3 Year Old Dead After Tragedy in Cincinnati

I write this in hopes that by the time this article is published, it might be considered archaic and behind on current events. However with a pending court case, that remains to be seen.

Imagine if you had seen this article title about a week ago on Twitter, on your Facebook newsfeed, or however you get your information… if such an article would have been worth national attention. That was the alternative faced by Zookeepers in Cincinnati in the past week. They chose, sadly, to end the life of this gorilla, Harambe, rather than take a very serious risk with the life of the three-year-old child.

The backlash was immediate.

I remember scrolling on Facebook and seeing a few posts about the shooting of a gorilla in some zoo. Based on the article, it was bashing the zoo for even thinking about taking this route to save a child. Later more articles popped up, varying from bashing the parents for being irresponsible to defending them and the zoo. I have even seen a few memes contributing to the hype. Anyway, there have been many twists and turns throughout the week and now a court case is pending against the parents. The biggest question in my mind is why. Why in all the news, with everything going on in the world today, why is our entire conversation covering one animal in one zoo in one city in the United States.

We could probably come up with a list longer than this article, but one of the reasons is that we have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten that we are not just animals who roam the earth for a few years. We have forgotten that we are Children of God, who made US in his own image and likeness by giving us immortal souls. We have forgotten that the life of a human is more important than the life of an ape.

Pope Saint John Paul II actually spoke about this some in the Theology of the Body. In the beginning, God created Adam and put him in the garden with all the other animals. God then concludes that “it is not good that man should be alone.” We are all pretty familiar with this; if we have ever tried to read the Bible cover to cover we’ve DEFINITELY reached this part. This is when he creates Eve, but the former Pope draws attention to the point right before this. There was a certain amount of time when Adam existed only with God and the creatures of the garden. Pope Saint John Paul II refers to this as “Original Solitude”, or the first time man was alone.

But wait, if we’re all just animals, how was he alone?

If we were all just animals, then Adam would not have been. But we are not. We are made of something different, but Adam needed some time to figure this out. Thus the Lord left him alone in the garden to cultivate the ground and have dominion over the beasts. Before anything else Adam, and by extension us, was given time to realize how unique and important he was to the whole creation. Through this time, Adam learned his place in the newly created world. He learned what it means to be human.

Listen, I am sad that they had to shoot the gorilla. I am not saying shoot all the gorillas, or that wildlife is not important. We were given the responsibility to take care of these creatures. But I am saying: would you not rather see an article titled “Public Outrage over Slain Gorilla” than the one I have hanging over this piece? I hope you would and as a fellow human, you should.