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Our Commitment to Life
During the election season we have heard a great deal of discussion
about many issues from taxes, to the economy, to the war on terror,
immigration policy and so on. As Catholics the Bishops have been
clear that the fundamental issues of our times are those related to
innocent human life; namely, abortion, embryonic stem cell research,
and euthanasia. Bishop Burbidge and Bishop Jugis pointed this out in
their recent letter to the NC faithful:
Many of the faithful in our dioceses are expressing a sense of
being overwhelmed with the many issues that are being discussed
and debated, and seek further clarity from us. This leads to the
second point of this letter. The Catholic Church proclaims a
consistent ethic of life that covers a wide range of issues: the
family, global solidarity, human life, social justice,
environmental stewardship, etc. While all these issues are
important, the intentional destruction of innocent human life is
an intrinsic evil that can never be supported, and the
protection of human life from conception to natural death is
preeminent among our moral values. In the hierarchy of truths,
this truth is never morally equivalent to all the other issues
embraced under a consistent ethic of life.
Some have erroneously tried to justify supporting political
candidates who support the intentional destruction of innocent human
life through abortion or other means by somehow seeing our
commitment to the protection of innocent human life as simply one
issue among many. The USCCB document Faithful Citizenship has also
been misused to justify supporting such candidates by noting that as
long as a Catholic voter does not vote for a given candidate because
of his or her stance on abortion or other anti-life issues,
supporting such candidates can be morally justified. Many bishops
have been responding to correct such errors, but this view has been
strongly supported by such groups as Catholics United, Catholics in
Alliance for the Common Good, and Catholics for Free Choice all of
which are in conflict with important matters of Catholic doctrine
and do not use the name “Catholic” with ecclesiastical permission as
required by Canon Law. All of this leads to great confusion among
the faithful.
The reality is that abortion is such an
evil that our nation’s allowing the slaughter of millions of
innocent children for these many years, has resulted in the
formation of what our late Holy Father called the culture of death.
This cannot be ignored or swept away as one issue among many others
of equal importance. It is no surprise that in this culture in
addition to abortion we see the continued devaluation of human life
through euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research along with a
growing acceptance of atrocities throughout the world. Unless we
fight abortion and all of those who support it and promote it, we
cannot hope to effectively address effectively other issues included
in the consistent ethic of life. In a recent homily Edward Cardinal
Egan of New York said the following:
One day, please God, when the stranglehold on public opinion in
the United States has been released by the extremists for whom
abortion is the center of their political and moral life, our
nation will, in my judgment, look back on what we have been
doing to innocent human beings within their mothers as a crime
no less heinous than what was approved by the Supreme Court in
the "Dred Scott Decision" in the 19th century, and no less
heinous than what was perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin in the
20th. There is nothing at all complicated about the utter
wrongness of abortion, and making it all seem complicated
mitigates that wrongness not at all. On the contrary, it
intensifies it.
The immorality of abortion is clear and uncomplicated. It is the
destruction of an innocent human life. Regardless of the results of
an election, we Catholics have much to do. We have to recognize any
failure on our part to effectively and clearly articulate the
Church’s authentic teaching on life. We must recommit ourselves to
opposing abortion in all its forms and opposing those who would
promote it through all appropriate means open to us as US citizens.
Most importantly, we must pray for personal conversion and
collective conversion so that we might truly be one nation under God
where human life is respected from the moment of natural conception
to the moment of natural death.
Father John Putnam
Pastor
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