Truth sets us free.

It was must-watch TV that was very tough to take.

This week, HBO's edgy and contemporary "Vice" news magazine featured a detailed report on semi-automatic weapons and the growing trend of mass shootings involving them. Among other things, the story included an interview with a  physician who treated victims of last year's First Baptist Church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas near San Antonio.

The doctor used her laptop to highlight images of gunshot wounds and X-rays that revealed the profound impact of bullets fired from semi-automatic weapons that struck human beings. The gaping holes were gruesome but couldn't compare to the slo-mo demo footage of a bullet exploding and expanding a mass of meat.

This morning, irony dawned on me. Here was a cable premium channel producing a piece of journalism depicting images that rivaled some of the violence in its original dramatic programming and feature length movies. Virtually every news network is affiliated with an entertainment conglomerate that makes major money selling explosive violence in TV series and feature-length motion pictures.

Disney owns ABC. Comcast owns NBC. National Amusements owns both CBS and Viacom. Of course, 21st Century Fox owns Fox News, but Disney is in the process of spending more than $50 billion dollars to buy the entertainment side of Fox.

So what's the point? As we see more and more consolidation in media, as newspapers and radio fizzle in the digital age, there are fewer and fewer independent news sources with the economic power to investigate and explore serious topics. Those sources that exists are largely owned by corporate giants that have many conflicts of interest. For example, how does a company that makes billions selling shoot-em-up shows and movies objectively pursue issues like inner city gun violence, the gun policy debate, or the influence of violent content and gaming on human behavior?

When I worked as a producer-director for ABC-TV in the 1970's and 1980's, we were required by corporate management to reveal our conflicts of interest each year. We listed stock investments we owned as potential influences that might taint our objectivity.

As Jesus said, "... The truth will set you free." And the truth is that much of our media is deeply invested in violence.

For those who are protesting against gun violence, you might seriously think about avoiding consumptions of TV shows, movies and games that glorify guns, war, crime and killing. You know the ones. Because the same network that features "Vice News" created the legendary mobster series, "The Sopranos."

Forget about it.

No greater love.

I was all ready to write about Friday's pleasant peacemaking coincidence. You know the one. Students across America walk out of schools to protest gun violence and remember the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. That very same day, North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, apparently decides to drop his country's missile testing program. The one that practiced firing rockets to deliver nuclear warheads.

I smiled to myself, playfully pretending Jong-Un responded to the example set by kids in America. After all, many in the U.S. like to say our country was founded by faithful Christians who shaped our core principles. And indeed, Jesus said, before you reach to remove the splinter in your brother's eye, be sure to first remove the log in your own. (Matthew 7:5) In other words, you have no credibility to tell someone else to change until you change yourself. So, for example, it makes little sense for a fat guy like me to call out someone else on his or her addiction, whatever it is. Now, if I drop 40 pounds, they just might pay attention to me. I might not even have to say a thing and they'll ask me, "How did you do it? Tell me how you conquered your demons." So, it was amusing to fantasize that U.S. kids fighting for peace and disarmament inside America influenced a foreign leader's view on weapons of mass destruction.

But then, early this morning, another tortured gunman with a semi-automatic weapon, the kind the U.S. kids are protesting, shot up a Waffle House parking lot and dining area at 3 a.m. in Antioch, Tennessee, near Nashville. The alleged shooter is Travis Reinking, 29, of Morton, Illinois. He's on the run and dangerous, possibly carrying two more weapons.

Those who staunchly defend gun rights often say, "Guns don't kill people. People do." And if that logic is correct, then the reverse is also true. "Guns don't project people. People do." We saw proof of it at the recent Parkland, Florida school shooting and again early this morning at the Waffle House. At the Florida high school, an armed law enforcement officer failed to enter the school to defend the kids while the shooter fired away killing 17. But this morning, another 29-year-old, James Shaw, a restaurant patron, summoned the courage to battle the gunman and wrestle his AR-15 from him. Shaw, who was unarmed, made a decision that he was not going to allow Reinking to easily kill him. He stepped up to battle the shooter, mano-a-mano, burning his arm on the sizzling weapon. The result, Shaw disarmed Reinking and tossed the murder's weapon over the dining counter and out of the madman's reach. Reinking fled the scene. Four were dead, two more injured, but tonight police are calling Shaw a hero as the manhunt for Reinking continues. They say Shaw's decision to take on the gunman saved many more lives than his own.

Jesus said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13) Shaw humbly says he wants to return to anonymity, he's not interested in the accolades of heroism.

One guy who's definitely not a hero is Reinking's father. Reportedly, he gave his son the automatic weapons after they were taken away by Illinois law enforcement. In 2017, Travis Reinking, was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service for showing up in the wrong place around the White House looking to set up a meeting with President Trump. Authorities arrested Reinking, he completed community service, and the FBI paid him a visit. County authorities in Illinois revoked his right to possess weapons, handing them over to his father, including the AR-15. For some God-forsaken reason, this father decided to return them to his boy.

Police in Tennessee found two full magazines for the AR-15 in a jacket Reinking left behind at the Waffle House in the wee hours this morning. Apparently he planned to leave no one dining or working there alive. There would be no hangovers that Sunday morning.

Before you become too enraged with Reinking's father, keep in mind that in some states, the courts can take away your driving privileges if you have a DUI, but you may still have the right to own and possess firearms.

If Kim Jung-Un is watching the United States, he will discover that nuclear weapons don't guarantee your protection. We certainly will never forget how 19 terrorists with box cutters brought the most powerful nation to its knees on September 11, 2001. Only love conquers all.

And Jung-Un might want to keep an eye on his country's youth who may decide enough is enough. That it's time to stand up and protest the madness.  Let's pray North Korea's youth finds the moral strength to demand sanity and peace.

 "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

Blood money?

Confessed Parkland School shooter, Nickolas Cruz, announced this week he wanted his inheritance to  go to the victim's fund for those he murdered. Cruz's mother died last November, leaving him and his brother an estate with a reported value of eight hundred thousand dollars.

Not sure what the families of the 17 dead victims think about this gesture, but we know the money will do nothing to restore the lost lives.

However, it does bring up an interesting concept and many questions. Whether a person shoots one or 50 victims, they are responsible for the act. What about those who enable them? If your gun is stolen or lost and you fail to report it missing, do you share in some of the blame for the loss of life? In many states, if a bartender over-serves a customer and the intoxicated driver crashes and kills, the business that poured too much alcohol is on the hook for damages.

What about a store that over-sells an arsenal of weapons and ammunition to a buyer? Do they have any responsibility for the gun owner's crimes?

Jesus told his closest followers:"Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little one's to sin." (Luke 17:1-2)

Ouch! But he continued. "If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him, And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, 'I am sorry, ' you should forgive him." (Luke 17:3-4)

I haven't been able to find any news report featuring an apology from Cruz. Money is heartless and soulless.  It knows no remorse.

I wonder if Cruz will ever be able to express regret and apologize for his insane acts? If so, would any families in Parkland, Florida forgive him?

Forgiveness is a lonely physician, in search of willing patients to heal.

Why pick up the gauntlet?

"Hamilton didn't want to shoot Burr. He fired into the air!" said Bob, a feisty 86-year-old, avid reader.

We were chatting about the biography Alexander Hamilton, which Bob and his colleagues had read and discussed at the Old St. Pat's Book Group in Chicago, Illinois. Old St. Pat's (St. Patrick's Catholic Church) was founded in 1846 and was the city's first English-speaking Catholic parish. The church itself is the oldest public building to survive the devastating Chicago fire of 1871.

Early this Sunday morning, my wife, Ellen, and I had the pleasure of visiting the group at Old St. Pat's to discuss our book, Dying to Be Happy, Discovering the Truth About Life. We heard some surprising stories from people who had encountered death by losing loved ones and some were actively fighting life-threatening illness themselves.

However, only Bob mentioned a shooting. I couldn't get the famous Alexander Hamilton vs. Aaron Burr duel out of my mind. I wanted to check the facts from their 1804 shootout.  Especially since we've got tickets to see the musical stage play Hamilton this May, courtesy of our kids.

The duelers, Hamilton and Burr, were both Revolutionary War heroes so they knew how to use weapons, albeit they were rusty shooters. Formerly well-regulated militiamen. Turns out, Hamilton's son, Philip, was killed in a duel near the same location just three years earlier. The same weapons were used for the senior Hamilton's face-off with Burr.

Duels date back to Germanic tribes in the second century AD, and by medieval times were common throughout Europe. Germanic tribes spread this practice to Western Europe in the early Middle Ages.They were born of an era when most men wore swords on their hips. These codified battles were used as an alternative mechanism of justice to settle disputes. A judge could assign a time and place for a trial by battle if the accused testified his accuser was a liar.  Later, duelers even had to put up dough to insure they would show up for the gunfight.  Duels were fought for the slightest challenge to another man's honor, whether the verbal assault was real or imagined. By the time Burr and Hamilton met to settle their political war with weapons, duals were illegal in the U.S. They chose New Jersey for their confrontation because the state was more lenient about enforcing its anti-duel laws. The insult: Hamilton had allegedly called Burr "a dangerous man" and had expressed "a more despicable opinion" of him.  That's it!

My quick research uncovered that most duels were settled by negotiation and rarely ended in a fatal decision. Hamilton had apparently told friends he intended not to shoot Burr and previously opposed duels based on his Christian principles. He had advised his own son, Phillip, to "throw away his shot" when facing his dueler. Perhaps Hamilton had read Jesus' words in scripture when a large, armed posse approached at night and prepared to arrest him. His apostle Peter said, "Lord, look there are two swords here." Jesus replied, "It is enough," as if to say, "I won't pick up the gauntlet." (Luke 22:38) Moments later, Peter cut off the ear of one guy in the mob only to watch Jesus heal the man and not resist arrest.

Ultimately, Hamilton did pick it up Burr's gauntlet and the two traveled from Manhattan, New York to New Jersey for their standoff. The eye-witness accounts by "seconds" for both men conflicted. Burr's handpicked observer said Hamilton missed. Hamilton's guy said he intentionally fired wide.  But Hamilton did pause to put on his eye glasses. Did he want to be sure he missed? They stood a mere ten paces apart. (Having been held up at gunpoint, I can tell you ten paces is a bit too cozy for comfort.) The two men fired. Hamilton died in Manhattan some 31 hours later. Reportedly, his shooter had worn the equivalent to a bulletproof silk coat, "impenetrable to ball."

Burr escaped trial, though wanted for murder in two states. He was Vice President of the U.S. when he killed Hamilton, who had been America's first Secretary of the Treasury, under George Washington. Later, Burr hooked up with a U.S. general who was secretly being paid by Spain. He and his sinister colleague planned an invasion of Mexico to establish a separate government there. Burr was tried on charges of treason for planning to attack Spanish territory. He was acquitted. Burr even attempted to persuade Napoleon of France to participate in a conquest on Florida.

By the start of World War I, officials in Germany outlawed the code of dueling there but the insane Nazi party reinstated the practice in 1936 when they came to power.  Imagine that, trial by firearm was still in vogue less than 100 years ago.

Comprehending this mind boggling approach to justice and so-called honor helps shed some light on America's relationship with guns, right from its founders to our present day.

I can't help but wonder what course our political debates and international wars would take if dueling were reinstated to resolve territorial disputes, partisan gridlock and global conflicts. Ridiculous right? However, it is important to remember, history says most duels were settled without a shot being fired. Rationale people tend to sober up when no one is standing between them and the enemy they're agitating.

True honor is refusing to pick up the gauntlet. "It is enough."

Forgiving the unforgivable

I stepped inside the cavernous, historic Chicago basilica. It was just after noon on Good Friday of this week. Having ducked into a nearby market to grab a few of my old world Polish favorites for our Easter table, it was time to  honor the solemn day that Christians have relived for more than two millennia.

You could hear a pin drop as I moved around the rear perimeter of the near empty, 124-year-old  church. A brightly lit grotto dedicated to "Our Lady of Sorrows" beckoned me to visit and ponder the day. The scene was larger than life. It featured the body of a crucified Jesus draped across his mother's arms and lap, a la Michelangelo's "Pieta." She gazed upward as if to beg the divine for an explanation.

Her eyes said, "Why? How do I go on? How do I forgive those who savaged my son?"

The sculpted face bore the indescribable pain every mother or father endures when they lose a child to violent death. On the battlefield.  In unselfish service to save others, fighting crime. The victim of gunfire in a suburban classroom or in an alley where street gangs run the neighborhood. Wherever, for whatever reason, the loss is the same to the parents. A piece of them has been mercilessly destroyed. They wonder about how their loved one endured the vicious assault or tortuous death and there is nothing they can do to make it better.

Except forgive. And sometimes you have to forgive God.

I've met a Chicagoland priest who introduced a mother in his parish to the gangbanger who shot her son. The shooter lived in prison at the time the met. She found the grace to forgive and free her soul of the poison that is vengeance.

I once met a little girl whose brother was murdered by the Boston Marathon bomber. Her parents would later testify in federal court and beg the judge for leniency and the bomber's life. They fought against revenge and the death penalty.

St. John Paul II once met and forgave the man who attempted to assassinate him while he was pope. They formed a lasting friendship.

Remember years ago, when a crazed gunman massacred children at an Amish school in Pennsylvania. The murderer killed himself after his crime. The parents of the dead children attended his funeral and consoled his wife and family, extending their forgiveness.

I could go on with many other stories. Check out Azim Khamisa's response to the brutal, senseless murder of his son at the "Forgiveness Project": http://theforgivenessproject.com/stories/azim-khamisa-ples-felix-usa/

Whether you believe in the resurrection of Jesus or not, there is something miraculous about the example he set during his crucifixion. From the cross he said, "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing?" Try to imagine the courage it takes to turn the other cheek when someone is torturing you to death or cutting off your head.

Many iconic peacemakers have been credited with this piece of wisdom: "Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." Choosing reconciliation over revenge, even if only in your heart, is the way mere mortals gloriously rise above the power of death and triumph over our sorrows.  Happy Easter!

The price of doing nothing

"What are you reading?" the maid asked me as I hustled along the motel hallway returning from the gym. "I love to read," she added.

"It's Immaculée's book about the Rwandan genocide," I replied, holding out the paperback so she could clearly see the cover of "Left to Tell" by Immaculée Ilibagiza, the prayerful, young Catholic survivor of inconceivable crimes against an entire people.  In just 100 days in 1994, Hutu extremists slaughtered 800 Tutsi men, women, children and babies. Many of the murderers used machetes to commit their insanity.

"I can't wrap my mind around it," I told the maid as she checked out the cover. "And I grew up with war stories of Nazi-occupied Poland." I explained that my parents were kids and experienced the invasion and that holocaust first hand.

The maid nodded. "My grandfather was German," she said. "He was only 14 when the Nazis barged into his home and forced him to join the Hitler youth. He kept a journal about it and how terrified he was."

The 18th century British statesman, Edmund Burke prophesied, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." 

That's what happened in World War II, a global hysteria that followed the unthinkable massacre that was World War I, supposedly "the war to end all wars."

Life needs the strong, unshakable voice of truth to protect it. If we hold our tongues and allow some life to be compromised, eventually all life is expendable. When you give people the right to choose who lives and who dies, then we've opened the door for the intoxication of vengeance, sin and mania. 

So, America has looked away as millions and millions have aborted the unborn. And now young children and other innocents continually fall victim to our unbridled love affair with guns and the right to own them. It's gotten so out of hand that the youth themselves have stepped up to protest and demand change, even if their parents and their parents chose to do nothing. 

But it's not enough for us to choose our favorite cause in this fight for life. We must unite to fight for all life. We can't ignore a holocaust in a distant place and scream about abortion here at home. We cannot accept a "pro choice" culture and demand gun control. Nor can we welcome the death penalty for criminals while we object to euthanasia for the terminally ill or those trapped in dysfunctional bodies. 

We must fight for all life. The March for Life must join the March for Our Lives and vice versa. 

It's time to March for All Life and fight to end the insanity. 

The pen is powerless without the people.

The other day, I was rummaging through my collection of pins and buttons to select a few favs for St. Patrick's Day.

"Where's my 'Irish ... Almost' button, honey?" I asked my wife, not really expecting a response. I reached for my rarely-opened valet and searched it, too. Nope, no button in there. But I did discover a long forgotten treasure. My graduation ring from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

It no longer fits over the knuckle on my right index finger so I slipped the green and silver momento on my pinky and wore it loosely for the day. The first thing I noticed was the tiny gold emblem across the stone. It's a quill representing journalism, my major. Classes, professors, projects, textbooks and internships rushed through my mind. Just by looking at that little quill. It signified the power of the pen and all the responsibilities that come with it.

Journalists are the protectors of a free state, indeed the profession is known as the fourth estate, enshrined by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, immediately following religion, and speech and one semicolon before "the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances."

Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.

In the late 18th century, this was a very liberal concept but now has become integral to our democratic republic. Unless of course we allow it to wither.

You see, the First Amendment is about thought, expression and change. It is insufficient to think great thoughts  without action. No matter what a free press uncovers and scorches with the disinfecting brightness of truthful sunlight, if we stay on the couch or post selfies until the cows come home, we will continue to step in the manure of lies, oppression and squandered lives.

Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. They run together for a reason. Morality demands we speak up and write and gather to build consensus and demand change, peacefully.

Thankfully, America's youth have figured out what happens when citizens cry and complain but fail or refuse to act in the face of undeniable, objective dysfunction. So, this week, high school and middle school kids across the U.S. had their 17 minutes of fame while walking out of classes in a unified civil disobedience to protest legislative inaction on gun violence. And some in Parkland, Florida realized that 17 minutes wasn't enough to protest the insane butchering of 17 schoolmates with a weapon of war. So they ran off campus and extended their efforts to two hours.

Civil disobedience is what it took for women to win the vote, for African-Americans to win desegregation and equality, and what it will take again for we citizens to win the attention of our duly elected representatives.

Remember, one of the key reasons the colonists fought the American Revolution was "taxation without representation." We're paying lots and lots of taxes today, but our representatives aren't listening. Does it really matter if we elect them when they refuse to hear unless someone greases their palms?

Well, next Sunday is Palm Sunday and Saturday is the March for Our Lives. This global event will involve at least 819 locations to demonstrate our grievances and demand new policies in gun safety and effective action to reduce gun violence. You can find your nearest gathering at www.MarchForOurLives.com.  It's time to turn the presses of protest until the lubricant oozes and flows through the halls of Congress and loosens the wheels of justice to respond to the cries for change.

Sadly, I'll be at my dear brother-in-law's funeral next Saturday, so I have to postpone participating in this campaign to petition our Government to redress. But make no mistake, one worldwide event will not begin to solve this issue, anyway. Flip through the history book on your shelf or Google "civil rights movement" and see how hard people fought to prevent change, forcing fellow citizens to use a different toilet, sit at a separate lunch counter, ride the back of the bus and never learn in the same school.

A slogan popularized by the National Rifle Association (NRA) is "from my cold, dead hands." You can imagine how long it will take to change minds as long as bribes are considered campaign contributions and the U.S. Supreme Court rules that free flowing political money is equivalent to free speech.

See you at the next protest. And the one after that.  If we decide not to join in, we might as well not read, watch or listen to the news.

Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. They're joined at the hip. It's time to march, press for truth, and fight for what's right. People are dying.