On New Year’s Eve last year Pope Benedict XVI gave a homily in which he described a lack of hope and trust in life as an “obscure evil” of modern Western society. Every year October is Respect Life month in Catholic communities across the United States. This year’s theme, “Hope and Trust in Life,” is an invitation which recalls the Pope’s words and the message of hope he proclaimed time and time again during his pastoral visit to the United States last April.
Ever since 1972 we Catholic bishops have made a genuine effort each October to educate Catholics about the “life issues.” The issues are many. This year’s Respect Life Program attempts to highlight abortion as a leading cause of death in our African-American communities, the mistaken belief that the possibility of finding cures for intractable diseases can justify killing human embryos to obtain their stem cells, the dangers of pornography use, the problem of withholding even ordinary treatment which sustains the lives of persons with serious mental or physical impairments, the grief and trauma experienced by both mothers and fathers following abortion and the importance of formation of conscience and its application to voting.
Preachers and teachers often find that the message is not well received by far too many Catholics. There are those who focus only on abortion and those who mitigate the singular importance of abortion as an evil. The debate about killing human embryos to obtain their stem cells for possible cures finds many who are opposed to abortions switching sides on this pro-life issue. The same thing occurs when we consider the ordinary treatment of the seriously ill or the legality of capital punishment.
Pope John Paul II frequently spoke about today’s “culture of death.” What did he mean? The Pontiff was referring to the pervasive attitude among too many people who accept the intentional killing of an innocent human being as a solution to a social or economic problem. Many of our fellow citizens are quite willing to accept euthanasia, assisted suicide, population control measures, abortifacients marketed as “contraceptives,” and the destruction of human embryos for research. Such widespread acceptance, even on the part of far too many Catholics, clearly signals the need for us to continue our efforts to teach the truth with love, even though the teacher will not be universally acclaimed because of the message.
Do we need to keep teaching what the church teaches? It seems so. In late August the Speaker of the House in Washington, D.C., a woman who describes herself as an ardent and practicing Catholic, failed the test when she was asked on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” about Catholic teaching regarding abortion. She fumbled the ball badly when she stated “I don’t think anybody could tell you when human life begins.” Her own archbishop, the Most Rev. George Niederauer of San Francisco put it best when he said, “Individual theologians from time to time have speculated about the beginning of human life, but the church has consistently taught that abortion is wrong. The answer to the question, ‘When does life begin?’ should not have an impact, we are told, on the woman’s right to choose. Nevertheless, the woman’s right to choose certainly has an impact on nascent human life.”
Why has all this confusion about an issue where church teaching has been so clear come to be? Pope Benedict attributes this development to the influence of secularism in the world of our own day. He stated that it colors “the way people allow their faith to influence their behavior.” The gap seems to be growing between our profession of faith and the way we live it out. The Pontiff put it this way, “Faith becomes a passive acceptance that certain things ‘out there’ are true, but without practical relevance for everyday life. The result is the growing separation of faith from life: living ‘as if God did not exist.’ This is aggravated by an individualistic and eclectic approach to faith and religion.”
Nowadays “thinking with the church” is considered a bit Neanderthal at best, stupid at worst. When our Catholic faith and the beliefs we profess become irrelevant with respect to our personal and political decisions, then we are allowing this culture of death to take root in our own hearts and spread in our communities. It’s easy to criticize the politicians who are out there publicly on display with respect to their inconsistency as believers. We also need to look into our own hearts and see where we fall short in living out our own beliefs perfectly and consistently.
Because of the recent attention given to church teaching concerning abortion, I cite Number 2271 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” Even though knowledge of human embryology was very limited until recent times, the church’s conviction on abortion has remained constant. St. Augustine in the 5th century, St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, Pope John Paul II in the 20th century, all were united in this conviction. Even when some theologians from the 13th to the 19th centuries speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion might be morally justified, after prayerful discussion the church refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an intrinsically evil act that could never be morally right.
It is a scientific fact that a human life begins at conception. We need to understand that our church’s opposition to abortion is based on the principle that “every human life has inherent dignity, and thus must be treated with the respect due to a human person.” This remains the foundation of all church social teachings, including those on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration.
My sisters and brothers, please respond graciously to the Holy Father’s invitation that we all “hope and trust in life.” Life is God’s gift, one we joyfully celebrate on every birthday. We are its stewards. Please join Catholics across this nation during the month of October in works and prayers that lead to the rediscovery of the truth and joy of a Christian life fully lived for God and for others.
