The Gospel of Life

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - March 18, 2005

Next week we mark the tenth anniversary of the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which may be the most important and prophetic document of John Paul II's pontificate. Perhaps more than any of his other writings, its message still urgently needs to be proclaimed and lived.

In it, the Holy Father minces no words in describing that there is a war going on between the "culture of death" and the "culture of life." He calls it as a "war of the powerful against the weak," in which those who are defenseless and in need of greater love and care are the principal casualties.

With great candor, he exposes the propaganda that seeks to frame as legal "rights" and "social benefits" crimes against human persons. He dissects the root causes of the culture of death in a "perverse idea of freedom" and in the "eclipse of the sense of God and man" and then shows how they are at work in the war's various battlegrounds: abortion, embryonic manipulation and destruction, euthanasia, and inappropriate applications of capital punishment, among others.

He describes with great beauty what God has revealed about the Gospel of Life, and then he reminds all Catholics — and particularly Catholics in public life — of their duty before God to "defend, promote and love" this Gospel. Faced with Cain's modern slaughter of his brother Abel, whose blood continues to cry out to God from the ground (Gen 4:10), every person must make the choice between being his brother's keeper or his brother's murderer. Each of us must choose between life and the culture it produces, and death and the anti-culture it produces.

In the past decade, the war between life and death has become more intense and the relevance of this proclamation of the Gospel of Life has only grown. We see it very clearly in two crucial and urgent issues.

Beginning today in Florida (unless, God-willing, there has been an intervention after press time), Terri Schiavo will be forcibly dehydrated and starved to death at the expressed wish of her husband Michael and mandate of a judge who has abused his authority to stop every legislative and executive measure adopted to save her life.

Michael is trying to put an emphatic exclamation point on the violation of his marital promises to love and be faithful to Terri "for better or worse, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health."

Since Terri's tragedy, Michael has won a million dollar malpractice suit for her medical care, but then refused to dispense it even for routine treatments. For the past several years, he has also been living with a woman he has publicly stated he wants to marry and with whom he now has two children. Despite these two obvious ways he would profit from Terri's death, the judge has believed Michael when he has asserted — against the testimony of Terri's family and friends — that Terri told him that if she were ever in the circumstance she is now, she would want to be starved to death.

These details are pertinent because only in a culture that believes that Terri's life is worthless would such injustice and so many obvious "red flags" go unnoticed by so many Americans. It's time at least for those want to be faithful to Christ to stand up and wave those flags. In this battle between the culture of life and the culture of death, the Lord Jesus has reminded us that whatever is done to the least of his brothers and sisters is done to him. May Christ, in Terri Schiavo's disguise, never be able to say to us, "When I was hungry, you gave me no food" and "When I was thirsty, you gave me no drink" (Mt 25:31-46).

The second urgent front in this war is occurring now on Beacon Hill concerning embryonic stem-cell research and cloning. State Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Sal DiMasi are poised to pass a bill to publicly fund embryonic stem cell research and the cloning-and-destruction of human embryos for research purposes. They're hyping the bill as a therapeutic and economic panacea, but the real issue is that Cain wants to kill Abel and remove his body parts for his own and others' aggrandizement.

There's no clearer manifestation of the war of the "powerful against the weak." The fact that it is being waged by public leaders who claim to be good Catholics should make those who wish to be truly faithful to Christ more motivated to show the authentic face of a disciple. Judas betrayed Jesus to death for thirty pieces of silver. Those who are pushing this bill are seeking more lucrative dividends, but the same Christ will be betrayed — and his side pierced to harvest his cells.

Governor Romney, thankfully, has promised to veto that bill, but will need one-third of our state representatives to sustain that veto. Please do all you can to make sure your representative actually represents you and your views when that life-and-death vote occurs.

Christ needs a human voice to proclaim his Gospel of Life. The pope has given us the words. Now it's time for our Massachusetts accents to give them life.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.