Next weekend, the first weekend in October, begins the 43rd year designated as Respect Life Sunday. Throughout the month of October, Catholics will be reminded of the preciousness of all human life, beginning in the womb continuing through natural death.
As Pope Francis travels in the United States, we will be reassured of his views on the respect of human life. The following are words of Pope Francis that remind us of our moral, and ethical responsibility as Catholic Christians to uphold the sanctity of life. “All of life has inestimable value even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn, and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect. Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection. And every elderly person even if he is ill or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded as the ‘culture of waste’ suggests! It is necessary to raise awareness and form the lay faithful, in whatever state especially those engaged in the field of politics.”
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia wrote, “Right to Life is still the foundational human right. When we revoke legal protection for unborn children—when we accept the intimate violence abortion inflicts both on women and their unborn children; when we license abortion as part of what Pope Francis calls a ‘throw away culture’—we violate the first and most important human right—the right to life itself. And, once we do that, and create a system of alibis to justify it, we begin to put every other human and civil right at risk”
“All of us must care for life, with tenderness, warmth…to give life is to open our heart, and to care for life is to give oneself in tenderness and warmth for others.” ~Pope Francis
God Bless you all,
Gloria Nolan, Pastoral Minister