Thoughts and Faith to Share

An excerpt from 'Abortion has become the defining life issue for us' by Bishop Robert Vasa in the Catholic Sentinel:

"Certainly, in this week of Jan. 22, there is an increased focus on the central and defining life issue of our generation.

Abortion is the defining life issue. Just as it is inconceivable for someone to be unconcerned about the poor, the needy, the homeless, the disenfranchised, the immigrant, so it is most disconcerting to see an American ambivalence and even active antipathy toward the pre-born.

If the same solution which our country deems appropriate for treating the undesired pre-born was directed toward the poor, the needy, the homeless, the disenfranchised or the immigrant then, I suspect, the extent of these "problems" could be diminished significantly.

No one, thanks be to God, proposes such heinous measures, unless of course, that poor, needy person has the misfortune of not yet being born. No one proposes the elimination of the homeless as the solution to homelessness unless that "homeless person" is the one forcibly evicted from the home God gave him or her in the womb.

No one proposes a "final solution" for dealing with the disenfranchised or immigrant unless that immigrant is one of the newest prenatal arrivals to our land. Our conviction about the intrinsic value and dignity of human life is evident in our compassion toward individuals in a variety of difficult social situations.

It is time in our land to extend that same compassion, that same protection of law and right reason, to those who have been deprived of these protections for the past 34 years. It is precisely the kind of thing a community would do. In a particularly striking way, it is the kind of thing that a community committed to the life and teaching of Jesus would do. It is the kind of thing that a community committed to the life and teachings of Jesus must do."


This electronic newsletter may be duplicated, reproduced or retransmitted only in its entirety. Excerpts used for the purposes of quotation must be attributed explicitly to Bishop Robert Vasa and the Catholic Sentinel (www.sentinel.org). Email: info@sentinel.org