Scripture and the Sanctity of Life

by Chris Findley, Editor, H2R

In December 1979, a police officer suffered complications from being shot three times. He suffered severe brain damage. Months went by and the officer did not respond to stimuli. The attending physician said there was no hope of him ever regaining consciousness. The agonizing decision was made to turn the respirator off. But to the surprise of everyone, the officer began to breathe on his own. After being placed in a nursing home, two years after the shooting, a physician noticed that when he asked the man to, “Breathe deeply,” he did! The doctor also noticed the policeman would open and shut his eyes. Six years after the shooting, and after much rehabilitation, the officer had recovered 95% of his preinjury intellectual ability. 1

In the spring of 2001 a young college student found out that she was pregnant. She was devastated. The idea of facing her parents and her church was almost overwhelming. This was definitely unplanned and was definitely going to disrupt and perhaps derail her life. A friend of hers offered to pay for her to have an abortion. “No one needs to find out,” they said. “It could all be a memory in a few days.” She considered it and decided firmly against it. It was a courageous and difficult decision. But by that decision she was able to place her child for adoption. She was able to be a part of creating a family for a couple who could not have biological children of their own. Because she saw the sanctity of life, her child had life, and God brought a family together.

As we approach the Jan 22nd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, it is a good time to consider how we approach the very real questions of life and death, particularly abortion. Though this is often debated in the realm of politics, as Catholics the starting point of our contemplation should be our faith. How does our faith impact and direct our moral choices? Catholics are often champions for the unborn and have a strong moral theology of life. And yet many American Christians, Catholic and non-Catholic, do not view life issues as having a primary importance in our society. Sadly, many people have a laissez-faire approach to these important issues. Why then does the Church resist and remain so committed to life? What is the Biblical and traditional foundation for such a passionate conviction?

One of the earliest Christian resources of instruction outside of the Bible is an instructional manual called the Didache. It dates from before 150AD. Its teaching to Christians is clear, “You shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill the one who has been born.”2 In fact one of the most common practices among the pagans in the first century was abortion or abandoning unwanted infants to die by the side of the road. The Christians of that era strongly stood out because they rejected that practice. In the early church Letter to Diognetus the difference is reported this way, “They [The Christians] bear children but they do not destroy their offspring.”3

Of course, sanctity of life covers much more than the issue of abortion. In the case of prematurely ending the life of the elderly, mentally incapacitated, or the infirm the church has always been equally opposed.

The Concept of Life
Defining the terms is crucial in this work. According to the Oxford American Dictionary the word “sanctity” means “the state or quality of being holy, sacred or saintly,” and “being of ultimate importance and inviolability” In short, our investigation of this must begin from the conviction that life itself is holy. Where do we get such a claim?

Life is sacred chiefly because of its source. Acts 17:24-25 says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth… he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.” 4 There are numerous scriptural references to this idea. From cover to cover the Bible and Catholic tradition clearly shows us that life is sacred because God is the one that gives it.

God is the power behind the beginning of life. The psalms tell us that, “Children are a gift from the Lord.”5 Life is a gift from God. You and I are given the great privilege of participating with God in the creation of new life. But sexual relationships alone cannot create a soul. At conception the Lord places an eternal soul into the tiny of body that is developing. Life, and its value comes from the conviction that you and I are more than animals, more than flesh and bone. We are created in the image and likeness of God. We did not give or create life and we have no right to take it away.

More and more, I’m afraid that life is viewed as valuable only if we can assign or discern its value. In our culture, the lives of young and old, are being judged by their utilitarian value. Consider what then Colorado governor Richard D. Lamm said in an 1984 address to the Colorado Health Lawyers Association. He said, “Elderly people who are terminally ill have a duty to die and get out of the way” 6 This is shocking and abhorrent and patently un-Christian. Life is God’s gift.

World Missions

I want to continue talking about evangelism and, in that vein, world missions. I’ve been doing some internet research on this in the Catholic Church and it’s been interesting. Frankly, I’ve found it difficult to find a great deal of specific information. There seems to be a good bit of activity out there, but it seems to vary greatly in scope and ultimate purpose. That is, some missionary work seems to be centered on relief work alone while other work seems to be service with an evangelistic goal. Good work is good work I guess, but I’m really interested in evangelistic mission work where you seek to be and share the Gospel of Christ in a direct manner. As an Episocpalian my wife and I worked at a mission-sending organization and really developed a heart for missions work. She has had several trips to places like Chile, Costa Rica and Honduras. I had the priveledge as an Episcopal priest of leading a mission trip to Ecuador which was an incredible experience. I’d love to find a solid missions organization in the Catholic Church that encourages short-term mission experiences and facilitates the sending of missionaries. Any thoughts?

I found this really nice presentation at the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. It’s a rosary designed by Archbishop Fulton Sheen (who served as head of the SPF) that encourages prayer and reflection on the Mission work of the church. Here’s a snippet from the SPF website:

“In February of 1951, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith from 1950 to 1966), in a radio address (The Catholic Hour), inaugurated a World Mission Rosary. “We must pray, and not for ourselves, but for the world. To this end, I have designed the World Mission Rosary. Each of the five decades is of a different color to represent the continents.”

Each decade of that World Mission Rosary calls to mind an area where the Church continues her evangelizing mission: GREEN for the forests and grasslands of AFRICA; BLUE for the ocean surrounding the ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC; WHITE symbolizing EUROPE, the seat of the Holy Father, shepherd of the world; RED calling to mind the fire of faith that brought missionaries to the AMERICAS, and YELLOW, the morning light of the East, for ASIA.”

The SPF has a great online presentation of this rosary which you can access here>>>

You can also order your own World Mission Rosary here >>>

Please let me know any information you have about missions in the Catholic Church.

Chris, Ed., H2R

Top photo credit: Florida Catholic

The Catholic Moral Imperative

By Chris Findley

For years the slogan “Friends Don’t Let Friends drink and drive” has been the salient reminder of the dangers of driving under the influence. This saying has become a part of our culture, embedded into our collective consciousness as a guiding principle in those moments where car keys are in hand after one too many brews. It’s not a bad slogan, as far as slogans go. It is always timely, with an almost proverbial-like quality. But what I’d like to call to your attention is the assumption behind this quote.

The “Friends don’t let…” campaign starts with the assumption that you and I have a responsibility to assist others for their own good. It boldly calls us to action in sometimes dicey situations (ever try to get the keys from a determined drunk?). We can be assured that our efforts will not be universally applauded and perhaps cause some rather angry reactions. But the working assumption is that I have a better perspective than my intoxicated friend and that, for his own good, I am going to take his keys and drive him home. This places the burden on me, the sober one, to be brave enough to speak the truth and act on it. The idea is that if you care at all and are a responsible member of society then you will not “let friends drink and drive.”

I bring this up because I believe it correlates to what I’m going to call the “Catholic Moral Imperative”. The Catholic Church is regularly bashed for its stances on a host of issues from contraception to homosexuality, to the plight of immigrants to the plight of the unborn. That’s just the short list. The complaint is that the Catholic church is meddling in people’s business. The charge is often leveled that the Church is oppressive and anti-fun and hurtful. The culture claims it is fine and can “drive” itself without any help from God, the Church, or YOU.

The problem is that the culture is drunk off its keester.

It is drunk on humanism and relativism. It is suffering from its own over-excesses of pride and self-reliance. It has been blinded by pop-psychology and the feel-good gospels of Oprah and Dr. Phil. It lives in a time where people believe theology is as malleable as a lump of clay and that objective truth is an oxymoron. This society thinks nothing of murdering the unborn or the aged. It doesn’t think that sex is anything more than a recreational biological function. Many people bury the deeper ‘questions of life’ underneath layers of distraction. The average “Joe” simply does not realize how bad he is weaving across the center-line of his life until he leaves the road and find himself wrapped around a tree. Yes, our culture is clearly, to continue the analogy, too drunk to drive.

The Catholic Church has an imperative to be the moral voice for a society that has lost its moorings. It is not “nosiness” that motivates us; it is Christ-like concern and compassion. It is not a desire for oppression that calls us to speak out. Quite the opposite, it is the desire to see the oppression of immorality lifted, so that the fullness of life Jesus promises in John 10 can be experienced.

The Catholic moral imperative is to be willing to look foolish for the sake of the Gospel. It is to speak out to an intoxicated culture so that it might improve and that lives may be saved (in this world and in the world to come). This is not a popular position, it will bring us jeers and insults and we will meet much resistance. But hasn’t it always been so for faithful Christians? I once heard a very wonderful and faithful friend say, “Courage begats courage”. May it be so with us!

Mother Teresa’s Uncompromising Stance on Roe v. Wade

By John Connolly, from www.lifesite.net

HUNTINGTON, Indiana, January 9, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As the anniversary of Roe v. Wade approaches, Americans can remember Mother Teresa’s strong condemnation of the ruling that legalized abortion in the United States through a new book by a priest who worked closely with her for twenty-five years.

Mother Teresa was invited to the White House Prayer Breakfast in 1997 by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. Mother Teresa laid out her case clearly. “What is taking place in America is a war against the child,” she said. “And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another.”

Three years earlier Mother Teresa was quoted in The Wall Street Journal saying, “America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts – a child – as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.”

And in response to critics who asked who would care for an unwanted child, Mother Teresa said, “Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy!”

Fr. Joseph Langford, who worked closely with Mother Teresa for twenty-five years and with her founded the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, has written a book recently entitled “Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady.” He believes that “God fashioned Mother Teresa into an instrument that would light up our night at its darkest.”

Original Link>>>

Christianophobia: Irrational Fear or Hatred of Christians

From Zenit News Agency (www.zenit.org)

VIENNA, Austria (Zenit) – International organizations need to know that being a Christian in Europe sometimes means being the victim of Christianophobia, say the promoters of a new Web site detailing this phenomenon.

The “Europe for Christ!” network launched www.christianophobia.eu from Vienna to both explain what Christianophobia is, and to tell how Europeans have experienced it.

“Christianophobia means irrational fear or hatred of Christians, or Christianity in general,” explained Gudrun Kugler, founder of the site. “It includes anti-Christian bias, and also manifests itself in the slow marginalization of those confessing the Christian faith.”

The site includes cases of mockery or ridiculing of the Christian faith, the removal of Christian symbols from public places, restrictions on wearing symbols of Christian faith, and attacks in movies and television broadcasts.

The site also details the persecution of “politically incorrect” positions intrinsic to the Christian faith, such as the opposition to abortion and gay “marriage.” Cases range from people being fired or sentenced to pay a fine.

For example, the site explains, French member of Parliament Christian Vanneste was sentenced to payments of about €10 000 ($14,870) for his critical comments on homosexuality.

On Record
The term Christianophobia has already entered several documents of the U.N. and OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe], the site records.

Vatican officials, including Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for relations with states at the Vatican Secretariat of State, have also supported the recognition of the term and the phenomenon.

The site lists other references to the term from social or religious leaders. It records a comment from Joseph Weiler, a Jewish author and professor of international law at New York University. He said, “European ‘laicité,’ as distinct from American secularism, is not simply an ‘I don’t happen to believe in God.’ It is a kind of faith in itself. It is a positive hostility to religion, which in Europe means Christianity. This is why I did not hesitate in my book to speak about Christophobia.”

Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to European organizations, accuses the European Union of turning a blind eye to anti-Christian practices in EU countries, the Web site records. “In insisting on tolerance, EU leaders slam Islamophobia and anti-Semitism but often ignore various anti-Christian practices,” the bishop said.

Continue Reading >>>

Darfur: Genocide in Slow Motion

from Catholic Online

When Jonathan Gurwitz, San Antonio Express-News and nationally syndicated columnist, first began writing on what was taking place in Darfur, he felt no one was listening. Speaking at the recent St. Mary’s University President’s Peace Commission, he was a little more hopeful someone was.

In his presentation, “Disaster in Darfur: The Basics,” Gurwitz noted that when Brian Steidle spoke in San Antonio at the UT Health Science Center two and a half years ago, only eight persons showed up. Steidle’s recently released eyewitness documentation of the genocide in Darfur, “The Devil Came on Horseback,” which opened the recent symposium, has begun to draw new attention to the Darfurian tragedy.

It’s gratifying,” said Gurwitz, “finally to see that we can fill a conference room like this with people who are interested in what’s happening in Darfur.” Referring to a description of Darfur as “a genocide in slow motion,” he added, “we’ve watched these events taking place. We’ve known at every step what’s happening. We have unequivocal evidence of the atrocities and the mass murders that have taken place, yet somehow the international community can’t muster the will to do what’s necessary to stop the killing.”

Giving an overview of the conflict in Darfur, he related it is a template that can be seen in many other conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. Sudan straddles the dividing line between two cultures, he noted, northern or Saharan Africa, which became part of the Arab Empire in the seventh and eighth centuries, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the Arab culture meets the traditional African culture. Both cultures are Muslims, he added, so what has been taking place in Darfur is not motivated by religious differences. It is an ethnic conflict between people who basically look alike and whose ethnicity is self-defined.

Roots of trouble a legacy of colonialism

As in the Tutsi/Hutu clash in Rwanda and its neighbors, European imperialism laid the groundwork for bloodshed in Darfur. “There are a lot of failed states in Africa and the Middle East,” said Gurwitz, “that were created simply by virtue of the fact that they are artificial creations. They were drawn with the pen and they weren’t drawn with respect, with good consideration for the ethnicity of the people who were residing within boundaries.”

He noted one of the major tribes in Darfur, the Fur, is a traditionally agricultural society of farmers and espouse the African culture. For centuries they were able to work out agreements on sharing the land with area tribes of the nomadic Arab culture. Things soured, however, when a severe drought in the ’90s caused the old ethnic rivalry to surface again in the competition for diminishing resources.

Continue Reading >>>

Conscience and Faithful Citizenship

As we move toward the voting season, there is a growing desire to understand the ways in which the Catholic faith should inform the choices made by the faithful. The USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) has developed quite a lengthy, but well done (in my opinion) document addressing this issue. The full document is 44 pages. The following excerpts are from the Summary of The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship which is a bit easier to digest in a single reading (it’s only 10 pages).

For me, as a former Episcopalian, it is refreshing to see such thoughtful and encouraging words from our Bishops. There is a great polarization in the political landscape of America these days, with each “side” claiming the endorsement of the Almighty for their views. Interestingly, often the views are contradictory. At the same time, there is a sense that there are many things that neither “side” is addressing responsibly. The application of the Church’s teaching onto the consciences of the faithful is a great question.

Take a look at the docs, and with prayer and a continually informed conscience may we all be active participants in the life of our country. You can read the entire document here>>>

Sorry for the formatting below. I had trouble cleaning the code when I cut and pasted.

Chris, Ed., H2R

From the Summary:

“Our nation faces political challenges that demand urgent moral choices. We are a nation
at war, with all of its human costs; a country often divided by race and ethnicity; a nation of
immigrants struggling with immigration. We are an affluent society where too many live in
poverty; part of a global community confronting terrorism and facing urgent threats to our
environment; a culture built on families, where some now question the value of marriage and family life. We pride ourselves on supporting human rights, but we fail even to protect the fundamental right to life, especially for unborn children.

We bishops seek to help Catholics form their consciences in accordance with the truth, so
they can make sound moral choices in addressing these challenges. We do not tell Catholics how to vote. The responsibility to make political choices rests with each person and his or her properly formed conscience.” (Page 1)

“In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political
life is a moral obligation. As Catholics, we should be guided more by our moral convictions than by our attachment to a political party or interest group. In today’s environment, Catholics may feel politically disenfranchised, sensing that no party and few candidates fully share our comprehensive commitment to human life and dignity. Catholic lay women and men need to act on the Church’s moral principles and become more involved: running for office, working within political parties, and communicating concerns to elected officials. Even those who cannot vote should raise their voices on matters that affect their lives and the common good.” (Page 2-3)

There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society, because they are
always incompatible with love of God and neighbor. These intrinsically evil acts must always be rejected and never supported. A preeminent example is the intentional taking of human life through abortion. It is always morally wrong to destroy innocent human beings.

A legal system that allows the right to life to be violated on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed. Similarly, direct threats to the dignity of human life such as euthanasia, human cloning, and destructive research on human embryos are also intrinsically evil and must be opposed.

Other assaults on human life and dignity, such as genocide, torture, racism, and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war, can never be justified. Disrespect for any human life diminishes respect for all human life.

As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not
sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that
involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may
legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.” (Page 4)

“A consistent ethic of life should guide all Catholic engagement in political life. This
Catholic ethic neither treats all issues as morally equivalent nor reduces Catholic teaching to one or two issues. It anchors the Catholic commitment to defend human life and other human rights, from conception until natural death, in the fundamental obligation to respect the dignity of every human being as a child of God.

Catholic voters should use Catholic teaching to examine candidates’ positions on issues
and should consider candidates’ integrity, philosophy, and performance. It is important for all citizens “to see beyond party politics, to analyze campaign rhetoric critically, and to choose their political leaders according to principle, not party affiliation or mere self-interest” (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 33). ” (Page 6)

Alternative Giving for Christmas

As the consumer Christmas season descends upon us, I wanted to suggest to you an alternative gift-giving plan this year. Instead of literally “buying into” the prevailing culture’s idea of Christmas –where the world’s wealthiest (yes that would be you and me) exchange gifts with each other, why not be a blessing to someone or some family that is simply struggling to live another day? Why not spread your wealth and a bit of the Christmas spirit to a starving family? Or why not invest a little in a microenterprise project to help break the cycle of poverty among the poor.

I have become increasingly and uncomfortably aware of how I have chosen to ignore the plight of the poor at home and abroad. If you want a real “kick-in-the-gut”, a real wake-up-call, then read Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider. It will rock your world.

Anyway, if you’re interested in this idea of giving an Alternative Christmas gift, here are a couple of good links to check out. The way this might work is that you talk with someone with whom you normally exchange Christmas gifts and see if you both can’t pool the money you would spend on each other on an alternative gift. You can be creative!

Chris, Ed., H2R

Catholic Relief Services Project Catalog

Food for the Poor’s Christmas Catalog