The Church, and so many people of good will, oppose both the abuse and killing of children – and of anyone else as well.

The argument of pro-life people is one of consistency and inclusion. The tragedy of Roe v Wade is summarized in its line that “the word person does not include the unborn.”

Let’s oppose the killing of every and any innocent human life, and call on our opponents to stop being selective in their opposition to evil.

When the Lord speaks about the poor in spirit, He is speaking about those for whom there is no help or hope but God Himself.  God is the only hope for any of us, but when we have a lot of possessions, friends, and earthly protection, we are tempted to think that those are the things on which our spirits can ultimately rely.

But that is an illusion.  “Only in God be at rest, my soul; from Him comes my help and salvation.”  Today, nobody is more unsafe and unprotected than the child in the womb.  Though father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.  The unborn are the poorest of the poor, and God calls us to acknowledge and bless them.

The angel’s actions also mean that we will walk out of our graves.  The stone sealed human beings in the grave, but after rolling it away, the angel sat on the stone, symbolizing that death is conquered and cannot any longer hold humanity captive to the grave.  Our destiny is now the heights of heaven.

That’s what God thinks of human life, and that’s why we work to end abortion, euthanasia, and every other form of violence.  Ultimately, abortion is a denial of Christ’s Resurrection, but our Easter faith impels us to extend the victory of life.

The Lord gives us fullness of redemption, which means He frees us from all that oppresses the human family. And that is precisely the connection between our faith and our pro-life work. When we labor to end the oppression of children in the womb, we are bearing witness to what the fullness of redemption means.

If you look at the writings of the Catholic Church regarding political responsibility, you often see reference to what is important to “Catholic social teaching” and a “Catholic conscience.” And, of course, that is important to understand, especially for Catholics.

But it is important for us as Americans to also understand the American basis of our social conscience and political responsibility, and, moreover, for us as human beings to understand the purely human basis of the same things.

We are Americans, and as such, we have the right, duty, and privilege to take part in a political process that gives us a voice, not only in who will be elected, but also in who will be on the ballot. Hence, primaries and caucuses are as important to participate in as the general election. To fail to participate in elections is to cheapen the precious freedom, not only given to us through the commitment of our Founding Fathers, but preserved for us through the commitment of the brave men and women who have fought and died for our country. So many of them went to war; many did not return. Many are still in harm’s way today. The least we can do to honor their sacrifice is get out of our house and vote. The least we can say in the pulpits is that “it’s Election Day and we should vote.”

As Americans, moreover, we acknowledge the Creator as the source of our right to life, a right that the government exists to secure (see the Declaration of Independence). So I have less and less patience for anyone who is going to dispute in any way that the protection of human life is and will always remain the fundamental issue for the political community — and this applies to every election, every year, on every level of government. Again, this flows from what we know as Americans, not just as Catholics.

Then there is the purely human dimension. With all due respect to the Church to which I belong and to which I am loyal, it is from my human nature and the commonsense embedded in it that I come to the conclusion that we have an abortion holocaust on our hands, and that nothing else is taking more life than this act of violence. The alarm going off in the minds of millions (mine included) over abortion was not set off by the Church, nor can it be turned off by the Church. And that alarm, for so many of us, is primarily what impels us to go to the voting booth, both in the primaries and in the general election.

Ultimately, the motivation to be politically active is not so much about philosophy, theology, or morality as it is about arithmetic. What’s counted in the end is not opinions or reasons, but votes.

He suffered for the sake of human life. Christ Jesus came to rescue the human life He had created, to snatch it from the kingdom of death and bring it into His kingdom of life.

And He includes every human being of every age.

I ask you to remember this Lent that Jesus endured His Passion for every unborn child in the womb. He endured every pain that the unborn might be saved as well as the born.

When you pray the Stations of the Cross or the sorrowful mysteries, or watch the movie of His Passion, ask for the grace to inconvenience yourself a little more for the unborn.

Other Founding Fathers said the same, because they did not establish a democracy. Instead, they established a republic.

In a democracy, what the majority says, goes, and if the majority were to say that murder is OK, it would be OK.

A republic, however, is based not on the rule of the majority, but on the rule of law, and the highest law is the law of God. In a republic, certain things are beyond the reach of the majority, and basic wrongs can never be declared right.

Let’s elect people who understand the difference between a democracy and a republic.

Used with kind permission from Priests For Life.

Every few years, representatives of bishops’ conferences from around the world gather for several weeks of deliberations in Rome concerning one or another aspect of the Church’s work. In order to guide their deliberations, a working document is prepared, and the input of the entire Church is sought.

The topic of the “New Evangelization” is one about which Blessed John Paul II spoke often. It refers to a new fervor in proclaiming the unchanging gospel, especially in places where, the gospel having once been proclaimed and accepted, there are powerful forces of secularization that cause people to forget God.

In forgetting the Creator, moreover, as the Second Vatican Council taught, the creature becomes unintelligible. As Pope Benedict pointed out recently in creating a new office at the Vatican for promoting the New Evangelization,

“… [T]here has been a troubling loss of the sense of the sacred, which has even called into question foundations once deemed unshakeable such as … a common understanding of basic human experiences: i.e., birth, death, life in a family, and reference to a natural moral law.” (Decree Ubicumque et Semper, Sept. 21, 2010).

By far the most destructive and offensive manifestation of this obscuring of the meaning of birth, life, and death is abortion. Therefore our Priests for Life team compiled reflections on how the pro-life mission of the Church intersects with the New Evangelization.

One of the contributors to these reflections was my friend, Rev. John Ensor, and he pointed out that Satan has always used child-killing to try to slow or stop the advance of the Gospel of Christ.

The attempt is seen in Egypt (see Exodus 1), when mass child-killing is used to try to snuff out the life and work of Moses.

Then, as God’s people live in the Promised Land, Satan allures them into mingling with the surrounding nations in practices of idolatry, including the sacrifice of their sons and daughters to demons in the fire (see Psalm 106:37-38). This practice leads to the exile.

History moves on to the Incarnation, and the life of Jesus is targeted in the mass child-killing ordered by Herod.

Finally, in our day, abortion kills countless future disciples and evangelists. As Rev. 12:17 indicates, the war against Christ and his Church is symbolized in the attempt to kill a child, and the triumph of the Gospel is seen in the victory of life.

The Word of God is clear: “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter” (Proverbs 24:11); “Seek justice, rescue the oppressed” (Isaiah 1:17). The entire Church is under obedience to this Divine command to stop the killing. We can hardly be credible in proclaiming that the destiny of the human person is to be on the throne with Christ (Rev. 3:21) if we ignore those persons thrown in the garbage.

The opening prayer for the first of these Masses reads as follows:

God our Creator,
we give thanks to you,
who alone have the power to impart the breath of life
as you form each of us in our mother’s womb;
grant, we pray,
that we, whom you have made stewards of creation,
may remain faithful to this sacred trust
and constant in safeguarding the dignity
of every human life.

Drawing images from Genesis 2:7 and Psalm 139, the prayer affirms that only God can create. Parents cooperate with his creative power, but the conception of each new life is a direct choice and act of God. He alone owns human life — not parents, nor doctors, nor government — and he alone can take it.

Our role, as the prayer indicates, is to carry out a “sacred trust” as “stewards.” In “The Gospel of Life,” Blessed John Paul II said it this way: “Yes, every man is his ‘brother’s keeper’, because God entrusts us to one another” (EV, 19). Some think it’s none of their business to defend the life of someone else’s child. But God Himself makes it our business. The child scheduled to be killed today by abortion is our brother, our sister, our sacred trust.

We safeguard human life in a variety of ways, including speaking words of encouragement, teaching, assisting parents, and shaping public policy. This Mass text is especially appropriate to use in pro-life gatherings of those who work in the legislative and political arena.

The opening prayer for the second of these Masses reads,

O God, who adorn creation with splendor and beauty
and fashion human lives in your image and likeness,
awaken in every heart
reverence for the work of your hands,
and renew among your people
a readiness to nurture and sustain
your precious gift of human life.

Echoing the imagery of Psalm 104 and drawing from Genesis 1:26, this prayer focuses on how human life itself reflects the image of the Creator, and therefore should evoke in our hearts a reverence and awe which should outweigh any fear in welcoming or defending human life.

This Mass is especially appropriate to use in gatherings of those who assist moms and dads in pregnancy centers, and who do spiritual and educational work in the pro-life movement. The reverence for the work of God’s hands feeds the love which is expressed in that “readiness to nurture and sustain” human life. As Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, “The mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts” (Prayer Breakfast, 1994).

Let’s use these new Mass texts often!

These words come from paragraph 26 of the document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States. Every four years, just before a presidential election year, the bishops’ conference issues a statement on political responsibility. The bishops recently re-issued the same document they voted on four years ago, accompanied by a new introductory note.

Two other quotes found in the document are as follows:

“The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many (n. 28).”

“In our nation, ‘abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others’ (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 5) (n. 22).”

Now some people will say, “Yes, but that’s only part of what the document says.” Of course it is. And many will comment on other sections. As for me, I carry out a prophetic ministry to call the People of God to place priority and urgent attention on ending the slaughter of children by abortion. And nothing in any of the Church’s teaching contradicts that priority, or any of the quotes above.

We at Priests for Life echo the bishops’ call for a consistent ethic of life, properly understood, which begins with the proclamation that life is sacred and that the right to life can never be denied to a person, whether born or unborn. This ethic continues to call for the efforts of public officials and citizens to preserve other fundamental rights and to enhance the quality of life in the arenas of education, health care, security, and many more.

The bishops furthermore point out that as we participate in political parties, we are also called to change those parties wherever and whenever their positions fail to correspond to the demands of justice and the common good. In particular, we at Priests for Life call upon the Democratic party to abandon its pro-abortion stance, recognizing that such a stance imperils and dilutes any progress that can be made on other issues.

The statement encourages Catholics to use voter education materials produced by their dioceses, and so do we. Unfortunately, many dioceses do not produce any voter guides or election-related materials. Priests for Life urges such dioceses to do so. The faithful, of course, are always free to produce and use other election-related material. This is consistent with the statement’s call to be active in the political process and in political parties themselves.