Monday, June 05, 2006

The Ugandan Martyrs and Roy Moore

Yep, you read that right. Came across this piece on AllAfrica.com. "Uganda: Bravo, Roy Moore" by a Fr. J. Wynand Katende.
For now, I wish to give due attention to the Martyrs of Uganda, by acknowledging yet another hero from a different continent, in the person of Roy Moore. I happened to meet him by chance, acknowledgement of The Wall Street Journal of May 29, reluctantly picked from an SN Brussels flight.

Mr Moore, commonly known as "the Ten Commandments judge", is the judge who defied a federal court order to remove a 2.5-tone monument to the 10 commandments that he had placed at the State courthouse at Montgomery, Alabama, USA.
The piece goes on to explicitly compare Judge Moore with the Ugandan Martyrs (whose feast we just celebrated on June 3).
Moore, the Martyrs and others, are heroic reminders that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10). Judges and politicians need to borrow a leaf from Nehemiah who led Israel to successful national reconstruction and rehabilitation by relying on God.

Though pragmatic, he never acted without prayer. And he credited God for all the success. With God, politics is a clean game.
I have to confess I'm not sure what to make of this, though at first read I'm a little suspicious. I'm not very familiar with the Roy Moore case (from what I've read I've formed an opinion of him as a demagogue, but I don't know how accurate that is), and certainly not opposed to displaying the 10 commandments ... but I see that fight as a distraction at best, really. There are more important things --- abortion, the breakdown of family, life issues, immigration, welfare and health-care --- all areas where "faith-based politicians" might do well to, well, incorporate their faith into the picture a bit. If there's a "God in politics" issue that I feel probably does deserve a fight it's the "Under God" one.

Anyway --- it's not just saying "Lord, Lord" but doing the will of the father.

Right next door to Uganda, in Rwanda, in an almost entirely Catholic nation unspeakable horrors were committed last decade. I am not convinced that the kind of "Godliness" Judge Moore (and, it seems) Fr. Katende advocate will ensure that a nation will, indeed, be "Godly." I guess I'm just suspicious of state imposed "Godliness" period.

[For more on the Ugandan Martyrs, read this, via Titus One Nine)

1 comment:

St. Elizabeth of Cayce said...

Not sure about the specific monument Judge Moore installed, but many of the 10 commandments monuments found around the country were actually distributed in the 1950's as publicity for the Cecil B. DeMille 10 Commandments movie.

Quote: And here’s a fascinating footnote: Granite monuments to the Decalogue—including the one in Texas—date to 1951. That’s when a Minnesota judge asked a defendant if he realized he’d broken the Ten Commandments. The young man said he had never heard of them.

Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille learned of this and saw it as the perfect opportunity to boost his new movie, which just happened to be an epic version of The Ten Commandments story. DeMille and a fraternal group called the Eagles paid to install a couple hundred Decalogue tablets in important public spaces across America.
(end quote)

My opinion, Judge Moore chose the wrong hill to die on. His opportunity to rule from the bench in favor of good, in defense of the poor & opporessed, was far more important than set decorations.