Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

If someone murdered your child or closest friend, what punishment would you want for the criminal? If you were simply asked your opinion about capital punishment, how would you respond? What reasons would you give for your answer? The Catholic bishops of the United States have provided careful guidance about this difficult issue, applying the teaching of the universal Church to our American culture. Along with the leadership assemblies of many Churches (for example. American Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Presbyterians), the U.S. bishops have expressed their opposition to the death penalty. First articulated in 1974, the bishops' position is explained in a 1980 statement, Capital Punishment. Individual bishops and state conferences of bishops have repeated in numerous teachings their opposition to the death penalty. In their 1980 statement, the bishops begin by noting that punishment, "since it involves the deliberate infliction of evil on another," must be justifiable. They acknowledge that the Christian tradition has for a long time recognized a government's right to protect its citizens by using the death penalty in some serious situations. The bishops ask, however, if capital punishment is still justifiable in the present circumstances in the United States. In this context, the bishops enter the debate about deterrence and retribution. They acknowledge that capital punishment certainly prevents the criminal from committing more crimes, yet question whether it prevents others from doing so. Similarly, concerning retribution, the bishops support the arguments against death as an appropriate form of punishment. The bishops add that reform is a third reason given to justify punishment, but it clearly does not apply in the case of capital punishment. And so they affirm: "We believe that in the conditions of contemporary American society, the legitimate purposes of punishment do not justify the imposition of the death penalty." My brothers and sisters in Christ increasingly, our society looks to...increased reliance on the death penalty to deal with crime. We are tragically turning to violence in the search for quick and easy answers to complex human problems. A society that destroys its children, abandons its old and relies on vengeance fails fundamental moral tests. We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. This cycle of violence diminishes all of us, especially our children. We have a very consistent commitment as Church to defending the sanctity of human life. Our position against the use of the death penalty falls into that continuum. We believe that an issue such as capital punishment is not just a question of public policy, but is at its very core a moral issue, and therefore a religious issue, and we 

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Under no circumstances does the Church condone the practice of surgical or pharmaceutical abortions (such as RU-486 or the morning-after-pill).  Abortion is tantamount to murder in the womb and cannot be justified by appealing to convenience, hardships, or “a woman’s right to choose”.  Here is what the Church officially teaches in the Catechism: Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person—among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life[1]. Scripture also indirectly attests to the personhood and humanity of the fetus in Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. The ancient Tradition of forbidding abortions is expressed in the Didache, a first century writing of the apostles: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish[2]. The reasoning and arguments of the pro-choice movement have been addressed numerous times by Church authorities (such as John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae) who are much more eloquent and adept than the author, and I will not reiterate them here other than to say that a women’s right to choose abortion is not moral or licit because it interferes with and extinguishes the child’s right to live. A child has a soul from the moment of conception and therefore is a person (who has certain unalienable rights) who cannot be killed by the mother or doctor without making the participating parties murderers. In fact, the Church feels so strongly on the matter that she has issued an automatic excommunication for all those who have procured an abortion and are aware of the excommunication penalty[3].  The excommunication even extends to those who, “without whose help the crime would not have been committed”[4]. Thus abortion doctors, the father of the baby, and even parents of children who encourage an abortion, are held accountable. In order to prevent Catholics from deceiving themselves and arguing that the Church’s two thousand year condemnation of abortion is only an opinion and not a doctrinal teaching of the faith, Pope John Paul II formally defined the condemnation of abortion in Evangelium Vitae: Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors and in communion with the bishops . . . I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium. No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church"[5]. Fr. Agustin, Pastor.

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[1] CCC 2270

[2] Didache 2,2

[3] CIC, canon 1398

[4] Evangelium Vitae, 62.

[5] Evangelium Vitae 62