Image: New Directions in Adoption
H/T to Rocco for reminding us of this passage from John Paul II's encyclical, The Gospel of Life. Here, the pope addressed all the infamies that poison human society. He references the Didache, the most ancient non-biblical Christian writing, a summary of the earliest Christian moral teaching.
-ConcordPastor
"The Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life. Thirty years later, taking up the words of the Council and with the same forcefulness I repeat that condemnation in the name of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of every upright conscience: "Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator."...
From the beginning, the living Tradition of the Church - as shown by the Didache, the most ancient non-biblical Christian writing - categorically repeated the commandment "You shall not kill": "There are two ways, a way of life and a way of death; there is a great difference between them... In accordance with the precept of the teaching: you shall not kill ... you shall not put a child to death by abortion nor kill it once it is born ... The way of death is this: ... they show no compassion for the poor, they do not suffer with the suffering, they do not acknowledge their Creator, they kill their children and by abortion cause God's creatures to perish; they drive away the needy, oppress the suffering, they are advocates of the rich and unjust judges of the poor; they are filled with every sin. May you be able to stay ever apart, o children, from all these sins!"
--Pope John Paul II
Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)
23 March 1995
This is my struggle with Catholicism. Probably the single issue that keeps me on the outside of the church looking in.
ReplyDeleteArbitrary imprisonment, torment inflicted on body and mind, subhuman living conditions, these might also be considered the results of the extinguishing of the right to terminate a pregnancy.
I try to believe that life starts at the moment of conception. I do. But I believe more that life starts and prospers with the living. If I need to choose between the protection of the living and the protection of tissue (for lack of a better word), I will choose the living.
There is so much more I have to say on this, and probably even more questions. But i do not wish to offend anyone's convictions or challenge the Catholic stand on this issue. But I did feel I had to say something..
How about all the folks waiting to adopt ?? Life is precious in all its shapes and forms.
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