Thoughts on "Respect Life Sunday"

On behalf of the Social Justice Commission of my parish, I wrote a few paragraphs for the cover of our weekly bulletin this past Sunday, "Respect Life Sunday":

For the last 35 years, the Catholic bishops in the United States have used the first Sunday in October to remind us that we are called to embrace and proclaim the Gospel of Life.

Luke’s Gospel includes the beautiful story of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with her son, John.  At the very sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth tells her, “the infant in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44).  On this Respect Life Sunday, we are invited to reflect on Elizabeth’s awe in the presence of the unborn Christ and challenged to consider the many ways in which our society fails to follow her example.

At the heart of Catholic social teaching is the unshakeable conviction every human person is sacred, loved by God, and made in His image.  When the dignity of human life – and, in particular, of the most vulnerable among us – is threatened or violated, true justice and peace are not possible.  As Pope John Paul II wrote, in The Gospel of Life, “[o]nly respect for life can be the foundation and guarantee of the most precious and essential goods of society, such as democracy and peace.”  Indeed, this same truth is recognized in the Preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:  The “recognition of the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

As we pray for a just peace in the world and in our community, we should consider Mother Theresa’s observation that “the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion.”  After all, she said, “[a]ny country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants.”  Similarly, Pope Benedict has noted that “alongside the victims of armed conflicts, terrorism and the different forms of violence, there are the silent deaths caused by hunger, abortion, experimentation on human embryos and euthanasia.  Abortion and embryonic experimentation constitute a direct denial of that attitude of acceptance of others which is indispensable for establishing lasting relationships of peace.”

          The Gospel of Life is not always easy to proclaim, and it is often hard to hear.  To be unconditionally and comprehensively pro-life, to think of human persons in terms of their God-given dignity and not merely their supposed “value” to society is sometimes unpopular and uncomfortable.  Still, our Christian vocation as People of Life makes demands on us, not only in our personal lives but also in the public arena of politics and policy.  And, it poses to us the question:  Will we, like Elizabeth, regard the gift and mystery of human life – in the womb, in the wheelchair, in the sick-bed, in the prison cell – with welcoming joy?