My letter to the Knights of Columbus, to be printed in this weekend's newsletter:

The last time I wrote you, things seemed so much different.

Our country concluded a long, divisive election season by essentially keeping the same people in we’d complained did nothing the last four years. Michelle and I were but weeks away from a trip to Rome we anticipated and saved for for three years. Beautiful children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut anticipated Christmas with their families.

We concluded 2012 seeming to count only on two constants we long joke about with resignation: death and taxes. We wonder who will pay more than discover the joke’s on us. We look toward heroes of our shared pop culture past (Whitney Houston, Dick Clark, Davy Jones, Andy Griffith, et al) trying to remember when they - and we - were young.

Any death takes part of your innocence with it. Twenty-six deaths that demonic December morning in Newtown tore more than those loving, beautiful children from their families and people who loved them. They reset everything we treasure, put a nation’s entire set of priorities in perspective. It is one thing to discuss an ever-growing national debt our children will never live to pay. It’s another to realize children paid with their lives for our violent, vengeful culture, our treatment of mentally ill, our fear of overbearing government and yes, our irresponsible handling of guns. It has to do with how little human life is valued next to ego, status, revenge.

Trace the slippery slope back to the January day 40 years ago when abortion on demand became legal and with it, a pro-life movement galvanized over two generations. It’s victories are recognized: a January Time magazine story notes four states have but one abortion clinic in operation and overall more than 1,000 such centers have closed nationwide. The same article mentions 41% of the population consider themselves pro-choice.

Approaches can change even as pro-lifers work together. Nearly 600,000 people, many your brother Knights and their families, converged on Washington for its March for Life. But are they confronted with bloody images of aborted children to remind them abortion is murder and its practicers criminals? Or are they empowered with ultrasounds, heartbeats and images to see the potential a young, scared woman holds inside her for her future?

Al Kresta, national Catholic radio host (if a rather humorless one), debated this issue with National Catholic Register blogger Simcha Fisher (who opposed these images as scary to children and accusatory to post-abortive mothers) and pro-life pioneer Dr. Monica Miller, with the stridency and militancy you expect from people on opposite sides of a timeline (but not opposite sides of an issue.) But even as Dr. Miller correctly states these pictures show these children did not die in vain, she failed to understand a new generation would not be scared or grossed out into saying yes to life. It’s the difference between being anti-abortion and pro-life, the difference between needing to fight an injustice and making the philosophy behind it work in every area of your life.

Count our Order with those standing for what life can be, and in a positive way. We gave out Precious feet pins after Masses January 20, the actual date Roe v Wade was handed down. We raised money at our Paul Bunyan breakfast to award some to a church group of stay at home moms. That on top of Diane Hanson twice visiting our church to update us on what Immokalee Pregnancy Center is doing to save babies and women’s lives.

Rocker Lenny Kravitz starred in “The Hunger Games” a thought-provoking, disturbing yet wildly popular film about teens hunting each other in a post-apocolyptic America. Seeing the horror of Sandy Hook he asked, “Would you give up your rights to guns to have those children back?” The tragedy is we are not given the chance to answer. We can only protect what we still have and fight abortion where we still can, with prayer and service. It’s only then you can help see no one dies unloved, umourned, or unnoticed from their conception to their natural death.

It was a busy January and early February. We’ll recap it and plan for two of our signature events - the Lenten fish fries and essay contest - at our next meeting. See you there.