A CULTURE OF LIFE

A CULTURE OF LIFE

I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live. Deuteronomy 30:19

Over the next few blogs I will be discussing Church Teaching concerning creating a culture of life, the teachings about life issues from the very beginning of life to the very end and the various concerns in-between. My main references for this discussion will be The Catechism of the Catholic Church, abbreviated as CCC, and Blessed John Paul II's encyclical EVANGELIUM VITAE, THE GOSPEL OF LIFE, abbreviated as GL.

John Paul begins his encyclical by saying: "The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus' message. Lovingly received day after day by the Church, it is to be preached with dauntless fidelity as 'good news' to the people of every culture." GL #1 This is a call to make known the message of the Gospel that all life is sacred and must be protected and respected. This message of life is the foundation of all communities and governments. Without this fundamental recognition of the sacredness of all life communities are undermined and governments loose legitimacy. The sacredness of all life must be protected and respected from its very beginning at conception to it natural end. This fundamental teaching encompasses a myriad issues that give it its full  expression. Recalling the Second Vatican Council's condemnation of crimes against the sacredness of life the Pope echoes its teaching: "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 that to those who suffer from injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator." GL #3. Not only are these things still increasing throughout the world, but in our culture crimes against life are being justified as "rights".

Referring to the story of Cain and Able, John Paul quotes the scripture: "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil." Genesis 4:10 Recognizing then that we are all our brothers' and sisters' keepers, we are called to "preach with dauntless fidelity" the Gospel of life and be about the work of creating a culture of life out of the present culture of death.