The news exploded with the sound of an explosive, but it is sad, very sad news. And bitter. A lifeless child was found in the cradle for life installed in a church in Bari. A jarring contradiction: in the place used to guard and protect the existence of the smallest and most fragile of human beings, the lifeless body of a recently born child. What a contradiction! Why? What happened? At the moment, investigations into the case are underway and hypotheses are being put forward: the alarm mechanism may not have worked or the little one was already dead… What reflections alongside the dismay?
First: the bitter episode absolutely must not overshadow the great meaning of cradles, that of being the expression of a society that welcomes, that speaks of hope, solidarity and trust, of recognition of the equal value of every human life. The cradles do not speak of “abandonment”, but of “entrustment”, as has become evident in the many cases that since the beginning of the 90s – as regards the experience of the Italian Movement for Life – in which newborn boys and girls they were saved by finding a safe alternative to death by abortion, infanticide, or tragic abandonment or rejection in a garbage dump. This is also the way to open, even in difficult situations of moral and material poverty, a space of serenity in the heart of the mother that that boy or girl gave birth to and in the parents that that son or daughter gave birth to: the little son or daughter will be welcomed and loved by those who can take care of them. Ultimately, even in desperation, this desire dwells in the depths of the soul of a mother and a father even when they lack the clarity to decipher all its features.
Second. What if the alarm mechanism hadn’t worked? Just the thought makes you feel the grip of mockery, but it contains a warning: it is not enough to install the cots, the cots must be periodically monitored. They are too important to be left to their own devices, they are called to protect the most fundamental good of all, human life, and we cannot afford oversights. Of course, errors, construction and maintenance defects can happen and in fact happen – unfortunately – in many contexts that should protect life (buildings, means of transport, work environments…), but precisely for this reason caution must always be stringent. Always, in every place where men live, dwell, travel, work…
Third. What if the child had been placed already lifeless? It would be a sign: that someone realizes that he existed, that he is one of us, who deserves a funeral and a dignified burial! Those remains call for prayer, reflection, reflection… how many children die in wars without being remembered, perhaps without even a funeral ceremony… And how many unborn children are instead considered “special waste” instead of sisters and brothers who, like all born children, they deserve the respect due to those who have gone beyond earthly life! What then can we say about that multitude of children who are prevented from being born?
Here’s how many things that little baby found lifeless in the cradle for life tells us. We have something to meditate on.
But there is yet another aspect – the fourth, but no less important – which requires reflection: perhaps the time has really come to get involved in a legislative measure that regulates cradles in harmony with anonymous birth in the context of an awareness campaign on the meaning and importance of cradles for life as an authentic expression of a welcoming community that knows how to take care of the most fragile.
Finally, the last word, the one that collects all the reflections is left to the embrace of all those this affair involves: the child who reached Heaven, his mother, his father, who was and is close to them, the parish priest of the Church that hosts the cradle, saddened and disconcerted, who is carrying out the investigations, all of us ideally called together from a small child who seems to be telling us from Heaven: “Don’t let yourselves be overcome by despair. You can improve, you can still save, continue to trust because Life wins and Hope accompanies you.”
