Paul Kokoski: Terrorism

Pope John Paul II said that terrorism is and always will be a show of inhuman ferocity that, precisely for this reason, will never be able to solve conflicts among human beings. Only reason and love are the valid means of surpassing and resolving disputes between people. No situation of injustice, no feeling of frustration, no philosophy or religion can justify such an aberration.

The recent chain of blind violence we are witnessing around the world is the result of scandalous injustices and imbalances that create conditions favoring an uncontrollable explosion of the desire for revenge. When fundamental rights are violated, it is easy to fall prey to temptations of hatred and violence. Nonetheless, we must keep in check our base impulses and together work to build a global culture of solidarity that restores hope in the future to the young.

I am thinking not only of the obvious economic scandals that need our attention but of the various governmental laws which, under the guise of justice, violate the fundamental rights of individuals like the unborn and the aged through abortion, genetic manipulation and euthanasia and which need to be corrected. Such laws do not lead to freedom but are rather catalysts for aggression. They work to assault our moral sensibilities leading us subtly unaware into corruption.

To claim, for example, the right to abortion and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others.

Many are shocked at the recent massacre of innocent children in Russia but few seem concerned that millions more children - the most innocent of innocent - are being lawfully killed each day through abortion in ordinary hospitals and clinics around the globe - and in the most gruesome manner.

This is because today, in many people's consciences, the perception of the gravity of abortion has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake.

Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception.

Terrorism is not only to be found in places like New York, Spain, Iraq, Israel and Russia but in our own home towns and in our families. This, ultimately, is where terrorism begins and where it must be curtailed.  

With respectful and cordial best wishes I remain,

Sincerely yours,

Paul Kokoski