The Urgent Need to Mobilize Consciences in Favor of Life

by Fr. Roger Landry - January 9, 2009

During Advent, as the attention of the Christian world was meditating anew on how the Word of God had taken on our nature, was conceived as an embryo in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grew to be a zygote and fetus just as every one of us has, and then was born in Bethlehem, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a very important document on bioethical issues at the beginning of life.

Entitled Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of the Person) and written not merely to Catholics but to all persons of good will, the instruction is much more than an explanation of how the principle of respect for the dignity of the human person needs to be applied to particular scientific or medical practices. It is also a prophetic summons to all people of conscience of the "urgent need to mobilize consciences in favor of life," in "courageous" defense of those human beings who "have no voice" and whose human dignity is being trampled in various new ways.

The document begins by reiterating the Church's great esteem for biomedical science and for the "invaluable service" it provides especially to those who are sick and suffering. It says that the Church "views scientific research with hope" and desires that "many Christians will dedicate themselves to the progress of biomedicine and will bear witness to their faith in this field."

At the same time, the document notes how scientific knowledge and know-how have often been abused to cause harm rather than healing. "Human history shows how man has abused and can continue to abuse the power and capabilities which God has entrusted to him, giving rise to various forms of unjust discrimination and oppression of the weakest and most defenseless: the daily attacks on human life; the existence of large regions of poverty where people are dying from hunger and disease, excluded from the intellectual and practical resources available in abundance in many countries; technological and industrial development which is creating the real risk of a collapse of the ecosystem; the use of scientific research in the areas of physics, chemistry and biology for purposes of waging war; the many conflicts which still divide peoples and cultures; these sadly are only some of the most obvious signs of how man can make bad use of his abilities and become his own worst enemy by losing the awareness of his lofty and specific vocation to collaborate in the creative work of God."

This is why science must always be bound by an ethics bound to the truth to ensure that that scientific power brings good rather than evil. The foundation of that ethics is a principled respect for the inviolable dignity of every human being. "The dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death. This fundamental principle expresses a great 'yes' to human life and must be at the center of ethical reflection on biomedical research."

This positive affirmation of human dignity contextualizes the Church's negative evaluation of various practices that offend that dignity. The document acknowledges that many mistakenly look to the Church's moral teachings in general, and her bioethical teachings in particular, as a long list of prohibitions, but replies that "behind every 'no' in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great 'yes' to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence."

Over the course of human history, there has been uneven but steady progress in the recognition of human dignity and the moral consequences that flow from the recognition. At the end of 2008, the world celebrated the 60th anniversary of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, in particular response to Nazi atrocities against human dignity and to similar prevent recurrences, brought the world together to specify some of the rights that flow to human persons, not from state concession, but from their human dignity. The instruction applauds this positive development in human moral consciousness, stating, "Precisely in the name of promoting human dignity, therefore, practices and forms of behavior harmful to that dignity have been prohibited. Thus, for example, there are legal and political — and not just ethical — prohibitions of racism, slavery, unjust discrimination and marginalization of women, children, and ill and disabled people. Such prohibitions bear witness to the inalienable value and intrinsic dignity of every human being and are a sign of genuine progress in human history."

The instruction then adds that the Church has been at the forefront of this ethical evolution, and needs to be again in applying the same principles of human dignity to the issues at the beginning of life. "Just as a century ago it was the working classes that were oppressed in their fundamental rights, and the Church courageously came to their defense by proclaiming the sacrosanct rights of the worker as person, so now, when another category of persons is being oppressed in the fundamental right to life, the Church feels in duty bound to speak out with the same courage on behalf of those who have no voice. Hers is always the evangelical cry in defense of the world's poor, those who are threatened and despised and whose human rights are violated."

The Church recognizes that to be successful in this effort, the whole mystical body of Christ needs to be working together. As we have learned with the prohibition of slavery and the gradual recognition of the rights of workers, ideas have consequences when people, acting on these ideas, make them have consequences. The same needs to happen with the offenses against human dignity in the sphere of early life issues. That is why the instruction states that it is "urgent" for the "Christian faithful" as well as "all persons of good will, in particular physicians and researchers open to dialogue and desirous of knowing what is true" to assimilate the applications of human dignity to current bioethical situations at the beginning of life and to start to increase the volume and effectiveness of the Church's "evangelical cry."

The first step in this process is for Catholics and others of good will to read Dignitas Personae. On pages 14-15, we print a synthesis of the document so that readers can get a quick sense of its contents. Those who would like to read the full document are encouraged to download it from the U.S. Bishops Conference's webpage, http://www.usccb.org/comm/Dignitaspersonae/index.shtml. Next week, after readers have had a chance to read at least the synthesis, we will discuss some of the instruction's more significant teachings.

The Church's hope is that all Catholics &c including you who are reading this right now — "will commit themselves to the energetic promotion of a new culture of life by receiving the contents of this instruction with the religious assent of their spirit, knowing that God always gives the grace necessary to observe his commandments and that, in every human being, above all in the least among us, one meets Christ himself" (cf. Mt 25:40).

That last point is perhaps the most important. Our human dignity is grounded in our having been made in the image and likeness of the babe of Bethlehem and called to eternal communion with him. What we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, Jesus says, we do to him. With regard to each of the practices that the instruction describes, readers should remember that, just as we all were, Jesus was once an embryo, and ask whether they would be willing to tell him face-to-face that they would have approved of any of these techniques being done to him.

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.