Monsignor Charles Pope contemplates "the Strength and Resilience of the Human Person"

In the wake of last week's tragic incident in Tuscon there have been reams of pages written about human nature, with one spin or another on the subject.

I haven't read anything that is as poignant and beautiful as what Monsignor Charles Pope - pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian - has composed on his blog hosted by the Archdiocese of Washington.

Here's an excerpt "Life is Worth Living: On the Strength and Resilience of the Human Person"...

One of the rights our modern age demands is the right to declare that certain lives are not worth living. In utero testing sometimes reveals the possibility or even the certainty of birth defects. Abortion is often recommended to mothers who carry "defective" children and sometimes that recommendation becomes pressure. It is said that almost 90% of families who receive a poor pre-natal diagnosis choose to abort.

And yet there are so many stories of people who have overcome enormous obstacles and who live full and rich lives. Some are missing limbs, others are blind, still others struggle with disease. Some have overcome poverty and injustice, others paralyzing accidents or great tragedies. And they are living witnesses to us that we ought never be the judge of what lives are worthwhile and what lives are “not worth” living. It is true that none of us would wish to be born missing limbs, or blind or in poverty, or with chronic conditions. But we must reverence those who are, learn to appreciate their gifts, and summon them to courage and greatness.

We must declare with great certitude that there is no such thing as a life not worth living. We say this not as some politically correct slogan but rather with firm conviction that every human life is willed by God. We were willed before we were made for the Scriptures say, "Before I ever formed you in the womb I knew and I appointed you..." (Jer 1:4). None of us is an accident nor are our gifts and apparent deficits mistakes. We exist as we are, the way we are for a purpose, a purpose for us and for others. We all have an irreplaceable role in God's kingdom and show forth aspect of His glory uniquely. Every human life is intended and is worth living because God says so by the very fact that we exist.

It's well worth reading in its entirety. Not only because of the good padre's own articulation but also for the videos he has included demonstrating several individuals who have triumphed in spite of the physical obstacles they were born with.

(Big tip o' the hat to Mike Casteel for this terrific find!)

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The "lost" tribe that wasn't

Just less than a month ago there was lots of excitement about a tribe of people living deep in the Brazilian jungle that had been photographed from the air. It was claimed at the time that these villagers were just now being discovered for the first time.

In the past few days it's been determined that this was a lie on the part of the photographer.

José Carlos Meirelles has admitted that authorities have known about the tribe since at least 1910! He took the photos and still claimed that these people had been completely undiscovered until his aerial reconnaissance. Why? Because he wanted it to seem like they were a truly lost tribe so that more attention would be given toward the issue of the impact of logging in the Amazon basin.

In other words: it was a lie driven by a political agenda.

I still harbor some admiration for the photos that Meirelles took, but now any appreciation for them will be forever tainted by how he chose to use them. If he had just come forward and said "hey, these are pictures of a tribe that we've known about for a long time but only now are able to get close enough to photograph them" that would have no doubt been a more respectable feat. He didn't play the part of the objective scientist at all. Instead he injected a personal bias into the matter and in the long run he probably did more harm than good to his cause.

That's a lesson that many other scientists would do well to be mindful of.

(And thanks to Nathan for passing along the news about this.)

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Brazilian tribe with no outside contact is photographed by airplane

Eric Wilson sent this story over to me late last night. Look at these photos: they're of a tribe of people near the border of Brazil and Peru, that so far as we know has had no contact at all with the outside world. They are reported to have fired arrows at the airplane that flew over them as these photographs were taken...

Read more here at the BBC's website.

Kinda humbling to know that in 2008, in spite of all our technology and how we've thought that the entire Earth has been mapped, that there are still corners of it that "civilized" humanity has not been able to reach... and that there are people there.

I say, leave these folks alone. Let them be. If they ever decide for themselves that they want to go beyond their present borders, that's their choice to make.

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