FROM THE PASTOR
By
On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Church rejoices in the mercy of our Lord who suffered such a cruel death for our salvation. Mercy moved Christ to condemn most vigorously those who harm innocent life. Abortion is the defining moral issue of our age, as slavery was in the nineteenth century. In our country, the lives destroyed by abortion each day outnumber all combat deaths in war over the last ten years.
Although the bishops corrected the Speaker of the House of Representatives in her misrepresentation of the Church's teaching on life in the womb, she has persisted in her inaccuracies. On network television on September 7, one of the vice-presidential candidates repeated the same misinformation, even though he has been prevented by his bishop from speaking on church property because of his misstatements. For the record, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published the facts:
1. From earliest times, Christians distanced themselves from pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide, as is evident in the New Testament, the "Didache" and "Epistle of Barnabas" and regional Church councils. The prophet Jeremiah (1:15) declared of God: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." And the last and greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist, greeted our Lord while still in his mother's womb.
2. While the time of "ensoulment" in the womb was discussed by theologians such as Augustine, often referring to the writing of Aristotle and pre-Christian philosophers who had no knowledge of the existence of the human ovum, all of these theologians affirmed the Church's common conviction that life itself begins at conception and that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage.
3. Penalties for abortion often varied according to the stage of gestation, but abortion has always been seen as a grave moral evil from the moment of conception.
4. Modern genetics has demonstrated that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father. From the mid-nineteenth century, all obsolete distinctions between the "ensouled" and "unensouled" fetus were permanently removed from canon law.
Politicians who relegate the facts of life to the category of religious views rather than natural law, ignore physical science; and they violate the traditional separation of church and state when they twist Christian moral teaching in the civic forum. The Church is patient with ignorance, but not with willful ignorance. Civil and religious leaders are equally accountable to the injunction of the prophet Ezekiel (33:8): "If I tell the wicked, 'O wicked one, you shall surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death."
By
Father George W. Rutler
September 14, 2008
September 14, 2008
On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Church rejoices in the mercy of our Lord who suffered such a cruel death for our salvation. Mercy moved Christ to condemn most vigorously those who harm innocent life. Abortion is the defining moral issue of our age, as slavery was in the nineteenth century. In our country, the lives destroyed by abortion each day outnumber all combat deaths in war over the last ten years.
Although the bishops corrected the Speaker of the House of Representatives in her misrepresentation of the Church's teaching on life in the womb, she has persisted in her inaccuracies. On network television on September 7, one of the vice-presidential candidates repeated the same misinformation, even though he has been prevented by his bishop from speaking on church property because of his misstatements. For the record, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published the facts:
1. From earliest times, Christians distanced themselves from pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide, as is evident in the New Testament, the "Didache" and "Epistle of Barnabas" and regional Church councils. The prophet Jeremiah (1:15) declared of God: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." And the last and greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist, greeted our Lord while still in his mother's womb.
2. While the time of "ensoulment" in the womb was discussed by theologians such as Augustine, often referring to the writing of Aristotle and pre-Christian philosophers who had no knowledge of the existence of the human ovum, all of these theologians affirmed the Church's common conviction that life itself begins at conception and that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage.
3. Penalties for abortion often varied according to the stage of gestation, but abortion has always been seen as a grave moral evil from the moment of conception.
4. Modern genetics has demonstrated that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father. From the mid-nineteenth century, all obsolete distinctions between the "ensouled" and "unensouled" fetus were permanently removed from canon law.
Politicians who relegate the facts of life to the category of religious views rather than natural law, ignore physical science; and they violate the traditional separation of church and state when they twist Christian moral teaching in the civic forum. The Church is patient with ignorance, but not with willful ignorance. Civil and religious leaders are equally accountable to the injunction of the prophet Ezekiel (33:8): "If I tell the wicked, 'O wicked one, you shall surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death."
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