Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 7—The Georgia Bulletin, December 2,1976
TEXT OF U.S. BISHOPS LETTER:
To Live In Christ Jesus: A Pastoral Reflection On The Moral Life
Si J
(Continued from last issue)
Some persons find themselves
through no fault of their own to have a
homosexual orientation. Homosexuals
like everyone else, should not suffer
from prejudice against their basic
human rights. They have a right to
respect, friendship and justice. They
should have an active role in the
Christian community. Homosexual
activity, however, as distinguished from
homosexual orientation, is morally
wrong. Like heterosexual persons,
homosexuals are called to give witness
to chastity, avoiding, with God’s grace,
behavior which is wrong for them just as
nonmarital sexual relations are for
heterosexuals. Nonetheless, because
heterosexuals can usually look forward
to marriage, and homosexuals, while
their orientation continues might not,
the Christian community should provide
them a special degree of pastoral
understanding and care.
Though most people have two
families, the one in which they are bom
and the one they help bring into being,
the single and celibate have only the
first. But from this experience they,
too, know family values. Love and
sacrifice, generosity and service have a
real place in their lives. They are as
much tempted as the married --
sometimes more - to selfishness; they
have as great a need for understanding
and consolation. Family values may be
expressed in different terms in their
lives, but they are expressed.
THE AGED
The adventure of marriage and family
is a continuing one in which elderly
people have important lessons to teach
and learn. Contemporary American
society tends to separate the aging from
their families, isolating kin in ways that
are more than physical, with the result
that the wisdom of experience is often
neither sought, imparted nor further
developed.
Families should see the story of
loving reciprocity through its closing
chapters. Where possible, the elderly
should be welcomed into their own
families. Moreover, children have an
obligation of human and Christian
justice and love to keep closely in touch
with aging parents and do what lies in
their power to care for them in their old
age. “If anyone does not provide for his
own relatives and especially for
members of his immediate family, he
has denied the faith; he is worse than an
unbeliever.” The community should
provide for those who lack families and,
in doing so, attend to all their needs,
not just physical ones. Here the church
has played and can continue to play a
special role. The elderly must be
cherished, not merely tolerated, and the
church community, through parishes
and other agencies should seek to
mediate the loving concern of Jesus and
the Father to them.
Euthanasia or mercy killing is much
discussed and increasingly advocated
today, though the discussion is often
confused by ambiguous use of the
slogan “death with dignity.” Whatever
the word or term, it is a grave moral evil
deliberately to kill persons who are
terminally ill or deeply imparied. Such
killing is incompatible with respect for
human dignity and reverence for the
sacredness of life.
Something different is involved,
however, when the question is whether
hopelessly ill and painfully afflicted
people must be kept alive at all costs
and with the use of every available
medical technique. Some seem to make
no distinction between respecting the
dying process and engaging in direct
killing of the innocent. Morally there is
all the difference in the world. While
euthanasia or direct killing is gravely
wrong, it does not follow that there is
an obligation to prolong the life of a
dying person by extraordinary means. At
times the effort to do so is of no help to
the dying and is even contrary to the
compassion due them. People have a
right to refuse treatment which offers
no reasonable hope of recovery and
imposes excessive burdens on them and
perhaps also their families. At times it
may even be morally imperative to
discontinue particular medical
treatment in order to give the dying the
personal care and attention they really
need as life ebbs. Since life is a gift of
God we treat it with awesome respect.
Since death is part and parcel of human
life, indeed the gateway to eternal life
and the return to the Father, it too, we
treat with awesome respect.
THE FAMILY AND SOCIETY
Marriage and the family are deeply
affected by social patterns and cultural
values. How we structure society, its
approach to education and work, the
roles of men and women, public policy
toward health care and care of the
young and old, the tone and cast of our
literature, arts and media — all these
affect the family. The test of how we
value the family is whether we are
willing to foster, in government and
business, in urban planning and farm
policy, in education and health care, in
the arts and sciences, in our total social
and cultural environment, moral values
which nourish the primary relationships
of husbands, wives and children and
make authentic family life possible.
THE NATION
Our nation is committed in principle
to the inviolable dignity of the human
person, to respect for religious faith and
the free exercise of religion, to social
and legal structures by which citizens
can participate freely in the
governmental process, and to
procedures by which grievances can be
adjudicated and wrongs can be righted.
This commitment is a constant
challenge, and at times we have failed to
live up to its demands. Nevertheless, it
remains possible to develop here a social
order “founded on truth, built on
justice, and animated by love.”
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE NATION
While the ultimate and most
substantive values inhere in individuals,
individuality and community are
inseparable elements in the moral life.
So, for instance, honesty, courage and
hope, which abide only in individuals,
can be fostered by freedom to learn,
protection from violence, adequate
income, and the availability of health
care.
As followers of Jesus we are called to
express love of neighbor in deeds which
help others realize their human
potential. This, too, has consequences
for the structures of society. Law and
public policy do not substitute for our
personal acts by which we express love
of neighbor; but love of neighbor impels
us to work for laws, policies and social
structures which foster human goods in
the lives of all persons.
RESPECT FOR THE UNBORN
It is therefore as ironic as it is tragic
that, in a nation committed to human
rights and dignity, the practice of
legalized abortion is now widespread.
Every human life is inviolable from its
very beginning. While the unborn child
may not be aware of itself and its
rights, it is a human entity, a human
being with potential, not a potential
human being. Like the newborn, the
unborn depend on others for life and
the opportunity to share in human
goods. Their dependence and
vulnerability remind us of the social
character of all human life: to live and
thrive as a human being, each of us
needs the help and support of others.
(Gaudium et Spes, 51)
To destroy these innocent unborn
children is an unspeakable crime, a
crime which subordinates weaker
members of the human community to
the interests of the stronger. God who
calls us to himself loves the helpless and
weak; like him we should affirm the
unborn in their being, not close our eyes
to their humanity so that we may more
easily destroy them. Their right to life
must be recognized and fully protected
by the law.
While many today seek abortion for
frivolous and selfish reasons, there are
women who see it as a tragic solution to
agonzing problems. They deserve
society’s help in meeting and resolving
these problems so that they will not feel
a need to resort to the inhuman
expedient of abortion. Recognition of
the incomparable dignity of all human
beings, including the unborn, obliges us
to assume loving responsibility for all
who are in need. The church must take
appropriate initiatives in providing
support to women with problems during
pregnancy or after, and in doing so bear
witness to its belief in human dignity.
WOMEN IN SOCIETY
As society has grown more sensitive
to some new or newly recognized issues
and needs (while at the same time
growing tragically less sensitive to
others), the movement to claim equal
rights for women makes it clear that
they ought now to assume their rightful
place as partners in family, institutional,
and public life. The development of
these roles can and should be enriching
for both women and men.
Even today some still consider
women to be men’s inferiors, almost
their property. It is un-Christian and
inhuman for husbands to regard their
wives this way; they ought instead to
“love (them) as Christ loved the
church.” Such un-Christian and
inhuman attitudes are expressed in a
truly degraded manner when they take
the form of exploiting women for
pleasure and financial profit through
prostitution and pornography.
Efforts to win recognition that
women have the same dignity and
fundamental rights as men are
praiseworthy and good. But the same
cannot be said of views which would
ignore or deny significant differences
between the sexes, undermine marriage
and motherhood, and erode family life
and the bases of society itself.
Liberation does not lie in espousing new
modes of dehumanization, nor in
enslavement to an ideology which
ignores the facts of human sexuality and
the requirements of human dignity.
There is much to be done in the
church in identifying appropriate ways
of recognizing women’s equality and
dignity. We have every reason and
precedent for doing so, since our
tradition has always honored the
mother of God and recognized Mary as
the one in whom, next to Jesus himself,
human nature is expressed most
perfectly. In canonizing so many
women over the centuries, including our
own country’s St. Frances Xavier
Cabrini and St. Elizabeth Seton, the
church has proposed them to both
women and men as models of what it
means to live the life of Christ. Thus we
fully support constructive efforts to
remove demeaning attitudes and
customs with respect to women,
however subtle and unconscious in
origin they may be.
RESPECT FOR RACIAL
AND ETHNIC GROUPS
The members of every racial and
ethnic group are beings of incomparable
worth; yet racial antagonism and
discrimination are among the most
persistent and destructive evils in our
nation. Those victims of discrimination
of whom we are most conscious are
Hispanic Americans, Black Americans,
and American Indians. The Catholic
community should be particularly
sensitive to this form of injustice
because it, too, has experienced
prejudice and discrimination in America
based on national origin and religion.
It is sometimes said to be pointless to
lecture those who are not personally
guilty of causing or directly
contributing to racism and other ills of
society. But the absence of personal
fault for an evil does not absolve one of
all responsibility. We must seek to resist
and undo injustices we have not caused,
lest we become bystanders who tacitly
endorse evil and so share in guilt for it.
It is also wrong to say that those
whose energy and motivation have been
sapped by social injustices bear sole
responsibility for bettering themselves.
Instead, the struggle for a just social
order necessarily requires programs to
undo the consequences of past
injustices.
Law has an important role to play in
the fight against racial discrimination.
Just laws alert people that some deeds
are forbidden and others are required if
all members of society are to share
equitably in its goods. Laws may not be
able to change attitudes, but they can
deter those who might otherwise seek to
violate the rights of others. By
protecting minority groups and also
those who wish to respect them and
their rights, laws at least can foster
actions and institutions essential to
racial justice. Finally, and especially at a
time when many are confused about
morality, good laws can contribute to
educating people to know right from
wrong.
Thanks in great part to law and the
courts, we have made progress in recent
years in removing some social, political,
and cultural structures which supported
racism. But we are far from final
success. For example, the principles of
legitimacy, proportionality and restraint
have sometimes been violated within
our nation. Racial justice in such areas
as housing, education, health care,
employment, and the administration of
justice must be given high priority. The
church, too, must continue efforts to
make its institutional structures models
of racial justice while striving to
eliminate racism from the hearts of
believers by reminding them of what it
means to be sons and daughters of God
and brothers and sisters in Christ.
“There is no Greek or Jew here,
circumcised or uncircumcised, foreigner,
Scythian, slave or freeman. Rather,
Christ is everything in all of you.”
EMPLOYMENT
Chronic unemployment is a strong
factor paralyzing some groups in our
nation. “Minorities” are not its only
victims. Women and young workers
suffer disproportionately.
Behind the statistics of joblessness lie
human tragedies. For example, the
father who cannot feed his family, in
desperation often lapses into a pattern
of life whose effects spread in an ever
widening circle: crime, the use of drugs,
alcoholism, mental illness, family
breakdown — all increase along with
unemployment.
Blessed with God-given gifts that
include creativity and imagination, the
people of this affluent nation can and
must find means by which everyone
who is able to work can have gainful,
productive employment. If we settle for
less we are allowing ourselves to be
ruled by our economy instead of ruling
it.
An injustice to which we have
frequently drawn attention is the
systematic exploitation of agricultural
workers, many of them migrants. These
neighbors whose work puts food on our
tables, are often compelled to live
without decent housing, schooling,
health care, and equal protection of the
law. The economic risks of the industry
they serve do not justify denying them
the right to negotiate for their own
protection and betterment. If
exploitation is the cost of lower food
prices, it is a price too high to pay.
HOUSING
In many American cities affluent and
impoverished neighborhoods are divided
mostly along racial lines. If this were a
result simply of ethnic preference or the
preservation of property values, we
would still be concerned that genuine
“neighborhood” was being thwarted.
But, in fact, the actions of government,
banks and the real estate industry at
times converge to deprive some racial
groups of financing for housing and to
manipulate real estate values for the
profit of insiders, with the result that
our cities remain divided and hostile. All
Americans should be able to live where
they wish and their means allow.
Futhermore, while society must provide
decent housing for the poor, public
housing may not be used as a device for
consistently isolating some groups from
the rest of the community.
In saying this, we wish also to note
the many human values preserved in
ethnic neighborhoods, where people are
united by a common culture, common
origin, and sometimes even a common
language other than English. Only when
their boundaries become barriers and
their values are cherished in ways that
exclude others from participation do
such neighborhoods become elements in
a larger pattern of social strife.
Clearly, though, it is not just
Americans of moderate means, whether
in or out of ethnic neighborhoods, who
should bear the burden of achieving
racial justice. This is a duty of the
well-to-do as well as the less affluent, of
suburbanites as well as city residents: in
short, of all social and economic classes.
We do not have answers to all the
complex issues raised by specific
measures for the desegregation of
schools and neighborhoods, but we
believe these reflections have a
significant bearing on them.
CRIME AND CORRECTION
People have a right and need to live in
peace, yet one of the urgent issues in
our country today is crime. Violent
urban crime receives most of the
attention, but the apparently growing
amount of white collar criminal fraud
and corruption is also ominous, for it
indicates a collapse of respect for virtues
such as truthfulness and honesty which
hold society together.
In both categories, merely
emphasizing sterner law enforcement
while ignoring factors which occasion
criminal acts will accomplish very little.
Poverty and injustice, as well as our
society’s spirit of acquisitiveness,
contribute to crime. Whatever
improvements may be needed in law
enforcement and the administration of
justice, society will not come to grips
with the crime crisis until it seriously
addresses these underlying problems.
Ironically, our penal system itself is
sometimes a cause of increased crime.
Long delay of trial and unequal
application of the law are unjust and a
source of increase in crimes. Often
enough imprisonment only confirms
inmates in criminal attitudes and
practices. Sometimes prisons are also
settings for gross violations of prisoners’
rights. Prisoners, like the rest of us, are
beings of transcendent value, and
incarcerating them in prisons which
dehumanize is a form of brutality. They
have a right to protection against assault
and against threats to their lives and
well being. They have a right to proper
food, health care and recreation and to
opportunities to pursue other human
goods as education and the cultivation
of their skills. Reform of our nation’s
penal system in light of these and the
other human rights of prisoners is
urgent and long overdue.
THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL
We have spoken often of the need for
just laws and wholesome public policies,
for all that government can do to create
a setting in which fundamental values
are protected and can flourish in human
lives. Among the contributions that
government should make to the creation
of a more wholesome society are
responsible constitutional steps to limit
the current flood of pornography and of
violence and immorality in
entertainment. Yet we are aware of the
limitations of government and the risk
of seeming to suggest that it is
all-important. Just laws and policies,
taxes and programs, are necessary but
they will not by themselves secure
justice and peace. Such values must be
built upon the foundations of good and
dedicated individual human lives.
THE COMMUNITY OF NATIONS
Our allegiance must extend beyond
the family and the nation to the entire
human family. In Christ we are brothers
and sisters of people whose faces we
never see, whose names we cannot spell,
whose customs are unfamiliar to us, but
whose Father is our Father.
Human interdependence is constantly
increasing in today’s world, so that
many issues which pertain to human
dignity call for the collaboration of a
true community of nations. Perhaps the
central global issue of our day is how to
create such a community out of a world
of states. Pope John grasped the
meaning of this challenge when he
described the structural defect in the
present situation: the lack of authority
and institutions adequate to address the
problems humanity faces. Most people
agree about the problems and their
seriousness: hunger, environmental
pollution, population growth, glaring
disparities of wealth, and the persistent
danger of war, to mention only a few.
But agreement is lacking on ways to
cooperate in dealing with them.
Believing that the human family is
called to live in unity, we speak of two
goals for the community of nations
which will also help bring it into being:
the development of peoples and peace
on earth. From the perspective of the
United States, both are best addressed
in the context of power. Our nation’s
enormous military and economic power
make it essential that we understand
how power should be used in the
pursuit of these goals.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLES
All power is from God and is an
expression of his being. God uses his
power on our behalf: by creating us and
sustaining us in existence, by bestowing
his gifts upon us, by enabling us to grow
in likeness to him. As his creatures and
children, we are to use the power he
grants us for the good of others.
Power may never be used to attack
the dignity of persons, to subjugate
them, to prevent them from seeking and
realizing the goods to which their
humanity gives them a claim. Beyond
this, the powerful have a duty to work
positively for the empowerment of the
weak and powerless: to help others gain
control over their own lives, so that as
free and responsible persons they can
participate in a self-determining manner
in the goods proper to human beings.
The powerful must therefore work
for the liberation of the oppressed and
powerless. Though liberation in the
fullest sense is what “Christ himself
announced and gave to man by his
sacrifice,” it is not possible to foster
such liberation in oneself and others
without also “promoting in justice and
peace the true, authentic advancement”
of humankind.
Our nation’s power, wealth, and
position of leadership in the world
impose special obligations upon us.
Americans have always responded
generously to foreign crises involving
immediate human suffering: to floods
and droughts, earthquakes and famines
and the ravages of war. This is to our
credit. But the obligations of which we
now speak extend further. We must
work creatively for a just international
order based on recognition of
interdependence. We must live by the
principle that all nations and peoples are
entitled to an equitable share of the
world’s goods as well as respect for their
right of self-determination.
The values which comprise the
international common good are
threatened by existing patterns of
international political and economic
relations. Our iives, policies, and
patterns of consumption and
production should be examined in light
of their impact on other nations and
peoples. Pope Paul has urged such
examination: when so many people are
hungry, so many families are destitute,
so many remain enchained by
ignorance, so many schools, hospitals
and homes worthy of the name have yet
to be built, all public or private
squandering of wealth, all expenditure
prompted by national or personal
ostentation, and the exhausting arms
race become intolerable scandals.
The discussion of international justice
and of institutions for its realization has
become more specific as a result of the
call at the United Nations for a new
international economic order. Its
significance lies in its effort to change
the language of the debate from that of
aid and charity to that of obligation and
justice. The traditional question about
foreign aid has been how much we of
the industrial nations choose to give
others within the framework of the
existing international order. By
contrast, a discussion cast in terms of
justice would examine the rules by
which the system works — such things
as trade treaties, commodity prices,
corporate practices and monetary
agreements - with a view to making
them more just. New rules would clarify
obligations among the parties.
Politically, they would be designed to
improve the bargaining position of the
developing nations in relation to the
industrialized countries.
Such discussion of rules for
relationships and the distribution of
power on the international level may be
new to us as Americans, but the themes
are familiar to our experience. The
American tradition emphasizes that
rules of fairness are central to a just
political system. The developing
countries argue that it is precisely rules
of fairness in economic relations which
do not now exist. Similarly, their quest
for a new and more equitable form of
bargaining power in relation to us
echoes the drive for bargaining power
by American workers over the last
century.
PEACE
We are also obliged as Americans and
especially as Christians to reflect
profoundly upon war and, more
importantly, upon peace and the means
of building it.
The church has traditionally
recognized that, under stringent
conditions, engaging in war can be a
form of legitimate defense. But modern
warfare, in both its technology and in
its execution, is so savage that one must
ask whether war as it is actually waged
today can be morally justified.
At the very least all nations have a
duty to work to curb the savagery of
war and seek the peaceful settlement of
disputes. The right of legitimate defense
is not a moral justification for unleashig
every form of destruction. For example,
acts of war deliberately directed against
innocent noncombatants are gravely
wrong, and no one may participate in
such an act. In weighing the morality of
warfare today, one must also take into
consideration not only its immediate
impact but also its potential for harm to
future generations: for instance,
through pollution of the soil or the
atmosphere or damage to the human
gene pool.
A citizen, entering the military
service is fulfilling a conscientious duty
toward his country. He may not
casually disregard his nation’s
conscientious decision to go to war in
self-defense. No members of the armed
forces, above all no Christians who bear
arms as “agents of security and
freedom,” can rightfully carry out
orders or policies requiring direct force
against noncombatants or the violation
of some other moral norm. The right to
object conscientiously to war in general
and the right of selective conscientious
objection, to a particular war should be
acknowledged by government and
protected by law.
With respect to nuclear weapons, at
least those with massive destructive
capability, the first imperative is to
prevent their use. As possessors of a vast
nuclear arsenal, we must also be aware
that not only is it wrong to attack
civilian populations but it is also wrong
to threaten to attack them as part of a
strategy of deterrance. We urge the
continued development and
implementation of policies which seek
to bring these weapons more securely
under control, progressively reduce their
presence in the world, and ultimately
remove them entirely.
The experience of the last 15 years
shows clearly that it is not only nuclear
weapons which pose grave dangers and
dilemmas. We must learn from the
moral and political costs, to ourselves
and others, of conventional war as it
was waged in Vietnam. With much of
the world undergoing or approaching a
period of deep and sometimes drastic
change, there is need for restraint and
for clear reflection about purposes
which can justify the use of force. The
moral reasons and political purposes
said to call for even conventional force
of arms, besides being valid, must be
clear and convincing before any
commitment is made to a policy of
force.
Today, however, the human family
longs for peace which is more than the
mere absence of war, peace rooted in
justice and brought alive by charity.
Such peace truly reflects Christ’s vision
of human life. Why is it so difficult to
achieve?
Peace depends upon both the policies
of states and the attitudes of peoples. A
policy of peace can only be conceived
and supported where a commitment to
peace prevails. Cultivating this
commitment and carrying forward this
policy are intricate, delicate tasks. It is
not that some among us desire war, but
that those who speak of the risks of
weakness are likely to dominate public
debate. So the race to accumulate ever
more destructive weapons continues in
this and other nations.
HUMAN RIGHTS
There are considerable differences
between what is required internationally
and what is required domestically to
preserve peace and promote justice. On
another broad issue, however, the
protection and promotion of human
rights, the values sought in our domestic
political life and our foreign policy
converge.
This nation’s traditional commitment
to human rights may be its most
significant contribution to world
politics. Today, when rights are violated
on the left and the right of the
international political spectrum, the
pervasive presence of our nation’s
political power and influence in the
world provides a further opportunity
and obligation to promote human
rights. How this should be done will
vary from case to case; at the very least,
however, national policy and our
personal consciences are challenged
when not only enemies but close allies
use torture, imprisonment, and
systematic repression as measures of
goveranance.
The issue of human rights in foreign
policy is ultimately a question of values.
There is a direct, decisive bond between
the values we espouse in our nation and
the world we seek to build
internationally. When human rights are
violated anywhere without protest, they
are threatened everywhere. Our own
rights are less secure if we condone or
contribute even by passive silence to the
repression of human rights in other
countries.
(Continued on page 8)