The Epidemic of Violence in the U.S. is not caused by guns or knives. We have lost our true north as a nation. Finding true north is indispensable for navigating on land, sea or air. That is why the expression is a metaphor often used in self-improvement books or books on spirituality which seek to help the reader find meaning, purpose and direction in life.
We must again find our true north as a nation if we want to find the path to take out of this present darkness. That will require us to once again embrace the core conviction that every single human life has dignity. Human persons are created in the image of God. They have an inherent dignity precisely because of that fact — at every age and stage of their lives. This conviction once informed the moral infrastructure of the United States and the West.
This respect for every human life is grounded in the Jewish and Christian vision of the dignity of every human person. It once inspired us to hold a respect for every human life, whether that life be found in the first home of the womb, a wheelchair, a jail cell, a hospital room, a hospice, a senior center, a soup kitchen or on a refugee boat, as our highest public good.
A just society can become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent dignity of the human person. The person represents the ultimate end of society, by which it is ordered to the person. Hence, the social order and its development must invariably work to the benefit of the human person, since the order of things is to be subordinate to the order of persons, and not the other way around.
Respect for human dignity can in no way be separated from obedience to this principle. It is necessary to “consider every neighbor without exception as another self, taking into account first of all his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity.” Every political, economic, social, scientific and cultural program must be inspired by the awareness of the primacy of each human being over society.
“To just say that the world has changed would be a humongous statement. Today the stench of the putrefaction of our society is sickening to those with sensibilities left to such things. And there are not many of us left. We have been desensitized for the most part to the malodorous fumes of the rot, the decay, the decomposition of a world grown mad with the corruption of hedonism.” J.D. Longstreet
