1. About the Gospel of Life: An Introduction
Following the promulgation of our Holy Father's encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, the pastor of St. Mary's and myself preached on it for five consecutive Sundays at all Masses. We also distributed several hundred copies of the papal document. Many welcomed the reformulation of the pro-life theme as at the very heart of the Gospel. Others were perplexed entirely, having never before really heard such moral positions of the Good News spelled out. Admittedly, several parishioners objected very much to the message and distanced themselves from us. We were accused of being idiosyncratic and insular, particularly since there was a lack of any uniform and universal effort to make people aware of these moral teachings of the Church. As to why some priests failed to familiarize themselves with the encyclical or to preach upon it, I will not speculate. However, I would suggest that silence is not safe. Speaking for myself, I am ever mindful that I teach our Lord's Gospel as interpreted and transmitted by the Magisterium of the Church-- and not my own personal opinions which lack the full safeguards of the Holy Spirit. Any countering apologetic for secular humanism, vaguely disguised as pop religion, constitutes an anti-Gospel. Christians who are afraid of making waves about such topics as abortion, euthanasia, and contraception should be more concerned about the judgment of God than human opinion. As a priest, almighty God will hold me accountable if I lead people astray or fail to admonish them in respect to the truth of these matters. Why is it that certain national initiatives like the failed women's pastoral and letters on peace and economics merited mandatory study groups and vigorous discussion forums while the Pope's letter has not? This is not to say that Catholics in the pews are not interested. The letter can still be found in many secular bookstores. At a Christian Coalition convention in Washington, D.C., I heard Catholics and Protestants alike praise it. Allocating the family a central place in the moral life of this nation, they found the Pope's words courageous, truthful, and prophetic. Along with those shepherds courageous enough to speak the truth, maybe this element of the Gospel is most uniquely the treasure of our faithful and orthodox laity. The true "sensus fidelium" upon this matter is not with dissidents who neither practice their religion nor believe in the apostolic faith; but with the faithful remnant which patiently perseveres despite all sorts of foolishness and selfishness. These few words of criticism and commentary are intended as an encouragement for those witnessing to these teachings in their lives and as a tool to propagate them to others.
Time for the Silence to End
This papal letter may very well be the watershed document that will define our Christian discipleship for life. Here is where our legitimate Jubilee 2000 preparation should begin. Every literate Catholic should acquire a copy. The amount of resistance it has received seems to guarantee that it will have a part to play in the ultimate confrontation between the kingdom of Christ and that of the world. I do not exaggerate when I say this. Christ is the Gospel of Life. As such, he is the Light of the world. The forces of darkness, pretending to be illumination, have already cast this proclamation of truth aside as intolerant and backward. Selfish people will have no part of it. It is a call for courage, sacrifice, and true understanding.
Despite our tendency to disconnect the creedal elements of our faith from the moral life, the Holy Father starts off his epistle by showing us that they are inextricably linked. Recalling the good news of Christmas, he notes: "The source of this 'great joy' is the birth of the Savior; but Christmas also reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy which accompanies the birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation and fulfillment of joy at every child born into the world (cf. Jn. 16:21)" (Intro., 1). In other words, every child is precious and irreplaceable: every child is a reflection of the Christ-child. The "new and eternal" life to which we are called gives heightened meaning to "all the aspects and stages of human life" (Ibid.).
Unlike the separatist theologians whose dissent has brought much confusion to the minds of Catholics; Pope John Paul II would have us share in the integralism that is intrinsic to the Gospel. We are not angels. We are men and women. Yes, we have souls. But, human beings are also in-fleshed. We are not robots. We are bodily persons. We cannot and must not try to separate the spiritual element of our make-up from the physical. Death will do that soon enough. Neither must we undervalue our bodily life in the here-and-now. The Pope writes: "After all, life on earth is not an 'ultimate' but a 'penultimate' reality [a reality next to the last things]; even so, it remains a sacred reality entrusted to us, to be preserved with a sense of responsibility and brought to perfection in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters" (Intro., 2).
Sometimes it is argued that we as Catholics are trying to overly press our religious views upon others; and yet, the Holy Father echoes both Pope Paul VI and Pope John XXIII when he contends that the Gospel of Life is an objective truth knowable to all: "Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart (cf. Rom. 2:14-15) the sacred value of human life from its beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree" (Intro., 2).
An appeal to natural law is made so as to foster dialogue and agreement, not simply in the Catholic community, but also among non-Christians. However, it must be admitted that there is a resistance against this type of argumentation even from those who are supposedly Catholic. Inserting my own reflection for a moment, I am reminded of Senator Ted Kennedy's attack upon Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings because of a paper the judge had offered correlating the natural law defense which prevailed against black slavery to that of the unborn and abortion. Showing that the Pope cannot be pigeonholed as either in the camp of the right or left, he seems to allude to Mater et Magistra released by Pope John XXIII in July of 1961: "Every individual, precisely by reason of the mystery of the Word of God who was made flesh (cf. Jn. 1:14), is entrusted to the maternal care of the church" (Intro., 3). William Buckley, the renown conservative magazine editor, called the earlier Pope's work, "an exercise in triviality," and yet the present Pope reaffirms the Church's role as both mother and teacher. If Mater et Magistra was seen as an extension of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Rerum Novarum, regarding social questions, the distribution of wealth, the rights of laborers, etc.; then Evangelium Vitae is a further expansion of such questions into the very core issue of human life itself.
While many of the Pope's critics appeal to some vague and nebulous "spirit of Vatican II," the Holy Father, who was there, quotes the council against such derision with a passage that leaves little room for debate: "Whatever is opposed to life itself such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction; whatever violates the integrity of the human person such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons. All these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator" (Gaudium et Spes, 27). The Pope is putting the full weight of a Church council behind him and what he is going to say. The Holy Spirit is invoked at councils to guarantee that they are true expressions of Almighty God's truths. We may remember from our catechism that "received" conciliar teachings take upon themselves a level of certitude equal to any infallible papal declaration. What we are going to be talking about are not just the Pope's personal ideas, to which we might lend casual agreement or unthinking disagreement and repudiation. The Holy Father is drawing a line in the sand. If we disagree with what he teaches in this instance, then we will never find a proper home in the Catholic Church. We can start our own church or join one that makes few demands on its adherents; but, if any of us are to remain Catholic, we must stand unreservedly with the Pope, and I believe with Jesus Christ, on the matter of human life and dignity. The Church is offering this teaching, not to be contrary, but to save our souls and to conform the world more to God's divine plan.
Instead of improving, in the practical sphere, things have grown increasingly worse in this century for the cause of life. "Choices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable" (Intro., 4). Is this not true? Sure it is. For over 2 decades abortion has been legal in our land. And yet, prior to the infamous Supreme Court decision, it was almost universally regarded as murder. Indeed, doctors took an oath to that effect and promised to avoid such actions. So much for promises. We either do not make them today or we break them. No one ever thought that euthanasia would take hold and now state legislatures have voted or are considering votes that might legalize it. When I was taking IV antibiotics for a serious infection in my leg a few years ago, one of the technicians decided to make small talk and in her own words told me, "You know, Dr. Kevorkian is my hero." She meant it. As a medical professional, she saw no value in pain and had completely bought into what we call a false compassion. I looked at my IV hookup with no little alarm, that I can tell you-- and this woman was a Catholic with kids in one of our schools! This false compassion is often espoused by mothers considering abortion, "It would be cruel to put the baby up for adoption by strangers!" No, they would conclude it is better to kill "it". Compounding the problem further, even defective children have been allowed to die without intervention-- infanticide is thus also a symptom of this false compassion. Often it is selfishness masquerading as mercy. All of this would have been unheard of a few years ago.
Even contraception, let us not be so polite as to avoid that word, is widely practiced by Catholics-- despite its condemnation as a moral evil and a matter of mortal sin. But alas, we do not even seem to be afraid of going to hell anymore-- not to mention loving God enough to want to follow his will. At the risk of being catalogued as rigid and unsympathetic, I will say that if you're doing it-- be fearful-- be repentant-- be faithful. Before the turn of the century, it was illegal in every state of the union. Now, it is publicly funded with condom giveaways in our schools. The Anglican Church was the first to capitulate on this issue at the 1930 Lambeth Conference; many of the other Protestant churches were quick to follow suit in discarding 1900 years of Christian tradition and practice. This surrender to modernity has bred a contraceptive mentality which is inherently anti-life. Only with the acceptance of contraception could we later avow abortion and mercy-killing. How can we be so narcissistic and blind? Pope John Paul II states: "Not only is the fact of the destruction of so many lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life" (Intro., 4). Right on the mark!
For many people there is no longer any imaginable activity which can be categorized as wrong or sinful. Cohabitation and sex before marriage is becoming the rule; adultery afterwards, its logical fruit. Homosexual activity, once thought perverse, is argued by many as a legitimate lifestyle. No. In the former instance, illicit heterosexual unions frequently result in abortion and if they do not spoil the chance for real and lasting love, they leave painful memories. In the latter, the procreative aspect of marital love is bypassed altogether and the unitive is distorted into a mocking caricature of nuptial fidelity. Although, there is talk about implanting fertilized embryos into the stomach linings of homosexuals so that they might also go through the motions of motherhood. Are these not expressions of a sick society? I for one am glad that we have a shepherd courageous and intelligent enough to speak out.
It is Catholic teaching that whenever the Pope speaks in union with the world's bishops on a matter of faith and morals that is to be universally held, it can be taken for granted that the teaching is authoritative and every Catholic must assent to it. In my own opinion, the prohibition against contraception has been infallibly made since 1930 when Pope Pius XI in Casti Cannubi spoke on Christian marriage. With this current letter, there can be no doubt whatsoever. The issues discussed by the Holy Father are serious and no room for dissent remains. Again, we are not talking about a casual disagreement. If we are Catholics and believe that the Pope has this authority, then we must assent. If he is wrong on this score, then he may be wrong about everything else as well. Maybe the Eucharist is not a sacrifice? Maybe the holy communion is just bread and wine? Maybe Jesus was not God and he did not rise from the dead? Maybe the bible is just a book of fables and lies? Maybe God does not care and after you die, you simply become worm food? I do not think so. We have to be consistent. We need to embrace both those truths which most appeal to us, as well as those which our hurts and selfishness would needle us into rejecting. This new letter is a clear expression of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. No longer can we hide in the dugouts or secretly bet on the other side; we have all been called out to the ball field and this game is for keeps! The Pope remarks about the backing of his encyclical: "I wrote a personal letter to each of my brother bishops asking them, in the spirit of episcopal collegiality, to offer me their cooperation in drawing up a specific document. . . . In so doing they bore witness to their unanimous desire to share in the doctrinal and pastoral mission of the church with regard to the Gospel of life" (Intro., 5).
Why does the Church speak? She must, there is no alternative. The Gospel is at stake. She is faithful to the Lord, and no earthly power will silence her-- not the National Organization of Women, not the National Abortion Rights League, not Planned parenthood, not ACT-UP, not Kissling's member less Catholics For Choice, no, not even the United States government or the United Nations. Elements in all these organizations have ridiculed the Pope and fought the Church's policies for life, both at home and abroad. When the Church challenged Mayor Kelly in Washington, D.C. for her plan to give homosexual couples the same legal status as married men and women, she threatened to take away the Church's tax-exemption. What is interesting is that when the Church spoke out against racism a few days earlier, she commended us for our activism. Similar trials have faced us regarding abortion, especially in places like New York and Chicago. When our own words and actions are in agreement with the establishment's agenda, we are praised; when we are a disagreeable sign of contradiction, we are mocked and threatened. We see this pattern played out over and over again. Pro-Abortion advocates sometimes blaspheme the work of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, shouting the slogan, "Keep your rosaries off our ovaries!" If these people have any faith at all, it must be a twisted one. Again, every child is to be, on the level of grace, a new Christ: "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." We must not obey any voices contrary to that of Christ or of his holy Church. Why do we speak? In regard to abortion the reason is clear: ". . . the church feels in duty bound to speak with the same courage [as she did for oppressed laborers in Rerum Novarum] on behalf of those who have no voice. . . . Today there exists a great multitude of weak and defenseless human beings, unborn children in particular, whose fundamental right to life is being trampled upon" (Intro., 5).
The Holy Father speaks for all true believers and acknowledges that his words are offered "in profound communion" with them. This is not the fabrication of new doctrine, no, we have gotten enough of that from other mouths these past thirty years or so. He is doing what the Church has always done, restating, albeit in a more formal fashion, what is our inheritance from Christ and the centuries. The Holy Spirit has never abandoned the Church, he will not forsake us now. What was true in the past is still true. This is because Christ is the same-- yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Holy Father concludes his introductory statements by addressing each and every one of us: "To all the members of the church, the people of life and for life, I make this most urgent appeal, that together we may offer this world of ours new signs of hope and work to ensure that justice and solidarity will increase and that a new culture of human life will be affirmed for the building of an authentic civilization of truth and love" (Intro., 6).
Time for the Silence to End
This papal letter may very well be the watershed document that will define our Christian discipleship for life. Here is where our legitimate Jubilee 2000 preparation should begin. Every literate Catholic should acquire a copy. The amount of resistance it has received seems to guarantee that it will have a part to play in the ultimate confrontation between the kingdom of Christ and that of the world. I do not exaggerate when I say this. Christ is the Gospel of Life. As such, he is the Light of the world. The forces of darkness, pretending to be illumination, have already cast this proclamation of truth aside as intolerant and backward. Selfish people will have no part of it. It is a call for courage, sacrifice, and true understanding.
Despite our tendency to disconnect the creedal elements of our faith from the moral life, the Holy Father starts off his epistle by showing us that they are inextricably linked. Recalling the good news of Christmas, he notes: "The source of this 'great joy' is the birth of the Savior; but Christmas also reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy which accompanies the birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation and fulfillment of joy at every child born into the world (cf. Jn. 16:21)" (Intro., 1). In other words, every child is precious and irreplaceable: every child is a reflection of the Christ-child. The "new and eternal" life to which we are called gives heightened meaning to "all the aspects and stages of human life" (Ibid.).
Unlike the separatist theologians whose dissent has brought much confusion to the minds of Catholics; Pope John Paul II would have us share in the integralism that is intrinsic to the Gospel. We are not angels. We are men and women. Yes, we have souls. But, human beings are also in-fleshed. We are not robots. We are bodily persons. We cannot and must not try to separate the spiritual element of our make-up from the physical. Death will do that soon enough. Neither must we undervalue our bodily life in the here-and-now. The Pope writes: "After all, life on earth is not an 'ultimate' but a 'penultimate' reality [a reality next to the last things]; even so, it remains a sacred reality entrusted to us, to be preserved with a sense of responsibility and brought to perfection in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters" (Intro., 2).
Sometimes it is argued that we as Catholics are trying to overly press our religious views upon others; and yet, the Holy Father echoes both Pope Paul VI and Pope John XXIII when he contends that the Gospel of Life is an objective truth knowable to all: "Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart (cf. Rom. 2:14-15) the sacred value of human life from its beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree" (Intro., 2).
An appeal to natural law is made so as to foster dialogue and agreement, not simply in the Catholic community, but also among non-Christians. However, it must be admitted that there is a resistance against this type of argumentation even from those who are supposedly Catholic. Inserting my own reflection for a moment, I am reminded of Senator Ted Kennedy's attack upon Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings because of a paper the judge had offered correlating the natural law defense which prevailed against black slavery to that of the unborn and abortion. Showing that the Pope cannot be pigeonholed as either in the camp of the right or left, he seems to allude to Mater et Magistra released by Pope John XXIII in July of 1961: "Every individual, precisely by reason of the mystery of the Word of God who was made flesh (cf. Jn. 1:14), is entrusted to the maternal care of the church" (Intro., 3). William Buckley, the renown conservative magazine editor, called the earlier Pope's work, "an exercise in triviality," and yet the present Pope reaffirms the Church's role as both mother and teacher. If Mater et Magistra was seen as an extension of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Rerum Novarum, regarding social questions, the distribution of wealth, the rights of laborers, etc.; then Evangelium Vitae is a further expansion of such questions into the very core issue of human life itself.
While many of the Pope's critics appeal to some vague and nebulous "spirit of Vatican II," the Holy Father, who was there, quotes the council against such derision with a passage that leaves little room for debate: "Whatever is opposed to life itself such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction; whatever violates the integrity of the human person such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons. All these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator" (Gaudium et Spes, 27). The Pope is putting the full weight of a Church council behind him and what he is going to say. The Holy Spirit is invoked at councils to guarantee that they are true expressions of Almighty God's truths. We may remember from our catechism that "received" conciliar teachings take upon themselves a level of certitude equal to any infallible papal declaration. What we are going to be talking about are not just the Pope's personal ideas, to which we might lend casual agreement or unthinking disagreement and repudiation. The Holy Father is drawing a line in the sand. If we disagree with what he teaches in this instance, then we will never find a proper home in the Catholic Church. We can start our own church or join one that makes few demands on its adherents; but, if any of us are to remain Catholic, we must stand unreservedly with the Pope, and I believe with Jesus Christ, on the matter of human life and dignity. The Church is offering this teaching, not to be contrary, but to save our souls and to conform the world more to God's divine plan.
Instead of improving, in the practical sphere, things have grown increasingly worse in this century for the cause of life. "Choices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable" (Intro., 4). Is this not true? Sure it is. For over 2 decades abortion has been legal in our land. And yet, prior to the infamous Supreme Court decision, it was almost universally regarded as murder. Indeed, doctors took an oath to that effect and promised to avoid such actions. So much for promises. We either do not make them today or we break them. No one ever thought that euthanasia would take hold and now state legislatures have voted or are considering votes that might legalize it. When I was taking IV antibiotics for a serious infection in my leg a few years ago, one of the technicians decided to make small talk and in her own words told me, "You know, Dr. Kevorkian is my hero." She meant it. As a medical professional, she saw no value in pain and had completely bought into what we call a false compassion. I looked at my IV hookup with no little alarm, that I can tell you-- and this woman was a Catholic with kids in one of our schools! This false compassion is often espoused by mothers considering abortion, "It would be cruel to put the baby up for adoption by strangers!" No, they would conclude it is better to kill "it". Compounding the problem further, even defective children have been allowed to die without intervention-- infanticide is thus also a symptom of this false compassion. Often it is selfishness masquerading as mercy. All of this would have been unheard of a few years ago.
Even contraception, let us not be so polite as to avoid that word, is widely practiced by Catholics-- despite its condemnation as a moral evil and a matter of mortal sin. But alas, we do not even seem to be afraid of going to hell anymore-- not to mention loving God enough to want to follow his will. At the risk of being catalogued as rigid and unsympathetic, I will say that if you're doing it-- be fearful-- be repentant-- be faithful. Before the turn of the century, it was illegal in every state of the union. Now, it is publicly funded with condom giveaways in our schools. The Anglican Church was the first to capitulate on this issue at the 1930 Lambeth Conference; many of the other Protestant churches were quick to follow suit in discarding 1900 years of Christian tradition and practice. This surrender to modernity has bred a contraceptive mentality which is inherently anti-life. Only with the acceptance of contraception could we later avow abortion and mercy-killing. How can we be so narcissistic and blind? Pope John Paul II states: "Not only is the fact of the destruction of so many lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life" (Intro., 4). Right on the mark!
For many people there is no longer any imaginable activity which can be categorized as wrong or sinful. Cohabitation and sex before marriage is becoming the rule; adultery afterwards, its logical fruit. Homosexual activity, once thought perverse, is argued by many as a legitimate lifestyle. No. In the former instance, illicit heterosexual unions frequently result in abortion and if they do not spoil the chance for real and lasting love, they leave painful memories. In the latter, the procreative aspect of marital love is bypassed altogether and the unitive is distorted into a mocking caricature of nuptial fidelity. Although, there is talk about implanting fertilized embryos into the stomach linings of homosexuals so that they might also go through the motions of motherhood. Are these not expressions of a sick society? I for one am glad that we have a shepherd courageous and intelligent enough to speak out.
It is Catholic teaching that whenever the Pope speaks in union with the world's bishops on a matter of faith and morals that is to be universally held, it can be taken for granted that the teaching is authoritative and every Catholic must assent to it. In my own opinion, the prohibition against contraception has been infallibly made since 1930 when Pope Pius XI in Casti Cannubi spoke on Christian marriage. With this current letter, there can be no doubt whatsoever. The issues discussed by the Holy Father are serious and no room for dissent remains. Again, we are not talking about a casual disagreement. If we are Catholics and believe that the Pope has this authority, then we must assent. If he is wrong on this score, then he may be wrong about everything else as well. Maybe the Eucharist is not a sacrifice? Maybe the holy communion is just bread and wine? Maybe Jesus was not God and he did not rise from the dead? Maybe the bible is just a book of fables and lies? Maybe God does not care and after you die, you simply become worm food? I do not think so. We have to be consistent. We need to embrace both those truths which most appeal to us, as well as those which our hurts and selfishness would needle us into rejecting. This new letter is a clear expression of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. No longer can we hide in the dugouts or secretly bet on the other side; we have all been called out to the ball field and this game is for keeps! The Pope remarks about the backing of his encyclical: "I wrote a personal letter to each of my brother bishops asking them, in the spirit of episcopal collegiality, to offer me their cooperation in drawing up a specific document. . . . In so doing they bore witness to their unanimous desire to share in the doctrinal and pastoral mission of the church with regard to the Gospel of life" (Intro., 5).
Why does the Church speak? She must, there is no alternative. The Gospel is at stake. She is faithful to the Lord, and no earthly power will silence her-- not the National Organization of Women, not the National Abortion Rights League, not Planned parenthood, not ACT-UP, not Kissling's member less Catholics For Choice, no, not even the United States government or the United Nations. Elements in all these organizations have ridiculed the Pope and fought the Church's policies for life, both at home and abroad. When the Church challenged Mayor Kelly in Washington, D.C. for her plan to give homosexual couples the same legal status as married men and women, she threatened to take away the Church's tax-exemption. What is interesting is that when the Church spoke out against racism a few days earlier, she commended us for our activism. Similar trials have faced us regarding abortion, especially in places like New York and Chicago. When our own words and actions are in agreement with the establishment's agenda, we are praised; when we are a disagreeable sign of contradiction, we are mocked and threatened. We see this pattern played out over and over again. Pro-Abortion advocates sometimes blaspheme the work of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, shouting the slogan, "Keep your rosaries off our ovaries!" If these people have any faith at all, it must be a twisted one. Again, every child is to be, on the level of grace, a new Christ: "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." We must not obey any voices contrary to that of Christ or of his holy Church. Why do we speak? In regard to abortion the reason is clear: ". . . the church feels in duty bound to speak with the same courage [as she did for oppressed laborers in Rerum Novarum] on behalf of those who have no voice. . . . Today there exists a great multitude of weak and defenseless human beings, unborn children in particular, whose fundamental right to life is being trampled upon" (Intro., 5).
The Holy Father speaks for all true believers and acknowledges that his words are offered "in profound communion" with them. This is not the fabrication of new doctrine, no, we have gotten enough of that from other mouths these past thirty years or so. He is doing what the Church has always done, restating, albeit in a more formal fashion, what is our inheritance from Christ and the centuries. The Holy Spirit has never abandoned the Church, he will not forsake us now. What was true in the past is still true. This is because Christ is the same-- yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Holy Father concludes his introductory statements by addressing each and every one of us: "To all the members of the church, the people of life and for life, I make this most urgent appeal, that together we may offer this world of ours new signs of hope and work to ensure that justice and solidarity will increase and that a new culture of human life will be affirmed for the building of an authentic civilization of truth and love" (Intro., 6).
posted by Father Joe Jenkins at 9:31 PM
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