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Building a Culture of Life
Feb. 25, 2011 (Fargo, ND) - Archbishop Chaput addressed laypeople of the Diocese of Fargo, with a presentation titled Building a Culture of Life. Archbishop offers a few dos and donts for building a culture of life, based on what he has seen in the American prolife experience throughout the past 38 years.
As I was gathering my thoughts for today, a line from Psalm 89 came back to me again and again: [Lord,] make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart. Thats an odd way to begin a prolife discussion, isnt it reminding everybody in the room that we dont have a lot of time.
Continued- http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/278/iArticleID/46/ipageContentCategoryID/278
Feb. 25, 2011 (Fargo, ND) - Archbishop Chaput addressed laypeople of the Diocese of Fargo, with a presentation titled Building a Culture of Life. Archbishop offers a few dos and donts for building a culture of life, based on what he has seen in the American prolife experience throughout the past 38 years.
As I was gathering my thoughts for today, a line from Psalm 89 came back to me again and again: [Lord,] make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart. Thats an odd way to begin a prolife discussion, isnt it reminding everybody in the room that we dont have a lot of time.
But I think its exactly the right place to start. The time we have in this world is brief. God is good, and the life he gives us is filled not just with problems and sorrow, but with beauty and joy and love and hope and nobility and these things are worth fighting for. What we do in the world matters. How we use our time matters. And therefore the choices we make matter precisely because we come this way only once, and the world will be better or worse for our passing.
So our presence here together today has a meaning much larger than a nice meal and a good conversation about shared values. Its an opportunity to remember that God put us here for a purpose. Hes asking us to turn our hearts to building the kind of world that embodies his love and honors the sanctity of the human children he created.
Our theme today is building a culture of life. All of us here this afternoon know that U.S. Supreme Court struck down restrictive American abortion laws in 1973. That effectively legalized abortion on demand.
Since then, abortion has killed more than 50 million unborn American children. Its also damaged the lives of millions of women and men. The sheer size of this tragedy has had a very curious effect on the American mind, because Americans have always been a religious people and we still are by the standards of most developed countries. In practice, Americans now have a kind of schizophrenia about the abortion issue. Most of us believe abortion is wrong. But many people many otherwise good people -- also want it to be legal under some limited circumstances.
This split in the American mind has two results. Heres the first consequence. The United States has a large and well-funded abortion industry. The industry has very shrewd political lobbyists. It also has a public relations machine that would make George Orwells Ministry of Truth look like a gang of amateurs. In practice, the industry runs on an engine of persuasive-sounding lies.
You know some of the lies. Im sure youve heard them a thousand times. Theres the lie that an unborn child isnt fully human. The lie that abortion is a purely private decision without public consequences. The lie that we can be pro-choice, and yet not be implicated in where our choices lead -- to the killing of an unborn child.
Heres the second consequence. Right alongside the abortion industry, our country also has a very vigorous prolife movement. American prolifers have had many setbacks. They never have enough money. They get treated brutally by the media. Too many of their leaders argue with each other too much of the time. But they just wont give up or die. And so theyve won quite a few modest but important legal victories. And meanwhile they continue to work toward the strategic goal of overturning the 1973 Supreme Court decision.
Based on what Ive seen in the American prolife experience over the past 38 years, Id like to offer a few dos and donts for building a culture of life. And perhaps we can talk about them more deeply in our question and answer session. Ill begin with six donts.
First, dont let yourselves be tricked into an inferiority complex.
Continued- http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/278/iArticleID/46/ipageContentCategoryID/278