Somewhere along the line, something has gone terribly wrong. We have forgotten, it seems, the value of one of God's most precious gifts to us. We have forgotten the value of life, its importance, its purpose, its meaning, its goal, and, sadly, its Creator. We have put our possessions, our wealth, our power, our position, and our social status in place of this awesome gift. We seem to have accepted the belief that what is really important is how much we can achieve, how much we can acquire. What has happened to us?
This handbook was put together by the volunteers of St. Luke Parish
and members of the parish Respect to address these questions. We had several
objectives in undertaking this task.
To Motivate: It is the hope of the Respect Life Committee that the results of these efforts will motivate other members of the parish to become involved in these issues. It is not enough to say, "I believe". It is also required for us to live our beliefs, to stand tall, to walk with Jesus, and to actively and visibly defend the very principles of our Faith.
To Educate: It is hoped that the contents of this handbook will provide you with information of which you may not have been previously aware. Too much of what we know about these controversial issues comes from sources which do not respect or understand our Catholic Faith. The bias of popular media, for example, often results in incomplete, inaccurate information and personal opinion being represented as fact.
To Encourage: It is our hope that this work will encourage others to take an active stand on these issues that truly threaten life as God intends it to be lived.
To Bring Hope: We believe that only when we as a community begin to recognize these serious threats to human life can we change and return to God. It may seem hard to believe that our current "culture of death" could become a "civilization of love", but it can only begin when we change as individuals and begin to live the teachings of Christ.
To Pray: This handbook includes prayers that we might remember the value of praying always, particularly for those whose lives are in danger or who are in great pain. Prayer is essential in our calling to love God and our neighbor.
"With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by moral adolescents. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have many men of science, but too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death.In 1976, upon his departure from the United States, a then-obscure Roman Catholic Cardinal made a short farewell speech in which he said:"The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. This is our twentieth century's claim to distinction and to progress."
"We are now standing on the threshold of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think the wide circle of American society or the wide circle of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, between the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is a trial which the whole church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial not only for our nation and the Church, but in a sense, it is a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights, and the rights of nations."The speech received little coverage in the news media until 1978, when this cardinal became Pope John Paul II.
Jesus sought out and embraced the disenfranchised, the poor, the sick, the homeless, the hungry, and the outcasts of the world in which He lived. Through His actions, He showed the value and importance that He placed on life. There is not one single instance in the Gospels where Jesus took a life or advocated taking a life for any reason. Today, our society justifies the cessation of life for matters of convenience, cost, usefulness, privacy, and revenge.
All life is sacred. No one can rationally dispute that point. We are not in a position to judge the value of any person. Jesus taught us that Himself. Only God can and will judge human beings. Our task is to be stewards -- good stewards -- caring for all of God's creation. Foremost within that creation is human life, and we are called to protect the sanctity of life.
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