October 6, 2008

Guest: Deacon Joe Cortese
Featured Saint of the Day: St. Bruno
Congratulations to Today's Winner of "The Pirates who Don't Do Anything, A Veggie Tale Movie": Mary Tice

Today Deacon Rick and Jenny spoke with Deacon Joe Cortese. Deacon Joe shared with our listeners his homily from this weekend. Deacon Joe was kind enough to allow us to post the text of his homily:

"Today is Respect Life Sunday. This theme ties in quite well with today's Gospel reading from Matthew. In today's Gospel, the tenants who lease the vineyard do not respect the landlord, so they decide they do not have to give him what he is owed.

First the landlord sends his servants to collect the rent. The tenants mistreat the servants and even kill some of them. Then the landlord sends his son to collect the rent and the tenants kill the son.

The landlord in the story represents God, who is the author of human life. The landlord's son represents Jesus, God's Word made Flesh who lived among us. God creates us in His image and likeness. We are the crown of all creation. When we fail to respect God's handiwork, when we fail to respect all human life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, we fail to respect God Himself, the Landlord of the vineyard, which is the world in which we live.

In 2005, a judge in Florida ordered the removal of a tube that provided food and water to sustain the life of Terri Schiavo, a 41-year-old brain-injured woman. Terri died a painful death from dehydration thirteen days after the tube was removed. Her death was ordered because her husband claimed she once said she did not want to live as a burden to anyone. Terri's death was ordered even though her parents offered to bear the full burden of allowing her to live.

While Terri Schiavo lay dying, another judge in Florida convicted a rancher fo the crime of starving his cattle. The rancher went to prison for animal curelty. How is it our legal system treats failing to feed animals as a crime, but allows the denial of food and water for a human being with severe disabilities?

How have we become a society in which some incapacitated and terminally ill people are not only prevented from living to the fullest extent possible, but are acutlaly made to die sooner, sometimes with the help of the family?

How is it so many of our citizens believe it's okay to kill living human embryos to harvest their stem cells for speculative research? And that it's okay to force tax-payers to pay for it? This is despite the fact that using stem cells harvested from adults wihtout causing harm hsa shown far more promise than using stem cells taken from embryos which must be killed.

Standing as the backdrop for all of these developments is the United States Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade which legalized abortion in the United States throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever. Since 1973, over 45 million children in the United States have died form abortion.

How did we get to this point? In his 1995 encyclical, The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II called these trends part of the uclture of death. He said the culture of death is caused by three attitudes: one is radical dindividualism, anohter is the belief that some lives are not worth living, and the third is the desire to avoid suffering at all costs. Reflecting on these three things, we see that our society has become hostile to life without even realizeing it.

With regard to radical individualism, many people believe the question of what is morally right depends on their own preferences and circumstances. They believe there is no objective moral yardstick, such as the Ten Commandments, to judge whether something is right or wrong. In the name of telerance, it is said people have a right to make up their own personal morality, except in the most extreme cases like torturing children or flying jets into occupied buildings. After all, who has the right to impose their own moral values on others?

In 1992, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe vs. Wade using precisely the attitude of "anything goes" as long as it's chosen by the individual. In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, the Court declared: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Ino ther words, the Supreme Court says that we have a constitutional right to play God with the lives of others.

We must recognize that the best thing for society is to uphold the dignity of every individual. Respecting the lives of the weak and defenseless, including unborn children, human embryos in laboratories, the disabled, the terminally ill, and victims of violence, contributes to a just society where all can floursih.

With regard to the idea that some lives are not worth living, some people believe the value of human life is not a given, but depends on the extent to which a person is conscious, capable of exercising his or her autonomy, and also capable of performing actions which benefit society. Using this theory, some prominent ethicists have actually argued that the killing of infants should be a legal option for paretns who do not watn the burden of raising a child with a disability. Ours is a culture which values efficiency and productivity so much that the idea of eliminating the so-called "unproductive" and "burdensome" sounds reasonable to some people.

This utilitarian ethic explains why some people want to allow scientists to create human embryos solely to destroy them, to use their stem cells in research to develop treatments for diseases. It also explains why a federal appeals court ruled in favor of a so-called "right" to assisted suicide, and why some approve of causing helpless individuals to die by withhodling food and water from them.

With regard to the desire to avoid suffering at all costs, many view death as a reasonable alternative to sacrifice, hardhsip and even inconvenience. Some people object to teh sacrifice involved in loving and caring for a family member who needs special assistance. Some children who are simply unplanned are aborted to escape the disruptions and sacrifices involved in raising a child. And when we can no longer enjoy life the way we one did, like the boxer in the movie "Million Dollar Baby," who could not endure life without the crowds chanting her name, some people see death as a way to eliminate emotional suffering.

At his installation Mass in April, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI said, "We are not some casual or meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed and each of us is loved because each of us is necessary."

In 1993, Pope John Paul II put it this way, "Our dignity is based on the intimate bond that unites every one of us with our Creator. We are a sign of God's love, we are a trace of his glory."

From the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, and then on into eternity, each of us lives in relation to God, the Lord and Author of Life. The value and dignity of human life do not change according to health or other circumstances. a person, even if serioulsy ill, or disabled in the exercise of his or her highest funcitons, is, and always will be, a human being and will never become a vegetable, or an animal, or a second-class creature.

The journey away from a culture of death and toward following Christ to eternal life goes by way of the cross, which requires us to love others to the point that we die to our personal pride, our selfishness adn our tendency to view other people either as obstacles blockign our access to what we want, or as things to be used to obtain whatever we desire.

When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he said we must love God withour whole heart, our whole soul and our whole mind adn we must love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the model God has given us, a model of love and solidarity with those entrusted to our care adn with everyone we meet as we go through this life.

By witnessing to this model in our own lives, by holding fast to the moral truth perserved by the Catholic Faith, and by going outside ourselves for others, we can inspire those around us to do the same. Only then are we doing our part to build a world where every human life is always loved and defended adn where every form of violence is banished.

As Catholics, we are called to study and to embrace all of the teachings of the Church, even those we find difficult to accept. We have a special obligation to embrace Church teaching regarding the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death becuase it is one of the very foundations of our faith.

The Church's teaching on the sanctity of life is the basis for all of the Church's teachigns on social justice adn morality. Whether we are talking about unborn children, the poor, the disabled, the marginalized, immigrants, refugees, and even those who are imprisoned for committing terrible crimes, all people have a God-given dignity that never should be denied.

The right to life is foundaitonal, it is basic adn undeniable. It is the right out of which all other human rights flow. If the basic right to life is not upheld, every other right is placed in jeopardy. Without the right to life, there are simply no other human rights.

In this election year, we must study the issues, we must learn all we can about the candidates, and we must support those running for public office at all levels of governmetn who are committed to upholding the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human person.

Jesus tells us repeatedly in the Gospels that we must love our neighbors as ourselves. We treat God with disrespect when we resfuse to live in keepign with the teachings of Jesus. Only when we show proper respect and defend all human life, from teh moment of conception until the moment of natural death, do we respect God, the author of life, who is the Landlord of our vineyard.

By: Deacon Joe Cortese
Sunday, October 5, 2008
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A
Respect Life Sunday 2008
Resources: Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops