ON THE DIGNITY OF
HUMAN LIFE
AND CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY |
The Most Reverend
Raymond L. Burke
Bishop of LaCrosse
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A PASTORAL LETTER TO CHRIST’S FAITHFUL
OF THE DIOCESE OF LACROSSE
THE MOST REVEREND RAYMOND L. BURKE
BISHOP OF LACROSSE
See also Bishop Burke's
Notification
To Christ’s Faithful of the Diocese of
La Crosse:
ON THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE
AND CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
In these and in the coming months,
politicians are beginning their campaigns for election or
reelection to public office in 2004. The start of
political campaigns reminds us that we, as Catholics, are
called to be faithful to Christ also through our
political involvement. Every election gives us the
opportunity to discuss the ways our government should
lead us now and into the future for the common good.
F ORMING
POLITICAL JUDGMENTS
Sadly, many Catholics misunderstand the
meaning of the so-called “separation of Church and state”
in our nation and believe that the Word of God, handed on
to us in the Church, has no application to political
life. Certainly, our government does not endorse or fund
a particular Christian denomination or religion. But, at
the same time, we, as Roman Catholics, have the right
and, indeed, the obligation to inform our consciences and
political judgments from the teachings of our faith,
especially in what pertains to the natural moral law,
that is the order established by God in creation.
For example, while the Ten Commandments
forbid stealing, no one would believe that laws against
theft are an imposition of the Jewish or Christian
religions.
People of different faiths or of no faith
can recognize the natural obligation to respect the
property of others. Also, no one would consider Christian
opposition to slavery a “religious” issue. Rather,
Christians who oppose slavery and other similar evils are
acting according to the standard of right and wrong,
which has its foundation in our common human nature.
E MBRACING
THE CHALLENGE OF OUR FAITH
As Catholics, we face a special and
critical challenge when the moral law demands something
different from what society sanctions. In such a
situation, many around us, and especially the
communications media, will urge us to conform to societal
standards, to “follow the crowd.”
Our Catholic faith, however, demands
that, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, we follow
the norm of the moral law and also proclaim it in society
for the good of all. “Catholics are called to be a
community of conscience within the larger society and to
test public life by the moral wisdom anchored in
Scripture and consistent with the best of our nation’s
founding ideals” (Administrative Board of the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Faithful Citizenship: Civic
Responsibility for a New Millennium
[September 1999], p. 8). When Dr.
Martin Luther King wrote his famous “Letter from
Birmingham Jail,” he cited the natural-law teaching of
Saint Thomas Aquinas in defense of civil disobedience. If
Dr. King drew from Catholic teaching to uphold what is
right and good, then should not we as Catholics do so as
well?
P ROTECTING
ALL HUMAN LIFE
Catholic teaching distinguishes itself
from what society presently sanctions by its firm and
unchangeable defense of the dignity of human life. As
Catholics, we are always held to defend human life from
conception to natural death. The Church teaches that
human life should be protected at every stage of
development, whether in the womb, in the wheelchair or on
the death bed.
Our consistent stance on the dignity of
all human life is not understood by some. Many understand
our care for the poor and the marginalized, but they part
company with us in our defense of innocent and
defenseless life in the womb. They will stand with us
against capital punishment, but not against procured
abortion or euthanasia.
The situation is most difficult for us
and profoundly sad for our society, especially for her
defenseless and heavily burdened members, but it should
not make us doubt the truth of Catholic teaching. On the
contrary, we must work to point out the contradiction of
protecting some human lives and not others, and work to
protect all human life. “Every human person is created in
the image and likeness of God.
The conviction that human life is sacred
and that each person has inherent dignity that must be
respected in society lies at the heart of Catholic social
teaching. Calls to advance human rights are illusions if
the right to life itself is subject to attack. We believe
that every human life is sacred from conception to
natural death; that people are more important than
things; and that the measure of every institution is
whether or not it enhances the life and dignity of the
human person” (Ibid., p. 13).
The work of the Fifth Diocesan Synod has
underlined for us the urgency of the apostolate of the
respect for human life, especially on behalf of the
unborn:
“Because of the prevalence of procured
abortion in our society, the Diocese is to give the most
urgent attention possible to fostering the respect for
the life of the innocent and defenseless unborn and to
working to end the practice of procured abortion in our
nation” (Synod V Acts: Celebrated June 11-14, 2000,
p. 434, n. 217). For the sake of the common good, we must
not fail in our Christian and civic duty to restore the
respect for the life of the unborn.
S AFEGUARDING
THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL GOOD
Catholic teaching is true to the natural
moral law which obliges us to protect all human life. In
our history as Americans, we sometimes have found reasons
to exclude certain populations from the protection of the
law. We were always wrong in doing so. How is our
present-day exclusion of the unborn, the elderly and the
sick any different from our exclusions of the past? The
Church’s moral teaching merely tells us what we should
see with our own eyes, that the children we abort and the
sick we “mercy kill” are our brothers and sisters in the
human family.
Some will say that the defense of
innocent life is only one issue among many, that it is
important but not fundamental. They are wrong. In the
natural moral law, the good of life is the most
fundamental good and the condition for the enjoyment of
all other goods (cf. United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, Living the
Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics
[November 1998], n. 5).
Recall the words of Pope John Paul II on the mission of
the lay faithful in the Church and in the world:
The inviolability of the person which is
a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds
its primary and fundamental expression in the
inviolability of human life. Above all, the common
outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights –
for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to
family, to culture – is false and illusory if
the right to life,
the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of
all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum
determination (Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation
Christifideles Laici, “The Vocation and Mission of
the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World”
[December 30, 1988], n. 38b).
The protection of innocent life is not
just a political issue, but, much more importantly, it is
a basic political responsibility (cf. Living the
Gospel of Life, nn. 33-34).
M AKING
CONSISTENTLY THE CHOICE FOR LIFE
Catholics therefore cannot legitimately
believe that, if they support programs for the poor and
marginalized, this “makes up” for not being consistently
prolife. “Any politics of human dignity must seriously
address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment,
education, housing and health care....
But being ‘right’ in such matters
can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks
on innocent human life.
Indeed, the failure to protect and defend
life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any
claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters
affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human
community” (Living the Gospel of Life, n. 23).
Concern for the plight of the poor must
be accompanied by a profound respect for the dignity of
all human life. Otherwise, it can be corrupted and all
too easily embrace procured abortion and euthanasia as
acts of compassion toward the suffering. But it is a
false compassion which seeks to lessen human suffering by
eliminating those who suffer. When we allow the killing
of those most in need, we do not love the poor as
Jesus did, Who gave His life as a ransom for many (cf.
Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45; and 1 Tm 2:6).
The responsibility to defend human life
in all its stages falls upon all Catholic citizens. It
falls, with particular weight, upon Catholic politicians.
A year ago, on the Solemnity of Christ the King, the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of our Holy
Father Pope John Paul II published a document,
Doctrinal Note on some questions
regarding the participation of Catholics in political
life (November 24,
2002), which clarifies for Catholic politicians their
most serious responsibility for the defense of human
life. The document explains: “John Paul II, continuing
the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many
times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking
bodies have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’
any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every
Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to
vote for them” (n. 4a).
R ESPONDING
MORALLY TO UNJUST LAWS
Oftentimes, Catholic politicians who hold
anti-life positions defend their voting record on the
ground that they are following their constituency or the
will of the “majority.” One cannot however defend an
unjust law on the ground of political consensus. We do
not consider the “Jim Crow” laws, which discriminated
against African Americans, “just” because the majority of
the population supported them.
Catholic politicians have the
responsibility to work against an unjust law, even when a
majority of the electorate supports it. When Catholic
politicians cannot immediately overturn an unjust law,
they must never cease to work toward that end. At the
very least, they must limit, as much as possible, the
evil caused by the unjust law. Pope John Paul II
illustrates for us this important moral principle:
“[W]hen it is not possible to overturn or completely
abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose
absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was
well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at
limiting the harm
done by such a law and
lessening its negative consequences at the level of
general opinion and public morality” (Encyclical Letter
Evangelium Vitae, “On the Value and Inviolability
of Human Life” [March 25, 1995], n. 73c). The judicial
system in the United States of America allows legislators
to limit access to procured abortion, and Catholic
politicians are obliged to restrict the scope of this
gravest of injustices whenever the opportunity presents
itself.
While certainly there are Catholic
politicians who have worked diligently to promote the
Gospel of Life through our laws, many have compromised
their duty to do so. I joined my voice to that of my
brother Bishops five years ago in our appeal:
“We urge those Catholic officials who
choose to depart from Church teaching on the
inviolability of human life in their public life to
consider the consequences for their own spiritual well
being, as well as the scandal they risk by leading others
into serious sin.... No public official, especially one
claiming to be a faithful and serious Catholic, can
responsibly advocate for or actively support direct
attacks on innocent human life” (Living the Gospel of
Life, n. 32). Once again and more urgently, I, as
Bishop of the Diocese of LaCrosse, appeal to all
Catholics who hold political office to examine your
conscience in the light of your duty to protect human
life in all its stages. Further, I urge you to resolve to
live the Gospel of Life fully and faithfully in all your
legislative activity.
B EGINNING
IN THE HOME
Whether we are citizens or politicians,
whatever be our state in life, we all have the
responsibility to work for a society which safeguards and
promotes the dignity of human life. We must recognize
that the building of a culture of life begins in the
home, in our families. It begins with a true
understanding of the conjugal union and its ordering to
the gift of children (cf. Catechism of the Catholic
Church, n. 2366). So often Catholics fail to act
against abortion or euthanasia with the appropriate
energy, because they have compromised the Church’s
teaching on the procreative end of marriage by accepting
artificial birth control (cf.
Catechism of the Catholic Church,
n. 2370). The port of entry for the culture of death in
our society has been the abandonment of the respect for
the procreative meaning of the conjugal act. It is the
contraceptive way of thinking, the fear of the
life-giving dimension of conjugal love, which very much
sustains that culture.
Pope John Paul II has rightly observed:
“[T]he pro-abortion culture is especially strong
precisely where the Church’s teaching on contraception is
rejected” (Evangelium Vitae, n. 13). If we are to
act for the Gospel of Life with renewed vigor in our
families and our parishes, we must adhere firmly to the
Church’s teaching on artificial contraception. We should
promote natural family planning as a moral alternative
for those who, for grave reasons, need to limit the
number of children in the family. The legislation of the
Fifth Diocesan Synod gives us clear and firm direction:
“The teaching of the Church on the transmission of human
life and on Natural Family Planning is to be understood
as fundamental to the teaching on the respect for all
human life” (Synod V Acts, p. 433, n. 213; cf.
also p. 410, n. 40).
P RAYING
ABOVE ALL
I conclude with the reminder that
separation of Church and state in our country cannot be
understood as a separation of faith from life. I recall
the words of Pope John Paul II regarding the proper
vocation and mission of the lay faithful as “members
of the Church and citizens of human society”: “There
cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the
one hand, the so-called ‘spiritual’ life, with its values
and demands; and on the other, the so-called ‘secular’
life, that is, life in a family, at work, in social
relationships, in the responsibilities of public life and
in culture” (Christifideles Laici, n. 59b; cf.
Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the
Apostolate of Lay People, Apostolicam Actuositatem
[November 18, 1965], n. 4).
Our faith and our political judgments
cannot be separate compartments of our lives; they must
relate to each other in a life which is lived with
integrity. This is especially true with respect to
safeguarding the right to life, the foundation of all
other rights.
The Fifth Diocesan Synod has reminded us
that “the primary means to be employed in restoring
respect for all human life is prayer, especially prayer
before the Blessed Sacrament” (Synod V Acts, p.
434, n. 218). In meeting the challenge of promoting the
respect for all human life during the coming elections, I
urge individuals, families and parishes to make regularly
the Holy Hour for Life (cf. Ibid., p. 434, n.
219). Christ, Who came to give His life for the salvation
of all and Who sacramentally renews the outpouring of His
Life for us in the Holy Eucharist, will not fail to hear
our prayer on behalf of all who suffer threats to their
right to life.
In this time when the dignity of human
life is threatened and assaulted in so many ways, we pray
through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star
of the New Evangelization and Patroness of Life. The
Mother of God appeared on our beloved continent in 1531
to show forth God’s immeasurable mercy and love for all
His children of America, especially the native peoples.
By her apparitions, she hastened the end of the
widespread and horrible pagan practice of human
sacrifice, and she confirmed the dignity of all human
life. May she, in our time, inspire and foster the
conversion of America to the Gospel of her Divine Son,
which is, first and foremost, the Gospel of Life. Our
prayers offered through the intercession of Our Lady of
Guadalupe will not go unanswered.
I invoke God’s blessing upon you, your
homes, and your apostolate of the respect for human life.
Given at La Crosse, on the twenty-third
day of November, the Solemnity of Christ the King, in the
Year of the Lord 2003.
(Most Rev.) Raymond L. Burke
Bishop of LaCrosse
Benedict T. Nguyen
Chancellor
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