JUSTICE FOR TAKING THE LIFE OF 8 YEAR OLD SANDRA CANTU..........

Thirteen months, and three hundred and thirteen blog columns ago, when I began writing, "Insights Into Life And Faith By Father Troy David Powers", after providing an introductory biographical overview of my new enterprise as a blogger I presented as my first entry, a blog column that reflected on the continuing presence of evil in the world contending with conquering power of the Paschal Mystery. One of the examples I cited was the inexplicable killing days earlier in Tracy, California of an 8 year old girl, alledgely by a Sunday School teacher neighbor of hers. My blogging at the time questioned why a seemingly good, motherly, religious person, would commit such a crime against a child ? On Monday morning 8 year old Sandra Cantu's accused killer, 34 year old Melissa Huckabee struck a plea bargain, pleading guilty to the murder and facing life imprisonment as a result, not the death penalty. She will pay the price for her heinious act, in prison for the rest of her life, which I suppose is justice. But my primary question of thirteen months ago remains, Why do supposedly good people do such bad things, as in this case kill a child ? Is it due to a moral breakdown that devalues and thus disrespects the centrality of human life in the existence of Creation ? Or has human beings fallen nature become so self absorbed in selfishness and sin, that anyone or anything perceived as an obstacle to one's happiness or considered a threat to being or doing what we want and how we want it to be, is dispensable and eliminatable, even by the taking of their life ? With Melissa Huckabee's guilty plea and life imprisonment without parole sentence we may never know why she killed Sandra Cantu, after otherwise living a good and decent life up until that day last year. But let us pray that it will cause all in our society to realize the inherent, unqualified, dignity of all human life from conception to natural death and strive ever better to safeguard children and secure their lives against violence and harm. And as Christians may we instill in all our members a deeper and ever abiding moral formation that perserves and protects the dignity of human persons, be they youthful or elderly, as we defend and represent the sacredness of life as God's gift to us and all peoples..........Choosing Life As We Strive To Vanquish Death In The Paschal Mystery Of Jesus The Christ, Fr. Troy