Our Lady of Lourdes Church and School

Every year in the month of October, Catholics in the United States observe what we call “Respect Life Month”. Invariably, those outside the Church tend to be dismissive of our efforts as a community of believers to highlight our core values and commitment to life as a people of faith. On the other hand, even within the Church, there are many who would be dismissive of different aspects of our Church’s teachings and efforts. For a variety of reasons, most of which have little to do with Church teaching or ministry, there are those within and outside of the Church who reduce our commitment to life to the issue of abortion. The political language of “pro-choice”/”anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion”/”pro-life” does not serve us well, as a Church.

I think that the Church’s position on abortion doesn’t bear any clarification. However, there are a host of other pro-life issues that are rarely mentioned. Even to open the website of the US Bishops and to look at the Human Life and Dignity page (http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/), reveals a whole host of issues on which the Church takes a stance based not on the politics of the day, but on the gospel values of Jesus Christ.

As our bishops have consistently affirmed, “For the Church, there is no distinction between defending human life and promoting the dignity of the human person.”  Almost anticipating the pushback from those who would try to reduce the Church’s position to the realm of the political, the bishops quote Pope Benedict XVI who writes: “The Church forcefully maintains this link between life ethics and social ethics, fully aware that 'a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized.” This brings the Church to an interesting space when it comes to political movements within our nation, often leaving people of faith feeling homeless and bereft of shared values with the two main parties in our political system.

How do we address ourselves to the inconsistencies that confront us as people of faith who are struggling to be faithful citizens? How do we participate in a political world that seems to brush aside our values as belonging to people who have little to offer precisely because we believe in God, or are motivated by a gospel for which there is little or no respect in what passes for modern civil discourse? When did it become acceptable to dismiss the values of people of faith precisely because they are people of faith? How do we assert our citizenship and affirm our values in the face of those who find our positions to be inconvenient to their political exigency and would much rather we lie down or simply go away?

I think we have to start by being honest with ourselves, and acknowledge that there are inconsistencies - some of them vast - between the social and political values currently in vogue, and the values of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to be honest about the struggles that those inconsistencies visit upon our own lives. We have to be honest about the struggles we have to bring gospel values to bear on the difficult and challenging questions of our time? We have to be honest about the struggles we face in accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ which underpins our commitment to the defense of life and the upholding of the human dignity of all people.

Our very identity as disciples of Jesus is grounded in the reality of our dignity as Children of God. This is who we are at the deepest level of our being. The essence of our value as human beings, our worth, is not determined by anything other than that we are loved by God. As Pope Saint John Paul II reminded us: “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures: we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.”

In our society we are confronted by a whole host of issues: abortion, immigration, refugees, homelessness, poverty, capital punishment, assisted suicide, euthanasia, pornography, and so many more. Our approach to all of them may have at their root an impoverished understanding of the sacred dignity of the human person. Our approach to all of them may benefit from a fuller and deeper understanding of the sacred dignity of the human person. To be truly pro-life, to be a people committed to the dignity and value of every human life, surely that can only benefit our society and our world.