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The Scapegoat and the Centurion
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We come across the word “Centurion” in the life of Christ two times – the first time when a centurion approached Jesus to heal his son, and the other time is when Jesus was pierced with a lance by a as He hang on the cross. This Centurion led Christ out of Jerusalem to Calvary in order to cruelly kill Him realized and admitted, “This was an innocent man”.
My reflections during this past Holy Week included my grief for the thousands of abortions happening in our society today. I reviewed once more the writings of Dr. Philip Ney, a Canadian psychiatrist who has researched extensively on the effects of abortion of the women, men and the abortionists themselves. He runs the Hope Alive program for healing of people involved in abortions.
Dr. Ney compares the phenomenon of abortion to scapegoating – the tendency of humans to blame others for their faults and failings, with the innocent baby as the scapegoat. “This scapegoating occurs when people are not able or are not willing to deal with their own inadequacies, conflicts, fears, bad choices and destructive tendencies. Even if it produces a small cessation in conflict, scapegoating results in no solution. It results in a vicious cycle, perpetuating and escalating the underlying problem.”
We recall how in the olden times, a designated person will be chosen to lead a goat away from the safety of his barn and left to die in the wilderness, carrying the sins of the community on his back. Scapegoating is an attempt to transfer evil and innocence. For this reason, the more innocent the goat, the more ideal it is. And so with abortion - since it is not easy to kill another human being, the babies first have to be dehumanized (just a mass of blood and tissue). Since it is difficult to kill when people protest, scapegoats also have no voice or vote. In these respects, the unborn child is an ideal scapegoat.
Today, abortion is becoming a much tolerated and acceptable way of dealing with one’s faults. In the past, it would have been unthinkable to kill unborn children. Feminists of 80 years ago decried abortion as the ultimate male-inspired evil. But materialism and the sexual revolution have resulted in over 60 million babies killed by abortion every year.
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More and more people think that killing their unborn child is 1) for the woman’s benefit (for your education, your health, your career, etc), 2) for the good of the family (think of the quality of life you must give each child, etc), 3) for the good of the country (two-child policy as we are overpopulated, etc)…
Killing begets more killing in an unending, vicious cycle until someone is prepared to take the scapegoat’s place, that is, a surrogate scapegoat. Then all the rage, pain and guilt are heaped on him. He will suffer, especially if he protests and makes clear what is going on.
Christ died as the universal surrogate scapegoat once for all. He will take everyone’s grief and aggression if we let Him. Those who love and follow Him must also be willing to become surrogate scapegoats. They must be willing to understand and stop the deaths of the unborn babies.
Pro-lifers know that the mission to promote respect, care and defend life is not easy. Often they have experienced the pain and frustration of Christ on the cross. But the growing number of people wiling to join the fight for the right to life of the innocent babies is a big consolation, especially for the women who have themselves experienced abortion. A support group called the Rachels journey with each other in discovering the roots of their problem towards healing and reconciliation. How they long to connect with the Raphaels or the men involved in abortion, in order to express to them their pent up anger for having been abandoned by these fathers of their babies, not to revenge but to lead them as well to healing and peace. And above all, these Rachels also hope to have the courage to approach the very people who aborted them or led them to abortion that they may experience the conversion of the Centurion. The most healing experience of the victim is when she hears the abuser say, “Yes, I have killed an innocent man…I have killed an innocent baby…I have misled a women to believing that killing her own child is the answer”.
(For more information on Post-abortion healing counseling, contact Sr. Pilar at Pro-life 911-2911 or 0920-945-5494)
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