Diocese to celebrate Respect Life Month
PISCATAWAY — The Diocese of Metuchen has scheduled numerous activities to raise awareness about the sanctity of all human life throughout October, Respect Life Month, as designated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Office of Respect for Life provided materials to parish pro-life representatives from the USCCB’s 2008-2009 Respect Life Program, “Hope and Trust in Life!” The packets contain resources such as essays and pamphlets written in English and Spanish that will be available in church vestibules.
The pamphlets include “Stem Cells and Hope for Patients,” by Dr. Maureen Condic; “The Hollow Men: Male Grief and Trauma Following Abortion,” by Dr. Vincent M. Rhue; “A Reflection on the African American Family and the Culture of Life,” by Father Martin D. Holley; “Conscience and the Catholic Voter,” by Father William E. Lori; “A Will for Living,” by Stephen L. Mikochik; and “Pornography: What’s the Problem?” by Mark Houck.
The celebration of Respect Life Month began with the annual Breakfast for Life, an interfaith prayer gathering sponsored by the lay organization Breakfast for Life Executive Committee, at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Oct. 1.
The Office of Respect for Life is sponsoring and/or helping promote several events. On Oct. 5, Respect Life Sunday, the annual Life Chain is scheduled to be held 2 to 3:30 p.m., rain or shine, at the Flemington Circle, Flemington; Washington Road (from Ernston Road to Minisink Avenue), Sayreville; Route 35 North (from New Brunswick Avenue to Brace Avenue), Perth Amboy; Somerset Street and Mountain Avenue, Somerville; and South Main Street, Phillipsburg.
The Life Chain is a peaceful, prayerful demonstration, giving people of all faiths an opportunity to unite and make a visual statement about the value and dignity of every human life.
On Oct. 25, the Critical Life Issues Conference will be held 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Piscataway.
Presenters and topics include: Deidre McQuade, USCCB spokesperson, “Truth and Dialogue - Building a Culture of Life;” Steven Ertelt, executive director, LifeNews.com, “Making Sense of the Media Mess;” Bradley Mattes, Life Issues Institute, “Men Hurt Too - The Impact of Abortion on Men;” Shari Richard, ultrasonographer, “A Scientific Look at the Choices We Face;” Mary Kellett, founder and director of Prenatal Partners for Life, “A Different Kind of Crisis Pregnancy.”
Since 1975, the USCCB’s Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities has served as a blueprint for building “a vibrant culture of life within the Catholic community, so that Catholics can in turn contribute to the transformation of all of society including its laws.
To help end confusion caused by some recent misrepresentations in the media of Church teaching on abortion, the USCCB’s Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities recently issued the two-page statement “Respect for Unborn Human Life: The Church’s Constant Teaching.”
The release includes part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which reads: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. The teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law” (No. 2271).
According to the USCCB, “Christians sharply distinguished themselves from surrounding pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide.”
The earliest widely-used documents of Christian teaching and practice after the New Testament in the first and second centuries were the Didache (Teaching of the 12 Apostles) and Letter of Barnabas, which condemned both practices, as did early regional and particular church councils.
In the fifth century, the rejection of abortion at every stage was affirmed by the bishop-theologian, St. Augustine, who was aware of theories about the human soul not being present until some weeks into pregnancy, the USCCB statement continued. St. Augustine added that “God has the power to make up all human deficiencies or lack of development in the Resurrection, so no one can assume that the earliest aborted children will be excluded from enjoying eternal life with God.”
In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas made extensive use of Aristotle’s thinking, including his theory that the rational human soul is not present in the first few weeks of pregnancy. But St. Thomas Aquinas also rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, observing that it is a sin “against nature” to reject God’s gift of a new life.
During these centuries, theories derived from Aristotle and others influenced the grading of penalties for abortion in Church law, the USCCB statement said.
From the 13th to the 19th centuries, the USCCB noted, some theologians speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion before “formation” or “ensoulment” might be morally justified. But these theories were discussed and then always rejected, as the Church “refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an intrinsically evil act that can never be morally right.”
In 1827, with the discovery of the human ovum, “the mistaken biology of Aristotle was discredited.”
“Scientists increasingly understood that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father,” the statement continued. “Modern genetics demonstrated that this individual is, at the outset, distinctively human, with the inherent and active potential to mature into a human fetus, infant, child and adult.”
From 1869 onward the “obsolete distinction between the ‘ensouled’ and ‘unensouled’ fetus was permanently removed from canon law on abortion.”
The USCCB statement concluded, “Given the scientific fact that a human life begins at conception, the only moral norm needed to understand the Church’s opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life has inherent dignity, and thus must be treated with the respect due to a human person.
“This is the foundation for the Church’s social doctrine, including its teaching on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration. Conversely, to claim that some live human beings do not deserve respect or should not be treated as ‘persons’ (based on changeable factors such as age, condition, location or lack of mental or physical abilities) is to deny the very idea of inherent human rights. Such a claim undermines respect for the lives of many vulnerable people before and after birth.”