No other Pope wrote more on the issue of Life than Blessed Pope John Paul II. In his encyclical, “The Gospel of Life,” which he dedicated to the whole subject of Life, outlined for us that “human life – all human life is a gift from God and therefore sacred” which means all human life is good and has been given the opportunity to become holy.
Because Life is the “supreme gift of marriage” and a holy gift from God – there are things which can attack this precious gift and seek to destroy it – to which we, as those having life and a rational mind, must defend and protect. This is not matter of a religious belief, but as a rational human being, with a mind, and a conscience, we can simply understand how killing the innocent is immoral, unethical and should be illegal in any civilized society.
These direct attacks against life, things like; procured abortion, euthanasia, the willful killing of the poor, embryonic stem cell research, and any and all forms of birth control, as well as any other action that confuses the Truth about the very Sanctity of Life, according to BJPII, is “an absolutely unacceptable and a morally evil act.” This is the philosophical error of so many in our nation and our Church – and is the basis of the culture of death we find ourselves living in – we believe and therefore acted as if everything is moral, everything is acceptable.
Whatever is opposed to life . . .at any stage of development must be opposed by Catholics, such things like; murder, genocide, and suicide.
The Church clearly teaches that whatever violates the integrity of the human person such as mutilation and torture; whatever insults the human dignity such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, slavery, prostitution, human trafficking, as well as disgraceful working conditions – where people are treated as things rather than as free and responsible persons – all these things and others like them must be condemned by us in our thoughts, words, and action, most especially in the way we vote as American Catholics.
They Have Lied To Us
As St. Augustine, “the sole purpose of Life is to gain merit for everlasting Life – for a man not to live as God created him is to live a lie.” Our culture, our politicians, our water down liberal Priests and Theologians of the last 50 years have lied to us in their attempts to justify the killing of the innocent.
They have promised us a better life – a healthier life at the price of our own children. They called their actions moral and liberating to women because some of us may benefit from what is clearly the exploitation of our own human children.
We can see both in the culture, the society, and even on a political level a tendency to interpret this attack on life as a legitimate expression of individual freedom. The problem with this is the tendency to grossly distort what we call civil rights by violating the basis God-given right of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness of every conceived American citizen!
To Attack Life is to Attack God
God is the one who has given us these rights, not the Constitution, or Congress or any man, or even nature – but we get these rights from God – andto attack life at any stage of development is to attack God Himself as the Creator – and then to call this a right or a freedom – is the most absurd of lies.
The right to Life is questioned or flat out denied on the basis of a majority vote; or the so called rights of a women to choose to kill her own child; this is the direct result of a culture of relativism when there is no consequence for bad behavior. These beliefs that we can do whatever we want without any negative consequence is what fuels every revolt against God.
This so-called freedom, is NOT real freedom because it is no longer firmly founded on the dignity of each and every human person – but is made subject to the will of the strong over the weak, namely the mother’s rights and choices over the right’s of her own child to life, liberty, and happiness as a human being.
We Become a Form of Totalitarian Socialist Government
In this way, we contradict our own democratic principles and become a form of totalitarian socialist government where only the strong, or the powerful, or the rich have God-given rights – everyone else is at their mercy.
St. Francis deSales warned us: “we in this life are walking on ice.” and the truth is – the ice is broken and we are drowning in our own desires, passions, selfishness and sin – we are suffocating in our own evil.
By living as if God does not exist, we have lost sight of the mystery of who God is and therefore, we, have lost any understanding of the mystery of what life is and what it means to be truly human.
People are no longer considered for what they are – namely a precious gift of God’s created beauty – but for what they “have, do, or produce” – can’t we see this is the supremacy of the strong over the weak.
This general acceptance of this fact, that the strong are better or superior to those who are poor and weak reigns in the popular mind – to the point – that it is now even reflected in our new HHS health care law – this should be a telling sign for us how far down the road to destruction we have slipped as a nation – because after living in a culture of relativism and death for so long – most of us can no longer distinguish good from evil or discern a evil inclination from a good one.
The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent person – life –or to treat others without respecting their dignity to religious liberty is always a moral evil. In fact, it is a grave act (therefore a mortal sin) to deny any person their basic rights guarantee by our Creator.
At the very heart of this evil, is the denial of the fundamental Christian virtues of justice and charity.
Blessed Pope John Paul II said authoritatively; “nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying.
Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or another person entrusted to their care, nor can any authority recommend or permit such an action” without committing a grave and serious moral evil.
The Holy Father continues; “the human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from the same moment their rights as a person must be recognized, among which is the right to Life.” More and more, we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict with evil forces that cannot be rationalized with because they truly do not understand our Catholic position, which the Holy Father explained in this way; “we have the inescapable responsibility to be unconditionally pro-life.”
In the proclamation of the Gospel, in this New Evangelization that 2 Popes have called for, we, Catholics, are required to teach the values that Christ Himself promoted. We must not fear being unpopular or even fear hostility and persecution when it comes – even when it comes from within our own Catholic Church – we must not fear failure either – we know we are working out our own salvation and we must refuse any compromise or any ambiguity with the forces of evil which might try to conform us to the world or its way of thinking.
“We must be in the world but not of the world” – remembering always to draw strength from Christ, who by His Cross and Resurrection has overcome the world and ransomed many – but not all – as the Gospel today reminds us.
At the very heart of this evil, is the denial of the fundamental Christian virtues of justice and charity.
Blessed Pope John Paul II said authoritatively; “nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying.
Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or another person entrusted to their care, nor can any authority recommend or permit such an action” without committing a grave and serious moral evil.
The Holy Father continues; “the human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from the same moment their rights as a person must be recognized, among which is the right to Life.” More and more, we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict with evil forces that cannot be rationalized with because they truly do not understand our Catholic position, which the Holy Father explained in this way; “we have the inescapable responsibility to be unconditionally pro-life.”
In the proclamation of the Gospel, in this New Evangelization that 2 Popes have called for, we, Catholics, are required to teach the values that Christ Himself promoted. We must not fear being unpopular or even fear hostility and persecution when it comes – even when it comes from within our own Catholic Church – we must not fear failure either – we know we are working out our own salvation and we must refuse any compromise or any ambiguity with the forces of evil which might try to conform us to the world or its way of thinking.
“We must be in the world but not of the world” – remembering always to draw strength from Christ, who by His Cross and Resurrection has overcome the world and ransomed many – but not all – as the Gospel today reminds us.
Here is What We Must Do
Therefore, it is urgently necessary for the future of our country and the development of a sound democracy to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral principals which flow from the very truth of who we are as human person. We need to once again like the American Catholics of old – to get down on our knees and pray the Rosary – asking Mary, the Mother of God to guide us in this dark hour. And we must remember that these core values that we have as Americans – no individual, no majority, no president or government agency can ever create, modify, or delete but must only acknowledge, respect, and protect these rights.
Christians, like all people of good will, are not to cooperate in any practices, even if permitted by civil law, which is contrary to God’s law. Each individual in fact has a moral responsibility to inform their own individual moral conscience to what is evil and how to fight against it.
The very purpose of the Gospel we profess is to transform humanity from within and to make it ever new. Like yeast which leavens the whole dough, or a light that enlightens the whole room, the Gospel is meant to permeate all cultures and give them life from within, so that they may express the full truth about the human person and the sacredness of Life.
Therefore, it is urgently necessary for the future of our country and the development of a sound democracy to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral principals which flow from the very truth of who we are as human person. We need to once again like the American Catholics of old – to get down on our knees and pray the Rosary – asking Mary, the Mother of God to guide us in this dark hour. And we must remember that these core values that we have as Americans – no individual, no majority, no president or government agency can ever create, modify, or delete but must only acknowledge, respect, and protect these rights.
Christians, like all people of good will, are not to cooperate in any practices, even if permitted by civil law, which is contrary to God’s law. Each individual in fact has a moral responsibility to inform their own individual moral conscience to what is evil and how to fight against it.
The very purpose of the Gospel we profess is to transform humanity from within and to make it ever new. Like yeast which leavens the whole dough, or a light that enlightens the whole room, the Gospel is meant to permeate all cultures and give them life from within, so that they may express the full truth about the human person and the sacredness of Life.
America is No Longer a Christian Culture
This American culture of today has lost this Christian leaven, has lost the light of Christ, and is no longer a Christian culture, so it is our duty, as Catholics to once again be that leaven, that light which changes the world.
As G. K Chesterton so wisely observed, “a dead thing can go with the stream – but only a living thing can go against it.” So go against this culture because you are the ones who are truly free and alive with the power of your Savior, Jesus Christ.
Edited slightly, mainly headlines and emphasis
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