This weekend's editorial in wrapping up Respect Life Week 2000 will be very brief because we've said throughout the week everything that needs to be said. Now it's time for action. We've indicated over and over how crucial it is to elect an honest, no-nonsense pro-life president this year and, though he is a long, long shot - we solidly back Alan Keyes because of his integrity and unyielding commitment to the Sanctity of LIfe. However, reality dictates that since he doesn't have the coffers of George Bush, Steve Forbes, or even John McCain to sail on the great yachts of the rich and rhetoricians, he may not be able to stay afloat even though he is solidly on the Barque of Peter because of his firm Catholicity. No, he can't walk on water for after all he is human, but we can always pray for a miracle. Just as Paul Cayard made up a seemingly insurmountable lead over Prada on the third leg to lead America One to victory Wednesday in the America's Cup Trials in New Zealand, so also it is possible for Keyes to pick up a favorable lift and move leeward toward victory. Only God controls the wind, but humans control the boats and without a concerted effort by all working together toward a common goal in coordinating the sails, rigs and fittings , we'll all be dead in the water!

  &bnsp; Speaking of fittings, it's fitting that we cap this intensive past two week commemoration of Christian Unity Week and the succeeding Respect Life Week 2000 with the Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He is considered the most intelligent saint in the Church who is honored in the simple term "Angelic Doctor" which speaks volumes as in Summa Theologica - a tome that set the bar higher for Catholics from his time on. It was this brilliant thirteenth century saint who said, "The respect that one has for the rule flows naturally from the respect that one has for the person who gave it." Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, a modern angelic doctor in our eyes, enhanced on that by saying, "Authority must always have behind it some value which elicits respect and reverence."

    If you follow our line of thinking you know we're talking about respect for life because the Thomistic principle applies here. How can one respect an authority who has usurped a higher Authority? We're talking of the Supreme Court, who in 1973, for ungodly reasons chose to rule for Roe over Wade. The Roe was Norma Corvey, a Dallas woman who was basically the front for Planned Parenthood and N.O.W. A few years ago Corvey saw the error of her ways and converted to Catholicism and since has become a strong advocate for the Sanctity of Life. She finally realized what another great Doctor of the Church once said, a man on the same plateau as the great Aquinas - Saint Augustine who also turned from a life of sin: "My heart is restless, until it rests in You (God)."

    You'll note this past week we have carried a number of hard-hitting, conscience-tweaking articles on the Sanctity of Life and have not been shy in defining the culprit and warning readers of the insidious plots and ploys of the pro-abort culture of death promoters including potential presidential candidates. As we have said so many time, this election year is pivotal for the history of mankind for if future babies are allowed to continue to be slaughtered, then there may not be a mankind to record history!

    One of our columnists - Pat Ludwa sent this poem entitled "No Choice" that sums up best the bond between child and mother:

God created me in your womb,
but in your heart you had no room.
I was so tiny, I had no voice,
the world screamed at you that it was your CHOICE
Did you really choose death for me or were you tricked, duped, defiled.
Did they lie to you and tell you that I wasn't a child.
I'm sorry, so sorry, I came at a time
when things were so hard for you Mother of mine.
I'm sorry, so sorry, for the state of a world
that doesn't want babies, boys or girls.
I know in my heart that if you had a choice,
you'd be holding me, loving me, hearing my voice.
You'd be cuddling me close and counting my toes.
You'd be amazed at my smile and my cute little nose.
Instead you're the victim, just like me,
of a world that is hateful as hateful can be.
And when you finally open your eyes
they'll fill with tears as you realize.
We'll never know who I might have been,
a doctor, a lawyer, a leader of men.
I might have been great but we'll never know
because of the "choice" you made long ago.
So forgive yourself mother, ask Our Father above
to replace all your pain, with His Merciful love.
Ask Jesus to help you, He's there at your feet,
and, perhaps one day mother, in Heaven we'll meet."

    If that doesn't grab you by the heart and soul and prompt you to drop to your knees and pray for aborted babies and then get out there and campaign for whichever pro-life candidate you feel would best carry out God's charge to preserve life at all costs, then we don't know what will unless it is the Holy Father's warning to all of us: "America, if you want liberty and justice for all and lasting peace...defend life!" Remember what God said in Deuteronomy 30: 19, "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendents may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding His voice, and holding fast to Him." We will leave you with this simple summation of why Jesus came into this world, suffered, died and rose from the dead as recorded in John 10: 10, "I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly."

Michael Cain, editor