Acts of Desperation

[Dullhook]

The havoc and turmoil that Katrina has wreaked upon the people of New Orleans and surrounding areas has been heart breaking to watch. People (70% poor, trapped in the lowlands with little immediate means of escape) have resorted to looting food, water, and other staples to try to survive.

Though one of our Lords Ten Commandments says "Thou Shalt Not Steal", there are circumstances where, in my humble opinion, His loving forgiveness might be granted.

I'm not talking about stealing jewelry or television sets for personal greed or gain, but staples to suvive with.

From Lk 6:1-5

While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath, his diciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them.
Some Pharisees said, "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?"

Jesus said to them in reply,
"Have you not read what David did when he and those that were with him were hungry?
How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions?"

Then he said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath."

[happybrew]

Rimrock pointed out in a thread that appears to have disappeared from LIG that David and his soldiers took the bread dedicated to God in the Temple, it was not counted as a sin against them as they had dire need of it.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, along those lines of reasoning,

"2408: The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another's property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing ...) is to put at one's disposal and use the property of others."

The Old Testament commanded that reaping of the edges of fields should not be done, so that they poor may glean from those portions, and those who owned the fields were not to turn away widows and orphans who would glean those fields.

I see taking food and water to surivive as a matter similar to the gleaning that was commanded by the Bible. In our moral reasoning, the requirements of life usurp the requirements of property ownership, within just reason. It is not reasonable to allow another to die simply in order to assert one's property rights. Therefore, it is reasonable to survive at the expense of another's property rights. Faith and reason cannot contradict each other, therefore it is also a matter of faith, and is in fact put forward in the Bible.

happybrew

[DAB]

HB applause:
DAB

[grsteelies]

Hopefully this post will last, as the last one i started got zapped. I think there is alot to be learned from this horrible series of events. If we can't at least learn from this tradgedy, what good are we?