WASHINGTON (CNS) — Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Va., quoted from Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien to make a pro-life point during his homily at the Jan. 18 Mass that closed the Vigil for Life.
“In J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ there is a passage where Boromir, a lord of Gondor, is tempted by the Ring of Power. He holds it up, while being tempted to use its power to defend his people, and he says: ‘The ring! Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? So small a thing!’”
But those small things can be big deals, Bishop Knestout said at the Mass, celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
He pointed to three small things: the splitting of the atom, the invention of the microchip, and the development of the birth control pill.
With the first, “unbelievable destructive power is unleashed when that stability and union of the atom is broken,” Bishop Knestout said. “When these are in their right relationship, stability and peace are the result.” When they are not, he added, the result can be destruction “almost beyond our imagination.”
Because of the microchip’s ubiquitousness, “communication and communicator are divided,” he said. “Before this technology, both communicator and communication were present at the same time, and you must deal with the person in front of you — not some anonymous, abstract entity or idea that can be attacked or discarded easily.”
With the pill, Bishop Knestout said, “life and love, husband and wife are divided. Union and communion with one another and with God is broken. From this is unleashed the destruction of the family, right relationships between human beings. What results are broken families, societies and cultures.”
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