During the month of October, the Catholic Church in the United States celebrates Respect Life Month, which provides us with opportunities to reflect on and consider issues of human life, which are under attack in our society. A variety of right-to-life issues affect us, such as the care of the elderly, the dying, the poor and the sick; euthanasia; child abuse, affordable housing – to name a few.
The teaching of the Catholic Church is not complicated. Human life is God’s gift. Life comes from God, who is life’s origin, and life returns to God, who is life’s destiny. Therefore, human life is sacred. It bears the image and likeness of God. As the inspired author of the Book of Genesis wrote so masterfully, “In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them.” The sacred text affirms the imprint of God in the human person. Whatever threatens life, threatens its likeness to God. The ever-growing culture of death in our nation is unacceptable and must be resisted.
The Catholic bishops of New Jersey recently gathered with hundreds of the faithful from around the state at Saint Mary of the Assumption Cathedral in Trenton, our state capital, to celebrate a Mass for Life. The Mass was followed by a march to the state capitol to give public witness in a government forum to the sanctity of life. Did our political leaders pay attention to these witnesses for life?
The bishop of Trenton, Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., preached a masterful homily during the Mass, and he kindly gave me permission to quote from it. You can find the bishop’s entire homily on the Catholic Star Herald’s website. What follows are a few quotes from the homily. This is what our Church teaches about life issues:
1) Abortion – the preeminent right-to-life issue:
“In our document ‘Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,’ the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has reminded the Church in our country that ‘the threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself.’ Remember these words – ‘preeminent priority’ – not the only priority, but the preeminent fundamental basis of all other priorities. Abortion directly attacks life itself – not some other less-significant aspect of reality, but life. It takes place within the sanctuary of the family – whether both parents contribute to the decision or not, they are still the parents. Because of the number of lives destroyed – ultimately death is the choice and outcome, whatever the reasons given.”
2) Life must be respected, and it is our duty to protect life, which begins at conception:
“The truth of that statement makes it unambiguously clear why we have a duty to protect the child in the mother’s womb and beyond. All human life. Every human life. From conception to natural death. Ours is a duty to protect. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has explained that given the scientific truth that human life begins at conception, the only moral norm needed to understand the Church’s opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life has inherent dignity, and thus must be treated with the respect due to a human person. This is the foundation for the Church’s social doctrine, including its teachings on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration. Conversely, to claim that some live human beings do not deserve respect or should not be treated as persons (based on changeable factors such as age, condition, location or lack of mental or physical abilities) is to deny the very idea of inherent human rights. Such a claim undermines respect for the lives of many vulnerable people before and after birth and our duty to protect.”
3) Catholics are pro-life:
“We are all of us created by God. That is the truth. ‘Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you.’ The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed this truth. ‘Before you were born, I set you apart for my holy purpose.’ (Jer. 1:5) Our creation, our very lives, therefore, are no mistake, no accident and admit of no exception to protect. That is truth. As Catholics, we are pro-life. How can a Catholic be otherwise? And yet, we see in our day people – even some who self-identify as Catholics, some who hold the highest positions in government – who are not only not pro-life but work against that conviction, who vigorously support a contrary position, who tragically seek to advocate even more legislation that enables the destruction of life at its most vulnerable stages in the womb. The dying cries of the innocent children call out to them. God will be their judge.”
The above words of Bishop O’Connell clearly affirm our Church’ teaching that every human person is created in God’s image, endowed with dignity, inalienable rights and duties. The “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” states: “Human dignity is the first and most important of all social principles. Each human person possesses certain inalienable rights from the moment of conception.”
Human life is a gift from God. Respect Life Month invites us to reflect on this teaching of our Church. Each year in our country, millions of children in the wombs of their mothers are aborted. My former archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O’Connor, rest in peace, would remind us priests about aborted babies: “Not one is a statistic. Each one is a human being.” Thus, for us Catholics, abortion is and remains a preeminent right-to-life issue.
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