News Item: : Woe to Us, If We Do Not Defend Life!
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Tuesday 15 May 2018 - 13:54:01

Alfie Evans: Having drawn forth much courage, love, faith and truth around the world, exposing the hearts and deeds of the good and the evil, little Alfie is now at peace with God.

Alfie Evans' Funeral Cortege - Truth, Love and Dignity

Several weeks ago, Dorothy Cummings McLean wrote a moving article about Alfie Evans for LifeSiteNews, which I felt at the time had very accurately taken and expressed something of the pulse of the culture and people of my home city of Liverpool.

The article was entitled, 'One of our own': Why Alfie Evans is Liverpool's baby. It concluded with a revealing insight into the strange-sounding words of Judge Heyden, regarding the supposed infringements of Alfie's ''privacy'' by Tom Evans' courageous attempts to get Alfie's story out on social media.

Dorothy's article wondered aloud whether the courts were ''imposing middle-aged, middle-class ideas about what makes life worth living on working class Alfie and his parents?''

Of course, there was a lot more to Dorothy's article, and indeed to the moral issues at stake in Alfie's case, than just that. However, I suggest that it gave an interesting angle on the ironical use and abuse of power in our much surveilled British society. It was the discomforting matter of surveillance, bearing close to home after one has been so outspoken, which I tried to express here yesterday.

Anyway, at the conclusion of Dorothy's article, she asked a Liverpool cab driver what he thought of Justice Heyden's ''interest in Alfie's privacy''.

The answer was as revealing as it was expressive of the true Liverpudlian culture.

She wrote: ''That child will never have any privacy,'' said the driver proudly, as if privacy were abuse and neglect. ''We'll be with him until the end. And when he dies, there will be thousands of us at his funeral. The whole city will be there.''

It was because of this kind of basic Scouse natural decency that I was so glad that, whilst Alfie's family deserved the dignity of mourning privately, an opportunity was also being provided for the public to show Alfie, and his parents and relations, their loving support yesterday.

And loving support it was.

The sight of hundreds of ordinary Liverpool people, mums and grandmas in particular, shedding tears, gently clapping and scattering beautiful flowers before and on the hearse yesterday, is something which I will not soon forget. Neither will any of us forget Tom and Kate in those moments of dignified grief. Nor little Alfie, the holy boy of Liverpool, who brought forth so much love, courage and prayer all around the world.

I can't help but thinking that it is just this kind of foundational, natural law, loving kindness, still found among so many of the ordinary folk, which too many in the judiciary, healthcare, civil services and, alas, even in the Church hierarchy have lost touch with.

As such, our society is not only becoming less and less humane; it is even becoming a frightening place for parents, families and indeed for anyone who becomes vulnerable in terms of their health and autonomy.

But it is this kind of ordinary decency at the street level which continues to give hope. And it is this very thing which our bishops and priests need to tap into and assist.

Because of the dignity and duties of their office, they have to show, even more than do the rest of us, that Christ and His Church are on the side of the most ordinary, the most vulnerable, the most weak. This was always a key attraction of the Catholic Church, which has provided care for more people, in more cultures, across more social backgrounds, and for longer periods of time, than has any other institution in human history. This is a remarkable aspect of her truth claims.

The Pro-Life Calls for an Autopsy

Before saying more on that front, it is noticable that Dorothy Cummings McLean also posted up another article at LifeSiteNews yesterday, under the headline, Alfie Evans laid to rest today with no coroner's investigation, no toxicology report. And, (good grief), for those who are surveilling my writings here, I am merely reporting on something which is already in the media.

Dorothy reports that a pro-life advocate called John Allman had made an ''urgent application'' to the UK High Court in Westminster to prevent burial without a prior post-mortem examination, given the fact that Italian media had suggested that drugs had been administered to Alfie before he died. Indeed, LifeSiteNews themselves claim to have been told by two sources close to the family that these were injections.

Until now, I have avoided comment on this story here for four reasons: I did not think there was sufficient evidence to believe the story's veracity; Alfie's family had specifically asked people not to believe or spread ''nasty rumours'' which were upsetting them in their grief and, as a local, I would in no way want to do that; a person who we know was praying deeply in and outside of Alder Hey in those days gave no credence to the story; and quite frankly I did not want to get arrested for spreading such inflammatory stories without reasonable foundation.

I also thought that - whilst keeping an open mind in order to remain open to new evidence -, without confirmation from the family themselves, such stories could likely serve to take the real focus away from the absolutely important and central fact that all of us already do know; which is that, at the ordering of the state and medical world, backed up by all of the machinery at their disposal, and even supported by local Catholic prelates, that Alfie Evans was disgracefully denied oxygen, fluid and nutrition for long periods of time in his last days. And this, even though his parents and supporters were so desperately trying to save him.

I would be worried that this key cultural seismic change might somehow become obscured and, if not forgotten, at least moved out of focus, if everyone began to instead pursue something which may only be a kind of conspiracy theory; and thus fail to keep the spotlight on the key issue afflicting our society and advancing the Culture of Death.

Be all that as it may, according to Dorothy's article at LifeSiteNews, the pro-lifer John Allman courageously went to court after asking the local coroner to do a toxicology report in order to definitively investigate these matters.

In a statement which has obviousy been well thought out and proposed, Mr. Allman noted: ''A toxicology report may reveal to what extent, if any, medication given to Alfie before he died may have shortened his life. It could therefore exhonerate fully those unfortunate health professionals whom, somewhat irresponsibly, until your request reveals the truth and silences those wagging tongues, various conspiracy theorists are wont recklessly to accuse of homicide.''

In any case, it was ruled that no toxicology report would be carried out. Dorothy Cummings McLean thus reflected that, ''the question of what caused the death of UK toddler Alfie Evans may never be known.''

Still, all pro-lifers and Catholics have a duty to continue to point out that the removal of oxygen, fluid and water, especially for so long, and against the direct wishes of the parents, was and will always be plain wrong. 

Alfie has now been buried and, as we have said a few times, having been Baptised and Confirmed, now shares in a high degree of glory, enjoying the Beatific Vision of God. He is at peace.

Please do continue to pray for his family, relatives and close supporters in these painful days for them all.

Reclaiming Evangelium Vitae from the Dust of Obscurity

As to the rest of us, the events of recent weeks have exposed just how far from the, quite literally, life-giving true teachings of the Catholic Church things have fallen.

About 16 years ago, I read the life-story of the former abortion doctor, and Catholic convert, Dr. Bernard Nathanson. He explained that the abortionists would never have got so far with their plans in the 60's and 70's, if the Catholic clergy had been more interested, informed and unified in their resistance.

Nathanson warned that the Culture of Life could expect further grave defeats in the areas of embryo research and cloning, in the future, if the Catholic clergy made the same mistakes again.

When I read that all those years ago, I was working as a PR/Education officer, based in Liverpool; but operating as the travelling north-west regional officer as part of a national UK pro-life team.         

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who warned that the Culture of Death advances when the Catholic clergy are lacking in interest, information and unified action.

As such, I hosted a clergy day in the Liverpool office to try and help the priests to become mobilised, interested, informed and united on the pro-life front.

Alas, and although I received a couple of genuine apologies from orthodox old boys, in the event only two men showed up: one was my late friend Fr. Mike Williams, (at that point still a seminarian), and the other was old Fr. Billy Mills; who defeated a severe respiratory problem and a kettle-scalded foot to get to the event. May God rest them!

During that period of full-time pro-life work, I came to see that not only were many bishops and priests neither interested, informed or unified on pro-life matters, but that Evangelium Vitae must rank among other essential papal teaching documents of the late 20th-Century - along with, for examples, Humanae Vitae, Fides et Ratio and Veritatis Splendor -, which were as important as they were universally ignored.

The behaviour and acts of the local hierarchy of England and Wales, most specifically that of Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop Malcolm McMahon and Bishop Tom Williams, during the recent case of little Alfie Evans, demonstrate just how singularly Evangelium Vitae has been ignored. The whole sorry saga also demonstrates something of the dire consequences of that ignorance.

Here was a teaching moment of great importance. Had it been charitably seized, it might have saved Alfie's life, assisted his parents, borne witness to the truths of our Faith to countless people of goodwill who were finding courage, faith and prayer in those days, as well as protecting untold numbers of parents and children from forced euthanasia in the future.

All of this was lost.

This is why, even though I so often promote here the good things that Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury says and does, I find that his words on the government turn-around over capped places for Catholic schools - bold, good and true as his words are in exposing the fact that ''the rights of parents are being made subservient to ideology'' -, to be just that bit hollow this time around.

It is very sad.

What happened to little Alfie and his family has set a precedent which means there will be many more similar cases in the future.

Given the massive defeat which we have all just endured, combined with the fact that, across the sea, Ireland is just days away from the referendum about the pro-life 8th Amendment, I call here and now for a renewed reception and implementation of the essentially important Evangelium Vitae.

This needs to be accomplished through conversion of heart, prayer, study and action.

For, as the sainted author of that key document warned at World Youth Day in Denver, 1993: Woe to you, if you do not succeed in defending life!

Woe, indeed...     

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