Parable of Poverty, Dead Children And A Religious Coalition

We are strolling down the street with representatives of the Religious Social Action Coalition. We have come from a far away country to learn strategies for dealing with poverty in our own country, having learned of the formation of this remarkable Coalition.

They are about to take us on a tour of the streets of St. John’s and show us the reality of child poverty, which they claim needs to be urgently addressed—even abolished—because children are needlessly suffering every day.

As we walk and they share with us their exciting vision of a city and a province without poverty, a horrid sight suddenly overcomes us. There on the sidewalk is the lifeless body of an extremely young child, severely lacerated and with some body parts even missing. We are immediately repulsed and horrified.

“What,” we exclaim, “has happened here to this child? Surely a great and violent crime has been perpetrated against this child and neither the criminal nor the neighbourhood has had the decency to ensure a proper burial! Furthermore it is obvious that the police have not even been called to inquire into this greatest of all injustices against an innocent child!”

Leaders of the Coalition assure us not to be alarmed. They note that we are likely to see at least three of these children in such condition in the city of St. John’s each day that we are on our tour, some of them even much younger than this child and some of them entirely in small pieces as if shredded.

We protest and demand how it is that this can be so. Leaders try to calm us and assure us that this is not a problem to be concerned with. They would like to hurry us along past the dead child and further along into the tour. But we protest further, insisting that we must know more about these heinous crimes that are taking place against innocent children in this great city of St. John’s. We simply cannot move past this child and resume the tour until the grave injustice has been explored and understood.

The Coalition emphasizes that this is not their mandate and that they have chosen to look at other ways in which they can help children and their families, poverty being what they consider to be the most pressing matter. They boast that the urgency of addressing poverty was such an animating force among the leaders of the Coalition that never before in the history of NL is there a record of such a diverse group of religious leaders from all faiths coming together with a united voice to address such a great injustice.

But immediately we ask the leaders, “But what of these children lying in the streets, violently killed and disposed of in such an inhuman, undignified manner? What of justice for them? And why did not such a diverse and powerful Coalition first come together to put an end to the evil practice of child killing in the city? Of what use is it to expend energy in feeding and clothing children when clearly many children in the city are in serious danger of being killed?”

The leaders seem somewhat shaken and at a loss to answer these penetrating questions but assure us that others are looking after the problem, and that, in fact, many residents of the city do not find the killing of these children objectionable.

We are dumbfounded by this claim, asking Coalition members what sort of callous hard hearted people live in this city. Furthermore we demand to know why it is that those who have been assigned to solve these despicable crimes have not been able to put a halt to such barbarism.

We surmise that such crimes might be the result of recent actions by some particularly heinous serial killer(s). But upon inquiry we learn that this activity has been going on for almost forty years in the city. We are totally shocked and appalled by this disclosure and immediately cancel our tour in order to return to our native country, realizing we will learn nothing from Coalition leaders about addressing any of the needs of human beings, let alone children, and admonishing the Coalition to immediately change the focus of their efforts from “abolishing poverty” to abolishing child-killing.

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[This parable needs only one distinction be made in order to clearly reflect the reality of our decrepit condition: Mothers don’t dump their children on the streets of St. John’s. It’s certainly too visible but also unnecessary. The government pays abortionists to kill their children and dispose of them in a dumpster or sell their body parts to various private enterprise firms.]