29th Sunday in Ordinary Time ( C-cycle )
October 21, 2007

This is Respect for Life month in the Catholic Church in the United States, October being the month when Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court abortion decision was published.  I’d like to give my take on Respect for Life month. Regarding abortion, I don’t see how the direct killing of an innocent human being can be justified.  Is the fetus a human being?  I think you and I can point to certain fetuses of long ago at two months or four months or whatever and say, “That was I.  If that fetus had been destroyed, I would have been killed.”  I recognize that for some women the abortion decision is an agonizing choice under terrible circumstances, rape or incest, for example.  I certainly do not favor putting women in jail for abortion.  I deplore the bombing of abortion clinics and violence against abortion personnel.  Some have said, “Would you not favor such violence against Auschwitz or Dachau"?  I think the answer to that is: This is not Nazi Germany.  This is the United States of America, a country whose basic institutions are still sound.  If we don’t like the current state of the law, we can go to court or use our vote to change it.  We do not demonstrate our belief in the sanctity of life by taking it or abusing it.

Euthanasia, “putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons… is morally unacceptable”.  At the same time, we must remember that we must do what we can to alleviate terrible pain, even if, sometimes, the painkiller hastens death, provided that death is not the primary objective.  I remember when my mother was on her deathbed, she was in pain.  A nurse came in and gave her a needle.  I don’t know if there was a connection, but soon she breathed her last.  I am grateful that her last minutes on earth were peaceful.

Capital punishment or state-sponsored homicide is condemned by the Catholic Church, except when society can only protect itself by such an extreme measure.  I spoke on capital punishment at the time of Michael Ross’ execution.  That homily from 2005 is available on our website.

War is the great enemy of life.  The early Christians were pacifists.  And some Christians today continue that tradition, and are to be commended for it.  But we live in a fallen world, and war is sometimes the only means of self-defense.  There is a long-standing Catholic teaching on conditions for a just war that was refined at Vatican II and is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Basically, this is what it says: “All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war… The strict conditions for legitimate defense are: the damage inflicted by the aggressor… must be lasting, grave and certain; all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects of success; and the use of arms  must not produce evils graver than the evil to be eliminated.”  Soldiers who serve honorably should be commended as servants of security and freedom, but provision must also be made for conscientious objectors.  The moral law must be honored even in war.  “The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes lawful between the warring parties.  Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.  Non-combatants, wounded soldiers and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.  Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations… are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions.  Blind obedience does not…excuse.”

War kills and maims.  War is the least efficient instrument of national policy because it almost always creates more problems than it solves.  Innocents are wiped out along with the guilty.  Resentments are created that fester and provoke future wars.  There is a Catholic teaching on war, and we would do well to put it into our internal computers.  Typically, when a nation is on the brink of war, many citizens will consider such moral warnings unpatriotic, but they are really civilized and humane.

A member of our worshipping community wrote me his thoughts on Respect for Life month:  Get the guns off the streets so teenagers and adults don’t have the weapons to kill each other.  Take a stand against domestic violence.  Stop justifying wars and the resulting killing of innocent civilians for economic reasons.  Tell parents to stop buying violent video games for their children which glorify killing.  Stop drunken driving.

Respect for life comes down to respect for persons.  We should respect all persons, no matter what their race or gender or national origin or sexual orientation.