Memorial University School of Social Work and other
organizations are planning a Memory
Candle Light Service to remember those who have died by suicide.
The Archdiocese of St. John’s is promoting
the event by means of a separate announcement on the main page of its website. This
is entirely proper and appropriate of course since in Canada, suicide is one of
the top ten leading causes of death accounting for about 3,900 deaths in 2009, with
perhaps about 60 estimated for our province. I have often wondered how my wife
and I could possibly handle the trauma and grief should one of our children
become so desperate that suicide took one of them away. My heart goes out to
those left behind by such tragedies.
In a recent
posting covering the Life Chain event on Respect Life Sunday I lamented the
fact that the Archdiocese failed to announce that event altogether, presumably
because the Archdiocese held its own prayer service to “acknowledge [emphasis mine] the
precious gift of human life from conception to natural death. The following
churches have offered these times for prayer and reflection on October 6th.”
Besides being a public witness and protest of abortion, the Life Chain event,
like the Candle Light Service noted above, is a very real memorial to the
tragedy of legalized abortion in Canada, claiming over 100,000 lives yearly.
Yet our Archbishop did nothing to highlight that major, annual, pro-life
initiative or to acknowledge and encourage the local pro-life individuals, many of whom are committed Catholic laity. The posting
noted has more details.
In addition, the Archdiocesan website also failed to carry
any mention or promotion of the annual Provincial
Pro-Life Conference which took place in St. John’s on September 27-28. Was
it not worthy of support? Were Catholics in the Archdiocese better off not
knowing about the Conference? The Archbishop himself managed to find a couple
of hours to attend the event and then rushed off to another appointment, although
while there he declined
the offer to address the conference. Wasn’t that a rare opportunity for him to
offer words of encouragement? This turned out to be a certain formula for confusion.
Am I airing a petty grievance here? Not in the least. There’s
a clear
pattern here and I hope the Archbishop will stop playing games with the
pro-life movement in our province and instead take the bold steps necessary to
unite the forces that are committed to opposing the child-killing taking place
in our city and in our nation. Until he summons the courage to do so and to
promote the letter and spirit of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Evangelium
Vitae,” he will continue to have blood on his hands. An acknowledgement alone of the rights of the unborn is not sufficient. The right to life must also be defended and
promoted in order to restore true peace to our society and to forestall the
judgment of God.
The Gospel of life is for the whole of human society. To be actively
pro-life is to contribute to the renewal of society through the promotion of
the common good. It is impossible to further the common good without
acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other
inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop. A
society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such
as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand,
radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in
which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or
marginalized. Only respect for life can be the foundation and guarantee of the most
precious and essential goods of society, such as democracy and peace.
There can be no true democracy without a recognition of every person's
dignity and without respect for his or her rights.
Nor can there be true peace unless life is defended and promoted. As
Paul VI pointed out: "Every crime against life is an attack on peace,
especially if it strikes at the moral conduct of people... But where human
rights are truly professed and publicly recognized and defended, peace becomes
the joyful and operative climate of life in society".
#110 Evangelium Vitae
When will the Archbishop act in accord with those marching
orders?
And when will he be prepared to pay the difficult price?
#82 Evangelium Vitae
It is clear that, to date, neither he, nor the other Canadian Bishops, have a plan to reverse the toll of death of unborn children. Clearly, any plan must be preceded by public repentance for their failures over these past forty or fifty years, as well as a binding of the demon of abortion.
In the proclamation of this Gospel, we must not fear hostility or
unpopularity, and we must refuse any compromise or ambiguity which might
conform us to the world's way of thinking (cf. Rom 12:2). We must be in the
world but not of the world (cf. Jn 15:19; 17:16), drawing our strength from
Christ, who by his Death and Resurrection has overcome the world (cf. Jn
16:33).
It is clear that, to date, neither he, nor the other Canadian Bishops, have a plan to reverse the toll of death of unborn children. Clearly, any plan must be preceded by public repentance for their failures over these past forty or fifty years, as well as a binding of the demon of abortion.
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