Respect Life Month

Submitted on October 11, 2001

Send to friend The Catholic Church in the United States designates time each October to launch a program that highlights and reflects gratitude for God's first gift to us: the gift of human life. Beginning the first Sunday of October we recommit ourselves to building a culture in which every human life is valued, no matter how poor or sick, how old or microscopic that life may be. Recent tragic events may tempt us to think we are very far from living in a world that values life. When terrorists can readily destroy themselves and thousands of innocent people to promote their cause, it may seem that human life has become cheap. However, as so often happens in times of crisis, we also have seen humanity at its very best. We learned of office workers, fleeing for their own lives, who stopped to carry their disabled coworkers to safety. Of firefighters who risked, and sometimes forfeited, their own lives in the effort to save others. Of ordinary people facing death whose last words were to reassure their spouses and children that they loved them. Here was the Christian message about human life in action. As Pope John Paul II reminded us in his encyclical "The Gospel of Life," it is by emptying ourselves in service to the lives of others that we become most truly alive, most truly human. The "Gospel of Life" is nothing but the Gospel itself, and that Gospel is the truth about our highest human destiny. Our culture sometimes seems to teach that life is not a basic good, that love is but a feeling rather than a commitment to serve others, that we may reject or ignore those who seem burdensome or inconvenient. Women with difficult pregnancies are encouraged to accept abortion, then abandoned to grieve in silence for a lost child. Commercials aimed at elderly citizens subtly caution them not to burden their families or society, while groups advocate suicide and assisted suicide as an end to their problems. High-profile executions become headline-grabbing media events, while society pays little heed to the many anonymous prisoners with inadequate legal counsel who face death with no fanfare. In recent debates on embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, some try to dismiss respect for human life as an obstacle to the noble goal of curing disease. The Respect Life Program aims to bring to the attention of Catholics information about these and other issues within the context of the dignity and sanctity of human life. Catholics individually and in community are encouraged to help build a culture in which every human life, at every stage and in every circumstance, is defended and cherished. More than ever before, promoting this culture of life and love is essential to our civilization. This is the text of a statement by Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler in conjunction with the beginning of this year's Respect Life Program.