The Catholic Church in the United States observes the month of October as Respect Life Month, and the first Sunday of October is designated as Respect Life Sunday. This annual observance began in 1972 by the bishops in response to growing a culture of death affecting our country. The next year, in 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion, and the culture of death was given legal status.
This year, at Sunday Masses the weekend of Oct. 1-2, our priests and deacons will preach about God’s gift of human life. In our country, we are inundated with a culture that does not protect human life and popular media with its anti-life messages, which get lots of attention. It is important that the teaching of our Church about God’s gift of human life be clearly presented to the faithful. Respect Life Month and Respect Life Sunday provide the opportunities to do that.
Our belief in the sacredness of human life is rooted in our Trinitarian faith, the mystery of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each human life is sacred because each human life is made in the image of God our Creator. Each human life is sacred because the Son of God has redeemed human life by giving His life on the Cross. Each human life is sacred because in it dwells the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Respecting life begins with the unborn child in the womb of his or her mother and extends to the dying. We respect life in all its stages, wherever we find it – in the embryo, the sick, the disabled, the womb, the elderly and the dying. Every human life from the unborn to the dying carries a spark of the divine and is loved by God.
The Supreme Court in its recent opinion Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ended the nearly 50-year availability of abortion on demand. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court concluded that there is nothing in either the United States Constitution or American legal tradition or the Court’s precedents that justified abortion on demand. It removed the issue of abortion from the judiciary and returned it to the people’s elected representatives, that is to the legislatures in the 50 states.
While we are grateful for the Court’s decision that abortion is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution, we have witnessed the negative reaction and even hysteria of those who do not accept the right to life of the unborn. Their reaction has been loud, powerful, unrelenting and very divisive. We cannot allow them to be the only voices heard. The threat to life is not ended. It is as necessary as it was in 1972 that we defend life and courageously teach the truth about human life despite the reaction and the vitriol of some.
Now is the time for us to renew our efforts at building a culture of life that welcomes all. While the violence against the pre-born child is somewhat limited with the removal of the constitutional right to abortion, violence continues its attack on human life in other ways. The growing lobby to medically terminate the dying; physician-assisted suicide; the mistreatment of the fragile elderly; euthanasia; the attempt to redefine who is a person; the increasing numbers of those who are food insecure, most of whom are mothers and children; the plight of immigrants and refugees, are some expressions of the violence in society.
Our Church’s teaching on Respect Life extends to every person whose life is threatened. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, uses the expression “a throwaway culture” to refer to the anti-life realities that plague us, and the Pope reminds us that “the right to life is the first among human rights.”
Since 1972, in season and out, our Church has proclaimed the Gospel of life and defended the right to life from conception to natural death. Those who are caught in the darkness of the culture of death are assisted with a variety of ministries and programs, such as Walking With Moms In Need. Church-sponsored services are available to whomever seeks them.
May our observance of Respect Life Month and Respect Life Sunday help to grow in our Diocese, in our state and in our country a culture in which all human life is respected, cherished and protected.
Most Reverend Dennis J. Sullivan, D.D.
Bishop of Camden