On a recent Sunday, I attended the church of my youth, a large gothic cathedral that can comfortably seat 1,500 parishioners. After the entrance hymn, the young people were invited forward for a blessing, and dismissed to attend religious education classes.

In my time, 100 youngsters would abound. Currently, only a handful were in attendance.

Where have all the children gone? As America commemorates the 40th year of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, part of the question, "Where are the children?" is tragically answered. Some 55 million of America's youths have been "legally" massacred, slaughtered at the hands of abortion "doctors" in the name of "choice." This is America's Holocaust. To paraphrase Jesus Christ: "Father, forgive us for we know not what we do."

Pope John Paul II remarked that we are living in the "culture of death." The Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," has been destroyed. There is no longer a right to life in America, and with each new government law and regulation our "liberty" is under assault.

Abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide, perverse promiscuity, illicit drugs, confiscatory taxes, and ubiquitous security are destroying the fabric of America, eroding what remains of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Paul Desilets

Spotsylvania