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When we recite the Creed we declare our firm belief in the Divine Being Who created everything visible and invisible. The first teachings of our Faith give us a quick confidence in our Lord's creation of the physical world. The naturally observable things in the universe thrust their existence upon our senses, requiring only the smallest amount of faith to see God's hand at work, and can hardly be denied their individual realities. The earth and all good things in it lead to an acknowledgement of an astoundingly powerful designer and maker, while our Faith draws us to |
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respond to Him with deep gratitude and a yearning for communion.
Through St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, we discover innumerable gems of eternal truth. "The diversity of matter was created to accommodate the diversity of form" (with form referring to the soul, the principle of life), is just one of his teachings that contains an important key to the divine order of creation. God, absolute spirit and the source of everything that exists, first made purely spiritual creatures out of nothing. He then designed another race of beings who, spiritual in His Image, would be fully immersed in the natural creation with their bodies. Now, according to Thomas, our bodies' existence was made to accommodate our invisible spiritual identities. Thus, the body is meant to be an expression of the soul. While this may be apparent to the studious Catholic, it's totally alien to the man of the world, the natural man. Worldly people see the body only, considering us merely the most intelligent animals, and finding no purpose in life beyond experiencing pleasure, avoiding pain, gathering wealth and achieving some earthly honors. For them, the life of the soul is a vague thing produced by the brain, from chemical interactions and small electrical currents. All is material, they say, and life results in a dead end, so eat and drink while you can, period. This tragic outlook, which God has revealed as being false from Adam till today, might begin to explain the abortion industry, genocide, slavery, and the motives of all tyrants who view humans as things rather than spiritual beings made for Heaven. They view the body, i. e., the physical, living expression of the invisible soul, as the only fact, and completely deny the inner soul itself, for which his body was made. This philosophy of base Materialism, devoid of all nobility, has been a primary cause of much of the human brutality and destruction, personal and national, that has plagued our world for over two centuries. Its power is still dominant today. Our most charitable response to this empty, nihilistic philosophy must be a generous presentation of the fullness of God's creation, supernatural and natural. It is clearly found in the richness, joy, intelligence and infinity of the complete Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in a person's participation in that Gospel life within God's One Church. This answer to a world without meaning can lead men ultimately to the path of true knowledge about all things invisible and visible. It also will provide us with the necessary foundation for a real solution to the painful problems of materialist policies and actions found everywhere in our culture. And it is the cornerstone of divine grace within the Pro-Life movement that is essential to any future success. Some destructive acts have become so much a part of the American culture that many followers of Christ are numb to their spiritual and social harm. Divorce and remarriage, contraception and pornography have become so common in recent years that the resistance to their use within the Catholic community is often reduced to silence and inertia through apathy, ignorance or weakened faith. Other practices that severely harm the human person and offend God are the procedures of tubal ligation and vasectomy, performed solely for the purpose of self-sterilization. Each of the systems of our bodies is designed by our Creator for His glory and our healthy, active participation in His eternal plan for the individual and the human race. The reproductive system is unique among all the body’s functions, since it is the one way God grants us an active role in His creation of new human beings, while strengthening the bond of love and commitment between husband and wife. When he has a vasectomy or she has her tubes tied, the couple effectively says to God, “You will not bring new life into being through us any more. We have intentionally erased our fertility and made ourselves sterile. We don’t want (more) children: they would be a burden to us, limit our freedom, use up our money, shorten our vacations or delay our retirement. Our marital relations are just for ourselves. If you want to make new people, please go somewhere else.” Thus, the healthy, life-giving purpose for which He made sexuality in the first place is destroyed in the person as well as in the marriage, and His creative power is blocked and frustrated. This act which sterilizes the person and the marriage is objectively a mortal sin, which breaks the union of God and man. It requires the sacrament of a good confession for one or both to restore their spiritual life of grace in God. All children, present and to come, should be recognized as wonderful gifts to parents, each one unique in God’s image, to be cherished and guided toward goodness, self-discipline, self-sacrifice and the Faith. Many couples, in the past and today, have raised larger families with less income, while receiving so much joy in the birth and youth of each successive child. The difference between the joy or the sorrow felt by couples at the news of her pregnancy hinges on the presence or the absence of God’s own love for life within their marriages. Let’s encourage our own family and friends to see children as God sees them, the blessed fruits of a loving, prayerful marriage. And as He said “allow the little children to come unto me”, so may each husband and wife say the same. Almost all the individual cells of our bodies each have a specific size, structure and composition, based on its special function within a particular organ or tissue group. They can be described as specialized, or differentiated. There are also cells, called stem cells that are undifferentiated, that is, they have not yet developed a specific function, such as bone, blood or skin. They can be said to be multi-potential (pluripotent) or all-potential (totipotent), because they could develop into any one of a variety of specialized cells, as needed. This versatility of stem cells is a recent discovery, inviting research and experimentation to explore their practical applications to the healing arts to expand very quickly. The area of study that touches on human dignity and moral judgment includes how certain sources of stem cells are produced, and the ways they are isolated from the source. One common place that human stem cells are found is in an embryo, during the first days of life. When the egg cell is fertilized, a new creation, no longer egg nor sperm, comes into being. This one-celled human individual is called a zygote. Very soon it begins to split again and again, into 2 cells, then 4, then 8 and so on. For a few days these cells are all stem cells, undifferentiated, which many scientists would like to use for medical experimentation. The moral problem is that the human embryo is a human being at the earliest stage of his life, a person made of body and soul, with full dignity and deserving of all the same rights and protections as any child or adult. When scientists create these human embryos in a laboratory for the purpose of using their cells for research, the high dignity of these tiny persons is rejected, their lives are reduced to a material commodity for exploitation, they are denied their right to loving parents, and their identity as persons created in the image of God is ignored. When one of these embryos reaches a stage of development where many stem cells are present, some cells are removed for experimental use, and the embryo dies. The vague promise of future cures for persistent diseases can never justify the destruction of even one human life, at any age or in any condition. This practice of embryonic stem cell research is always immoral, gravely sinful and offensive to God, should never be funded with our tax dollars and should, in fact, be made universally illegal. Adult stem cell research, on the other hand, takes cells from willing adults, does not harm them and has been very successful. Using adult stem cells there have been successful treatments for cirrhosis, spinal cord injuries, Crohn’s disease, lupus, heart damage, leukemia, blindness and many other illnesses. We ask you to educate your family and neighbors about the important moral position that must be understood and maintained, if we desire God’s blessings for ourselves, our neighbors and future generations. The choices we make always have consequences. Let’s not let anyone remain ignorant about the simple facts of this vital issue. The U. S.' second abortion-cancer link lawsuit was successfully prosecuted recently. The lawsuit against an abortion clinic and the physician who performed an abortion on a 15-year-old girl without informing her of the psychological and increased breast cancer risks was the first such case to receive a settlement and so a judgment. The plaintiff indicated she had a family history of breast cancer on the clinic intake forms. According to research by Janet Daling and others at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, teenagers under the age of 18 with a family history of breast cancer have a high breast cancer risk later in life. We think that the dam may be about to break on the abortion-breast cancer link. Too many women have suffered and the scientific evidence is too strong for the pro-abortion side to prevent juries from awarding damages in more such cases. Population Research Institute Review, Jan/Feb 2005 Proponents of physician-assisted suicide defend their morbid philosophy by saying that people with incurable diseases or terminal illnesses have a “right to die”, a right they seem to have magically plucked out of the U. S. Constitution, or more likely out of thin air. Of course, any so-called right to die, which no one could forfeit, would properly fit into the same bizarre category as our “rights” to suffering, betrayal, pain and disappointment. These sad and unavoidable realities, as well as death, are not rights at all, but are part of a curse on our race for the first and all sins, from which none can escape, not even the holiest saint. Let’s call their “right to die” what it really is: the legal freedom to kill yourself (which is still suicide), or to have someone else kill you (which is murder) under circumstances chosen by you or your guardians. Sick and suffering patients, they say, should be able to achieve a death with dignity. But the death of the body as an event contains no dignity, either practically or idealistically. The loss of bodily life, the death mask and coldness of skin, separation of body and soul and the physical decay do not present anything dignified. They are signs that one of God’s creations, once lively and beautiful, but now assaulted by age and disease, comes to the end of its physiological resources, and is lowered to the point of complete disintegration. No, death is not something good to be championed, or held up in any way as a dignified achievement. The Scriptures tell us, “God did not make death, neither has he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For He created all things that they might be.” And, “By the envy of the devil death came into the world, and they follow him that are of his side.” (Wisdom 2 and 3). It is a moment of tragedy and sorrow, the antithesis of creation. The life span of a person is like a length of string, with a beginning and an end. At any time between these two ends a person is completely alive, deserving charitable treatment and appropriate medical life support. While there are times of greater and lesser vitality along the line, his dignity is not determined by his physical health nor reduced by illness. Rather, it is apparent in two ways. Primarily, his inherent dignity is a permanent aspect of the human nature of his immortal soul, made in God’s image, which animates his body up to its last moment of life. This dignified nature then may be manifest and observable by the character of his decisions and actions in times of hardship. How well does he conform his final days and hours to the will and spirit of Jesus? His trust and surrender to God, in imitation of Christ, revealing courage in the face of fear and the divine hope that overcomes despair, will portray the high dignity that men seek and admire, and that God originally intended to be common and universally present in the character of all mankind. So, while he is still breathing, he may give his own example of living with dignity to the end, determined to persevere even while anticipating the inevitable, and bolstered by the Faith that Our Lord pours copiously into receptive hearts. Suicide can never bring dignity to the story of a person’s life. Those who promote suicide and homicide cannot claim love as a motive, since they are, either willingly or blindly, working in alliance with the devil Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning. The way that we deal with our last days on Earth, strengthened by God’s grace and supported by loved ones, should be founded on the virtue which recognizes that life is a gift, belonging to God and to be cherished by us all. We may then lead others to believe that our religious convictions and personal integrity are not merely ideals, but genuine attributes of an honest, Faithful person who will stand for what is divinely and eternally true, whatever the consequences. Fr. Frank Pavone, the National Director for Priests for Life, encourages all of us to use the gifts God has given each one of us, and bring an end to the cruel and horrible practice of abortion in our state and nation. These practical directives remind us of the many ways we can be effective.
“My advice is that you slough off a certain prudence, which is often the refuge of shameful laziness. ‘Prudent’ sometimes means faint-hearted. Now more than ever is the time to repeat Bousset’s saying, ‘Faith is daring.’ Let us have the boldness of faith, even though some might call it foolhardiness. Real prudence is the queen of the moral virtues; and a queen commands, acts, and, if necessary, fights. Some have transformed prudence into a frightened old woman. Such prudence is in bed slippers and a dressing gown, with a cold, coughing a lot. Conventional prudence, I do not want. You must not heed such prudence. As far as I am concerned, I always want to trust madly in God’s Providence, even though, abandoned by all, I end up dying in a hospital.” Quote from Venerable Emmanuel D’Alzon, Assumptionist Founder. What a great loss to the pro-life movement and the world. Joe suffered terribly from cancer the last year and a half of his life, but he embraced his suffering. He always made you feel that he was going to get better. Joe lived his faith. He fought for the lives of the unborn from the very beginning of the battle, whether it was praying the rosary with his wife, Sandy, at the abortion mills, or picketing pro-abortion politicians like Senator Jack Reed and Congressman Patrick Kennedy. He worked diligently to put up a pro-life billboard on the land we had purchased for the Mother of Life Center at 400 Atwells Avenue (across from the old abortion mill that closed 40 days after our first Mass in the chapel.) The billboard was demolished, but Joe put it up again. He was treasurer for the little Flower Home for many years, and every penny was accounted for. Many hours were also spent by Joe at the Home, for he was the best handyman you could ever find. His live for Christ and his neighbor emanated from Joe. You were happy to be in his presence. May his soul rest in peace with all the babies he tried to save from abortion. We mourn the death of Arthur Rossi, a devoted Catholic and a great defender of the lives of the unborn. Arthur was never afraid to give witness to the sanctity of human life, and would not miss praying at the abortion mills, especially the nine week novenas. He never missed a mass that was celebrated at the Mother of life Center, and was almost always present for the Holy Hours there. When the DaVinci Code came to town, he was right there holding a sign denouncing the movie, always ready to defend the Faith. Arthur usually had a smile on his face, which showed the love and generous respect he had for everyone. Above all he loved the Blessed Mother and served her faithfully through the Legion of Mary. Arthur, we will miss you, but we know the Blessed Mother and the little babies are right there with you. May you, and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace. |
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