I had another homily prepared for today, but I scrapped it after the tragic events of this past Tuesday—events which affected me personally because I have a cousin who works at the Pentagon and an uncle who works close-by. Thankfully, both were okay.

People all over the world were shocked when they heard about these diabolical attacks on innocent human beings here in nation. In all honesty, however, I was not. I was sick to my stomach and angry—angrier than I’ve been in a good long time. But shocked? No way! Why should any of us be shocked at the "culture of death" manifesting itself once again? We’re so immersed in it; we’re so accustomed to hearing about the destruction of human embryos, in-vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion, and other socially-acceptable assaults on the human person—why should it surprise us when a group of people decides to put a new twist on such a common theme?

In fact, I would love to know how "pro-choicers" justify their condemnation of these terrorists. "Pro-choicers" proudly support the decision to kill innocent human life in the womb; how can they dare criticize these terrorists, who were simply exercising their "choice" to kill innocent human beings at the World Trade Center? Either both actions are wrong or neither is wrong!

And these pro-choicers will also attack those of us who believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death by pompously saying to us, "Who are you to impose your morality on others? And besides, it’s a woman’s body and she can do whatever she wants with it!"

Well, to those pro-choicers I now say, "Who are you to impose your morality on these terrorists? They believe it’s okay to crash planes into buildings and bomb the innocent: that’s a precept of their personal morality. Who are you to criticize them? And besides, the attitude of these assassins was, ‘These are our bodies, and we can do whatever we want with them.’"

All of a sudden those pro-choice arguments look pretty flimsy, don’t they?

As a Catholic Christian, who believes in the Natural Law, I have no problem whatsoever condemning these acts of terrorism, because I accept the timeless truth that it is always, always, always wrong to directly kill innocent human life! And I apply that truth consistently to everybody, from the moment of their conception to the moment of their natural death. It doesn’t matter what nationality or race or religion they are; they have an inherent dignity from the very fact they’re human!

The Holy Spirit has given us a prophetic set of readings this weekend, hasn’t he? In the first, God says to Moses—referring to the Israelites who had just worshipped the golden calf—"I see how stiff-necked this people is." For decades now most Americans (and most citizens of the western world) have been worshipping "the golden calf of choice," and they have remained stiff-necked in this attitude; as stiff-necked as those terrorists were.

And this leads, ultimately, not only to the kind of violence we saw this past week, but eventually to pure lunacy, as Joan Ryan’s column in last Monday’s Westerly Sun vividly illustrates. Did you see this one? It positively blew my mind. Ryan is a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle who is rabidly pro-abortion. But she also supports the prosecution of Nikolay Soltys, the man who recently murdered his pregnant wife. Joan believes he should be prosecuted not only for the murder of his wife, but also for the murder of the 3-month-old fetus who died in his wife’s womb. Do you see the problem here? She did. She wondered how she could condemn Nikolay Soltys for doing something that his wife could have done (with her support) in any abortion clinic in this country. Now here comes the lunacy: her rationalization for supporting so-called "abortion-rights laws" and so-called "fetus-protection laws" at the same time comes down to choice: in abortion, the woman herself chooses to end her pregnancy (and to Joan that’s okay), but in cases like the one involving Soltys, an assailant has made the choice for the woman without her permission (and that’s not okay). So Nikolay Soltys’ real crime (according to Joan Ryan) was that he denied his wife the opportunity to kill her baby herself.

In today’s first reading, the intercession of Moses held back the Lord’s wrath. Praise God. It shows the power of prayer. I believe it’s only been the intercession of saintly people all over the world in the last 3 or 4 decades which has held back the Lord’s wrath concerning the worship of this "golden calf of choice."

Thank God he gave us those other two readings today, because they remind us of the hope we have for positive change in the future, in spite of what we’ve done in the past. In the text from 1 Timothy 1, St. Paul speaks about his own conversion: his conversion from blasphemer and persecutor to disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ. Thankfully, that type of conversion is possible for everyone—even the most ardent supporters of the culture of death—because (to paraphrase Paul here), "If God can change and save me, he can change and save anyone!"

But there’s a condition for the change, as we learn in today’s Gospel: we must go home, as the prodigal son went home to his father. In this parable I think there’s a powerful metaphor for the present moral condition of our world: it’s the son sitting in the pig sty! He did things his way; he lived his life as a "pro-choicer" by doing whatever he felt like doing and squandering his inheritance—and he ended up stuck in the mud with Porky Pig and company.

Our culture, right now, is stuck in the mud of moral relativism and hedonism. But the good news is that there’s a way out for us, as there was a way out for the prodigal son. Like him, however, we need to come to our senses, repent, and go back home to our Father (Father with a capital "F"). Perhaps, for some, that journey has begun in the last few days. Many people have been in church for the first time in a long time. That needs to continue.

The "golden calf of choice" must be put to death, and we must submit ourselves to our loving Father, and to the rules of his kingdom (which are called the commandments)—just like the prodigal son had to submit to his dad and to the rules of his father’s house when he went back home.