Liberty-conscious nation

SOUTH CAROLINA – I am always looking forward to visiting this place when I am in the USA. My eagerness is more intense now because this is the first time I will see and enjoy the company of our first granddaughter Joanne Marie after ten grandsons in the family. She came into this world nine months ago the same year we lost our only daughter, Joyce Joanne. God must have felt our grief for such a loss that He found it necessary to give our family another girl. My wife and I truly feel so blessed with this first baby girl of a granddaughter after losing our only daughter.

And after experiencing the hustle and bustle of the "city that never sleeps" where the rat race is getting fiercer along the wide and world-famous avenues above the ground and the most intricate and longest subways below them, the urge to visit this comparatively small, quiet and rustic but modern place in the area of Charleston and Summerville, is heightened even more this time around, if only for a refreshing change of pace.

The change of pace really allowed me to relax a little bit and feel the pulse of this nation now recognized as the number one world power. Apart from the problems confronting them in the aftermath of the Iraq war where American soldiers keep on dying everyday, American society is presently preoccupied with another issue affecting human lives. They are so concerned with preserving the lives of their soldiers in Iraq, yet they seem to devalue human lives in their own country especially those still in the womb and those nearing the tomb. A great number of them vehemently claim it is their right to choose life or death in certain situations to justify abortion and euthanasia. These "pro-choice" advocates have made abortion and euthanasia major issues in the coming elections. American Bishops were thus constrained to raise the point of whether Catholic politicians can claim to be "Catholics in good standing" as to be worthy of receiving the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist while actively supporting their constituents’ right of choice. The Bishop in Colorado Springs even issued a pastoral letter requiring Catholics voting for candidates who support euthanasia and abortion rights to confess that sin before receiving communion. Such moves have been criticized as eccentric and branded as political meddling, but they are not. A wall of separation cannot be built between man and his God. When man transgresses God’s commandment, the Church should intervene. It is the duty of the Church to meddle even in political matters if it is detrimental to man’s own spiritual well-being.

Another controversy raging in America is on medical mal-practice. The rights-conscious Americans have made medical practice in this country very costly to the doctors themselves. Their seemingly lucrative income is usually eaten up by the huge amount of premium they pay on the insurance against liability for malpractice. In fact, doctors here frequently find themselves being hailed to court for any imagined or perceived mistake. The feeling of being oppressed has even driven one doctor to propose withholding treatment in non-emergency sickness to lawyers filing medical malpractice suits against them. And it is being seriously considered by the American Medical Association. This is how ridiculous the situation has become. It can happen only in America inhabited by people so zealous of their rights and liberties.

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