candidate or party. Our role is to teach and form consciences” (A Call to Faithful Citizenship and Respect for Life, The Catholic Bishops of Pennsylvania).
Issues involving human dignity can be known by our reason
You know how often I have addressed the dignity of the human person in this column. I have done so in many different circumstances. One aspect of the dignity of the human person is the ability to reason and to know. Another aspect of human dignity is the affirmation of the rights of the individual’s conscience. However, if we fail to acknowledge any natural or revealed norms to guide and properly form our consciences, each of us could wind up justifying almost anything.
The human conscience is always at the service of truth and virtue, but it must be properly formed in order to function properly. We believe that because we are made in God’s image we have within our very nature a fundamental understanding of right and wrong. To us as human persons, this “law of the heart,” as it is sometimes called, requires a responsibility beyond laws enacted by governments.
We have seen an example of this very recently. One hundred Philadelphia police recruits were taken on a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The leadership of the Philadelphia Police Department wanted these recruits to see examples of cases in which the police in Nazi Germany carried out policies which were legal in that country at that time but immoral and unjustified in the eyes of civilized human persons, whose consciences told them that this was evil.
The conviction of Nazi war criminals after the Second World War was not based on the fact that what they did was illegal but that it was a crime against humanity, which can be recognized by any person of good will. Consequently, these leaders were held responsible for their actions, which had been legal but grossly evil and immoral.
Even in our own country, there were practices such as racial segregation or slavery, which were legal but evil and immoral. We are all familiar with the photographs of Catholic priests and Religious Sisters, as well as many members of the Catholic lay faithful, marching side by side with African-Americans to end the discrimination that was legal but evil and immoral. The Church is not only permitted to proclaim moral truths in the face of opposition but is obliged to do so as a proclamation of the dignity of the human person.
The challenge of our own times
Our own common sense tells us that not every issue is of the same importance. At various times in history, a people or nation is confronted with an issue that transcends others in importance and that demands a courageous response.The transcending issue of our day is the intentional destruction of innocent human life, as in abortion. We wish with all our hearts that no candidate and no party were advocating this heinous act against the human person. However, since it is a transcending issue, and even supported in its most extreme and horrific forms, we must proclaim time and time again that no intrinsic evil can ever be supported in any way, most especially when it concerns the gravest of all intrinsic evils: the taking of an innocent life.
We bishops of Pennsylvania quoted from the late Pope John Paul II’s Post Synodal Exhortation on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful and I quote him again here: “The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination” (Christifideles Laici, 38).
At this moment in our country’s history, defense of innocent human life is a moral responsibility for all of us. The same God who thundered from Mount Sinai: “Thou shalt not kill,” thunders still. When life in the womb is destroyed, God thunders: “This is a child!” When by the most barbaric means, unworthy of any civilized people, the brain of a child is sucked out of his or her head by a vacuum, God thunders: “This is a child!” When a baby is left to die of exposure on a shelf because of a failed abortion, and this is considered a “right” by any leader, God, the Source of all law and authority, thunders: “This is a child!” When we are faced with every modern means of education and communication, in addition to the law placed in our hearts at creation, no one, and most especially, no Catholic, can ever say: “I did not know.”
The human dignity that we proclaim works two ways: it affords us a great privilege but it also demands a responsibility. The feeble defense “I did not know” cannot be used by any responsible person in our time when confronted with the reality of abortion. We do know. We know because we can reason and think and see. Along with this position, which is confirmed by modern science, comes a command: “Thou shalt not kill.” It is not a question of politics but a question of the gravest of intrinsic evils; and just as the reality of what it is cannot be explained away, neither can our responsibility.
Throughout our history, Catholics have earned their right to call themselves patriotic Americans. Faithful citizenship not only includes dying for one’s country or working towards its prosperity, it also includes being faithful to a law which is higher than the expediency of the moment with the same generosity of body and heart, and the same courage that is given on the battlefield and in the workplace. We remind ourselves of this as we continue to be called to faithful citizenship and respect for life in the “earthly city” without forgetting that we are ultimately called to live as citizens of heaven forever.
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This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of The Catholic Standard and Times (www.cst-phl.com), official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Pa.
I believe that all human life should be respected with the most dignity. In the same count rooms where people argue that someone should go away for life because they killed someone, they also argue that it is fine to kill a baby. I'm glad I am not them when I stand before God in heaven.
Claire Rossi | 10/27/2008
If you are on this site, you probably believe in a Divine being. I would think the probability is high that you are probably Catholic. While I am aware that many Catholics are ignorant of many matters of faith, and there have been MANY times that the Church has been vague and wishy-washy about their statements, I don't think this is one of those times. For the first time, in a long time, the Church, as shepherds of God's people, is coming across loud and clear. If you continue to try to find justification for your own moral ambivalence, then realize that "I didn't know" or "No one explained it to me" will not work this time. So, to all my brothers and sisters in Christ, pray. Then vote.
M Taylor | 10/26/2008
Dear Matt,
I find your views quite interesting, because you really have got it for the most part (especially with your personal experience). But I would like to ask you, the same question that you posed, if GOD is going to ask each individual on the voting record for pro-abortion candidates, don't you think HE is going to ask our dear Bishops, as to why they didn't give proper guidance when it was required, that such a vote could very well jeopardize their eternal lives. Hence any attempts at muffling the guiding voices of our dear Bishops can be also construed by GOD to be against us (which is not something that we can afford to risk).
Secondly, you have a very logical argument that we have to first change the hearts of the people, but you have to also realize that when Abraham Lincoln won the election, it had triggered the Civil War, before even officially slavery had been abolished (as it had been expected). You have to understand that Lincoln did not promise to abolish slavery, he only wanted to restrict it to the States that already had slavery laws (without spreading it to other States). The result of his election was the Civil War (1861-1865). Do you think that abolishment of slavery was worth risking this war (which is hindsight)? Similarly the effects of trying to coerce (even with force at times) the equality of all races, in all fields like education had met with significant opposition, but that was not an excuse to withdraw from it.
Courage and valor are not for those with weak knees, rather for those with strong knees and is meant to uphold the Truth, no matter what the cost.
If we lay down our actions to wait for all the people to accept our viewpoint, it is never going to happen, because not everyone will accept one belief at any one time. Hence do we determine that there should be a majority of people supporting, I believe that elections are the best way to find that out.
In the case of slavery, was Civil War necessary, probably, one will not be able to determine with any amount of certainity, but one thing is for sure, if they hadn't adopted that stand against slavery, we might still have it prevalent among us and that is something that we can hardly contemplate in this present society that we live. Similarly decades from now, there would be people viewing our generation with either pride or contempt (that we didn't have the courage or valour to stand up and speak out against grave injustices).
I'm sure that if your grandmother had been alive, she would have supported the same view that I hold, because there probably were not enough people to tell her the horrors of abortion. Do you realize that with Freedom of Choice Act, whatever laws are there (like informed consent, parental notification, partial birth abortion, etc) which could better inform the persons making the decision, of the consequences of their decisions, would be wiped out entirely? That is the first piece of legislation that Sen. Barrack Obama would sign (as per his own words).
Do you think your grandmother would have voted for him, I believe you are the living proof that she wouldn't have and I believe that it burdens you with a greater responsibility in this matter.
Vote responsibly, like this would be the last vote you have (for you never know) and you might not have the chances your grandmother had to make amends.
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