his case to the US Supreme Court to determine whether, because of his skin color, he could be a citizen and be entitled to all the rights of being a citizen, like the right of suing.

The nation at the time was quite divided and sometimes people became violent over the issue. Some states even threatened to succeed from the Union because of this issue. Perhaps this is what St. Paul spoke of when he wrote to the Corinthians, that there should be “no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” Yet, because the truth had been obscured, there was fighting over this basic human rights issue.

The Court first held that Scott was not a “citizen” within the meaning of the United States Constitution. According to the Court, the drafters of the Constitution had viewed all ancestors of Africa as “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Therefore, according to Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, Dred Scott and all blacks (and their descendents) were not only inferior, but they could not be citizens of the United States.

Certainly we are all outraged by this thinking and certainly embarrassed that our nation would ever espouse such beliefs at the highest level of the judicial system within the populace. In very much the same way, the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 outraged and embarrassed many because, again, the nation’s highest court determined that a certain portion of our population, namely, the unborn, are not only inferior, but that they are not entitled to rights. Yesterday was the 38^th anniversary of this Supreme Court decision and for that long; this nation has had an embarrassing black eye for that long.

There are many parallels between the Dred Scott Case and the Roe v. Wade decision.

1) Some didn’t see blacks as persons with rights simply because they were black and now some don’t see the unborn as persons with rights because they are unborn.

2) Like the Dred Scott decision, Roe v. Wade was handed down in the name of an individual right: in Dred Scott’s case, he was the property that could not be taken away from someone without due process. Blacks were considered the property of their owners while unborn children are the property of their mothers and in both cases, stripped of their rights and at the mercy of their “owners.”

3) The reasoning in Dred Scott and R v. W is nearly identical. In both cases the Court stripped all rights from a class of human beings and reduced them to nothing more than the property of others. For the past 38 years, in the Court’s eyes, unborn children are now the same “beings of an inferior order” that the justices considered blacks to be over a century ago.

4) We are asked to maintain this logic: the anti-slavery movement was told that no one should give in to the imposition of their morality, while that same mentality is invoked when those who believe in the rights of the unborn are told not to impose their morality of those with a choice, as it a private matter and, in essence, their property. No doubt, there are many things that we as a nation should be proud of, and the list is innumerable, but no doubt, there are things that we should be ashamed of as well. These two court decisions, especially as we mark the anniversary of one, are events that tarnish our historical standing and at the same time, they prove that we was a nation sometimes, we sit in darkness and through God's grace, we will see the Great Light. Right now, we are in a land overshadowed by death, but hopefully, the Light will arise.

This will only happen when we do what Jesus’ words were when he first began to preach. He said, “Repent.” Hopefully, we will do this for our sins both as individuals and also as a nation.