April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
BISHOP'S COLUMN
Resist the throwaway culture
While in Japan several years ago, I visited a cemetery where a section was devoted to memorials for aborted children. People would actually come to mourn these lives - even if they were complicit in terminating them. While hardly an admirable practice, the memorial at least accorded those lives a certain tribute not less than that acknowledged at a pet cemetery.
By contrast, the remains of the dead from our abortion factories are dispatched and disposed of in much the same way as a common piece of garbage.
Our defense of the value of each and every human life - from conception to natural death -is really about much more than drawing a line in the sand in the so-termed "culture wars." It is not about taking sides. It is much more fundamental because it is about all of us, no matter where we stand on other issues and political strategies.
Whatever threatens or diminishes the humanity of the unborn, the poorest among us, the infirm, the homeless, the disabled - in short, qualifying the worth of any human being's life according to any designated, quantitative (how much or how little) status - equates efficiency with morality, expediency with what is right.
It is not about religion or belief at all. It is about what we discover by being true to our senses and sensibilities. If we would be true to our science - to what we learn about paying attention to reality, objectively and without ideological prejudice - what defines a life as human is the vital, unique, continuous growth process begun at conception. Whatever developmental or environmental changes may occur as that life moves on do not alter, diminish or enhance its undeniably human genetic reality begun at that moment.
To be true to our humanity, to be humane, we do not throw away human beings because of anyone's mere assumptions of their viability, profitability, functionality - or any other utilitarian class into which they might be categorized at any stage of their humanity.
The increasingly uncivil state in so many arenas of public discourse is a sign of how the cancer of a throwaway culture, which displaces and discards the most vulnerable of human beings, spreads. Shouting silences dialogue. Repetition of slogans replaces reasoned discussion. Stereotypes prejudice perception. If you do not like someone or some group, off with their heads!
Many suffer from being labeled by stereotypes that increase tensions and even the risk of violence among us all. Our increasingly politicized climate exploits stereotypes, which include just about all of us when we are placed in some religious, economic, racial, ethnic, or sex- and gender-related category.
Certain stereotypes about women are quite prevalent now, like the assumption that state-funded contraceptives and abortion without limit provide the economic and physical autonomy that secures freedom for women, though the evidence does not necessarily support this. The feminization of poverty certainly seems to be on the rise along with single-parent households.
From a purely pragmatic perspective, who "profits" more from this outcome than the non-committal male, responsible to no one for nothing? Emotionally and spiritually, the consequences are probably unfathomable.
Jews, Muslims and Christians - and often Catholics, in particular, who are historically caricatured as mindless, anti-science, passive and unable to think for ourselves - all have suffered from stereotyping.
We do have a choice, however. We can live with those stereotypes; or we could live the Gospel - freely and fearlessly, beyond the stereotypes, using the intelligence and grace God gave us to live by our values, the most precious of which is the respect for human life itself.
Witnessing by prayer and action to the value of all life; lobbying for patients' rights or immigration reform; volunteering to assist the homeless, the aging infirm and the seriously disabled are all excellent, practical ways of affirming human life - not only the lives of those who need our defense and support because of their vulnerability (physical, legal or economic), but, ultimately, the life of each and every human being![[In-content Ad]]
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