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HUMAN LIFE IN OUR DAY
BISHOPS MEET THE PRESS - A panel of members of the American Catholic hierarchy as they
met newsmen during a press conference at the semi-annual meeting of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops. They are, left to right, Archbishop Leo C. Byrne of St. Paul-Minneapolis,
Archbishop Terence J. Cooke of New York, John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia, Auxiliary Bishop
Gerald V. McDevitt of Philadelphia, and Archbishop Philip M. Hannan of New Orleans. (RNS
Photo)
Introductory
Statement
Following is the text of
the collective pastoral letter
issued November 15 by the
bishops of the United States
at their annual meeting in
Washington, D.C.
We honor God when we
reverence human life. When
human life is served, man is
enriched and God is
acknowledged. When human
life is threatened, man is
diminished and God is less
manifest in our midst.
A Christian defense of life
should seek to clarify in some
way the relationship between
the love of life and the
worship of God. One cannot
‘love life unless he worships
God, at least implicitly, nor
worship God unless he loves
life.
The purpose of this
pastoral letter of the United
States bishops is precisely the
doctrine and defense of life.
Our present letter follows the
moral principles set forth in
the Pastoral Constitution on
the Church in the Modern
World issued by Vatican
Council II. It presupposes the
general doctrine of the
Church which we explored in
our pastoral letter The
Church in Our Day. It
responds to the encyclical
Humanae Vitae in this same
context.
We are prompted to speak
this year in defense of life for
reasons of our pastoral
obligation to dialogue within
the believing community
concerning what faith has to
say in response to the threat
to life in certain problems of
the family and of war and
peace.
We also choose to speak of
life because of the needed
dialogue among all men of
faith. This is particularly
necessary among Christians
and all believers in God, and
between believers and all who
love life if peace is to be
secured and life is to be
served. There is evidence that
many men find difficulty in
reconciling their love for life
with worship of the Lord of
life.
On the other hand, it is
becoming clear that the
believer and the humanist
have common concerns for
both life and peace. For
example, an agnostic
philosopher, much listened to
by contemporary students,
has this to say:
“Why do not those who
represent the traditions of
religion and humanism speak
up and say that there is no
deadlier sin than love for
death and contempt for life?
Why not encourage our best
brains--scientists, artists,
educators--to make
suggestions on how to arouse
and stimulate love for life as
opposed to love for gadgets?
.. . Maybe it is too late.
Maybe the neutron bomb
which leaves entire cities
intact, but without life, is to
be the symbol of our
civilization.” (Erich Fromm:
The Heart of Man: Its Genius
for Good and Evil)
The defense of life
provides a starting point,
then, for positive dialogue
between Christians and
humanists. Christians bring to
the dialogue on the defense
of life a further motivation.
We are convinced that belief
in God is intimately bound
up with devotion to life. God
is the ultimate source of life,
His Son its Redeemer, so that
denial of God undermines the
sanctity of life itself.
Our pastoral letter will
emphasize the maturing of
life in the family and the
development of life in a
peaceful world order. Threats
to life are most effectively
confronted by an appeal to
Christian conscience. We pray
that our words may join us in
common cause with all who
reverence life and seek peace.
We pray further that our
efforts may help join all men
in common faith before God
who “gives freely and His gift
is eternal life” (Rm. 6,23).
Chapter One
The Christian
F amity
The attitude man adopts
toward life helps determine
the person he becomes. In the
family, man and life are first
united. In the family, the
person becomes the confident
servant of life and life
becomes the servant of man.
The Church must make good
her belief in human life and
her commitment to its
development by active as well
as doctrinal defense of the
family and by practical
witness to the values of
family life.
The Church thinks of
herself as a family, the family
of God and, so, is the more
solicitous for the human
family. She sees Christian
marriage as a sign of the
union between Christ and the
Church (cf. Eph. 5,31-32), a
manifestation to history of
the “genuine nature of the
Church” (Gaudium et Spes,
48). Christian married love is
“caught up into divine love
and is governed and enriched
by Christ’s redeeming power
and the saving activity of the
Church” (Gaudium et Spes,
48). No institution or
community in human history
has spoken more insistently
and profoundly than the
Church of the dignity of
marriage.
It is in terms of Christ and
of salvation history, never of
sociology alone, that the
Church thinks of marriage.
That is the point of her
positive teachings on the
sanctity, the rights £nd the
duties of the married state; it
is '.Iso the point of her
occasional strictures, as when
Vatican Council II
realistically cautions that
“married love is too often
profaned by excessive
self-love, the worship of
pleasure, and illicit practices
against human generation”
(Gaudium et Spes, 47).
The family fulfils its
promise when it reinforces
fidelity to life and hope in its
future. The values of fidelity
and hope, essential to human
life and Christian love, are
sometimes weakened even
while men continue to think
all is well. Such is often the
case in our times. Fidelity
and hope are especially
threatened when the family is
considered largely in terms of
the pleasures or conveniences
it provides for the individual
or in terms of its economic or
political potential. Christians
should be the first to
promote material
improvement and provide for
the family structure,but they
must never measure the
worth of the family nor
the purpose of family life by
these standards alone.
For the believer, the
family is the place where
God’s image is reproduced in
His creation. The family is
the community within which
the person is realized, the
place where all our hopes for
the future of the person are
nourished. The family is a
learning experience in which
fidelity is fostered,hope
imparted and life honored; it
thus increases the moral
resources of our culture and,
more importantly, of the
person. The family is a sign to
all mankind of fidelity to life
and of hope in the future
which become possible when
persons are in communion
with one another; it is a sign
to believers of the depth of
this fidelity and this hope
when these center on God; it
is a sign to Christians of the
fidelity and hope which
Christ communicates as the
elder brother of the family of
tneChurch for which He died
(cf. Eph. 5,25).
The Family, A Force
For Life
It is the unfortunate fact
that in all times some men
have acted against life. The
forms of the threat have
varied; some of these endure
to this day. Since the family
is the source of life, no act
against life is more hostile
than one which occurs within
the family. By such an act,
life is cancelled out within
that very community whose
essential purposes include the
gift of life to the world and
the service of life in fidelity
and hope.
For all these reasons, the
Christian family is called
more now than ever to a
prophetic mission, a witness
to the primacy of life and the
importance of whatever
preserves life. The Christian
family therefore occupies a
pre-eminent place in our
renewed theology,
particularly the theology of
marriage and of the vocation
of the laity. Christian families
are called to confront the
world with the full reality of
human love and proclaim to
the world the mystery of
divine love as these are
revealed through the family.
The prophetic mission of
the family obliges it to
fidelity to conjugal love in
the face of the compromises
and infidelities condoned in
our culture. Its prophetic
mission obliges the family to
valiant hope in life,
contradicting whatever forces
seek to prevent, destroy or