Defending Life

In his Gospel, Luke relates the story of the Theotokos, early in her pregnancy with our Lord, visiting her cousin, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth responded with "How is it that the Mother of My Lord (i.e., the Mother of God) should visit me".

The child in Elizabeth's womb, whom we would come to know as John the Baptist, leapt in recognizing the child in Mary's womb.  And Mary stayed with Elizabeth three months, until John was born.

What can we learn from this?

Well, we know that John was born six months before Jesus. From this we know that this happened pretty soon after the Annunciation.  Jesus wasn't very far along at all.

The second thing we learn is that the preborn child, the fetus, is indeed a person.  Not just John, whom one can argue to have been visibly a child in formation, but Jesus, who some would argue was just a clump of cells.

Some may ask, couldn't have Jesus been a special case, being God incarnate?  Not really.  As St. Paul reminds us, He was like us in all things but sin.

Of course, we all know that the Catholic Church prohibits abortion.  But some think that this began 50 years ago with Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The recognition that abortion is a sin to be shunned, prohibited, goes back to the earliest post-Apostolic writing, a discipline manual known as the Didache.  It explicitly says, "Do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant".

The Church teaching is clear.  Abortion is always murder. It is the killing of the defenseless, and once a child is a victim of it, there is no recovery.  That really can't be said of any other social sin in the political landscape today.

So, what can we do?

Obviously, our vote counts.  Supporting candidates who truly support life.

But, even more so, standing up and being counted.  One person may not make much a difference, but many might.  And, if you're saying, "well, it's the law; we have to comply", allow me to remind you of the Apostle's words:  "We must obey God rather than man".  God's truth trumps any human laws.

On January 20, 2018,  Syracuse Right to Life will sponsor March for Life.

It will start from the Museum of Science in Technology, in Armory Square, on January 20, 2018, at noon.  It will run from the MOST, 3 blocks up Jefferson St, and end at the Roman Catholic Chancery, where there will be a rally.
I urge as many as can make it to be there.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Lou Pizzuti