My letter to Congress and to my local reprisenatives and senators concerning the Protection of Conscience Rights in Health Care.

My name is Jonathan Pirillo. I am a junior in High school. I am a Roman Catholic. I am Pro-Life.

I do not think that it is right to mandate that a medical institution with a religious foundation should be forced to offer "Pro-Choice" services. It is an obvious and blatant violation of our rights stated in the First Amendment of the Constitution on the United States of America. 300 years ago, when freedom of religion was only extended to protestants and puritans, this type of action might have been excused. But we live in the year 2011. I have a phone that does 2000 things all at once, yet our country cannot seem to wake up to the brutality and barbarianism of abortion. We've already been torn apart once over civil rights, and I hate to see it happening over the right to life.

I have heard it said that this law does not matter to religious facilities with a predominant population of faculty members and patients who are all of the same religious morals and beliefs. This makes absolutely no sense. As Christians we are all called to reach out to those in need, especially those who are not of the same beliefs as us. What do you expect us to say? "Mr. Jenkins, since you are an atheist we can no longer treat you for you chronic and highly lethal disease."? That isn't right, and we wont stand for it.

I thank you for your time in considering this matter. Know of my prayers for you, and know of God's love for you. May he bless you abundantly in all that you do.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Pirillo

"The Morals of Our Youth"

This is a recent essay that I was assigned for my Sociology class. It was to be a reflection of the topics that we have been discussing in class. Here is is:

The Morals of Our Youth

    In a recent study, the renowned sociologist, Christian Smith, interviewed a large number of young adults about how they feel about certain moral issues. Along with his colleagues, Smith was surprised that most had no idea on how they would deal with certain moral issues. Honestly, this doesn’t surprise me one bit. Most of today’s youth probably don’t even know what the word “moral” means, let alone know how to feel about them.

     They may have morals, but I feel that they can sometimes be misguided because of where they originate from. Most youth, that I know, have morals based off of “how they feel”, because they have no “moral framework” from which to base their morals. The article states “Many were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link to a shared moral framework. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways.” I very much disagree with the ideas behind this statement; the ideas of moral relativism. These ideas would work, in a perfect world; alas one in which we do not live.

     If we do not have a moral framework, than how could our morals be very “moral”? What ensures that these morals are what is right? I would argue that there is absolutely nothing that insures the morality of these “self-felt” morals. Joseph Ratzinger, or later known as Pope Benedict XVI once stated that “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” I feel that if we fall into this “dictatorship” then we will become selfish, and when has selfishness ever benefited any society? If we all only cared about ourselves, then we would cease to exist. If the Founding Fathers only cared about their own selves, would they have put themselves through the struggle to establish this nation?    

     “Nothing is as it seems.” People might try and think that the world is perfect, but it isn’t. On the outside, the U.S. has looked like paradise to those living in third world countries. But when one looks deeper into our society and sees all the moral dilemmas that we face, then, they would put up with poverty and drought for the sake of not being associated with a nation that thinks its right to kill babies. And so here comes the topic of abortion. (Didn’t you see it coming?). Some feel that women have the right to decide whether or not they should keep their unborn child. They ‘assume’ that because a baby is still in the womb, then it is not ‘life’ yet. But on the other hand, science has proven that life does, in fact, begin at conception. It might be the woman’s right to have an abortion, but does that make it ‘right’? If the government handed out guns to everyone and said “it’s your right to go and kill five people for no reason” does that make it ‘right’? Murder is murder, and without a moral framework to define for us what is truly right, then, morals cannot exist.

     Right now, our country is in a period of immense moral crisis. Although, I am only human and I could be very wrong. You never can truly know, because “things are not what they seem”.

A vocation is love. Love is patient. This is the first thing I learned in my own discernment. To be patient.

"Seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you." This is second thing I have learned in my discernment.

And the third thing....well that's just it, I don't know yet. I don't know. Perhaps that is the third thing? Learning to be okay with not knowing? Well perhaps I'll never know. And oddly, I'm okay with that.

I do know that I have grown a lot since my first "re-conversion", though at first it didn’t seem like it. I realize now that there is actually no such thing as having only one conversion. Sure, there is the initial one, but then there are more, deeper conversions that happen later on. Each one is a new milestone in our walk with Christ. Each one brings us closer and closer to becoming the person that God made us to be.

Each one is a new step in our discernment. After all, isn't that what we are discerning in the first place? Not just where He wants us to be, but who He wants us to be. How are we supposed to fit in the "square slot" that He has pre-destined for us, if we are still in the shape of a triangle?

"Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect" Romans 12:2

The world tells us that we must be a triangle. It tells us that its no good to be a square. But if we are not a square, then what good is knowing where the slot is, if we wont fit in it? God wouldn’t torture us with that predicament.

In this short verse  from St Paul's letter to the Romans, he tells us that, in order to discern the will of God, what is "good and pleasing and perfect", we must first become transformed. Transformed by the renewal of our minds, the renewal of our hearts. But if we conform ourselves to "this world", if we do what the world tells us to do, then we cannot discern. God won't let us. He doesn’t want us to feel the rejection of not fitting into the slot that He has made for us.

But if we listen to Him, if we transform ourselves into who He made us to be, that "square", then is when we can fully carry out His holy and true will.

In the name of the Father + and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit +. Amen.

Pax Christi.