Senator Rick Santorum has been making the rounds this week
promoting his new book “It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Goodâ€ÂÂ.
Santorum on the outside looks like a nice clean cut guy, very devoted to his
family, who also serves his country on the Senate floor. Before you read to deep
into this guy though, there is a story from April of this year that was
published in the
Washington Post that you should read, as I am not sure if it
gets mention in the book.
In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed
baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael,
the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was
born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the
womb.Upon their son’s death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not
to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and
drove him to Karen’s parents’ home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several
hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2.
They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.“That’s my little guy,” Santorum says, pointing to the
photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father’s hand. The
senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance
in which he talks softly.
As I read that, I started to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I
have served in the Fire Fighting and Paramedic field, and needless to say I have seen
some troubling stuff. I also did transport for Children’s Hospital Neonatal
Intensive Care unit and have personally seen premature babies, both living and
dead, on a number of occasions.
This really has me thinking of what kind adverse affects
this could have had on his other children. Death is something that is hard to
take. It takes a lot of understanding and some of that understanding comes with
age. Taking a fetus corpse out of the hospital to bring home in order for your
children to visit it, then sleeping with it and dressing it up for a photograph
are practices that are very troubling.
This also makes you wonder where the line is drawn between
grieving and abuse of a corpse. This story gave me that eerie image of Norman
Bates in the movie Psycho, you know the scene, when we finally see Norman’s
mother and it is in fact her corpse. Someone who is willing to act like this
surely does not have the mental competence to legislate for our country.