A Person is Still a Person Regardless of Size
Isn’t amazing how often a person will say, “The issue is settled” when all they really mean is that they don’t want to talk or debate about it anymore? This is the case with the recent debate over in vitro fertilization in the United States. A few months ago, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that because embryos were human beings then in vitro fertilization as it is currently practiced could not be allowed in the state. This caused an expected brouhaha with various politicians and social influencers decrying the backwardness of Alabama and all those “pro-life crazies”. It has become one more lightning rod for the pro-abortion political left.
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The Declaration “Dignitas Infinita” On Human Dignity
One of the greatest voices for the upholding of the dignity of human life was St. John Paul II and it is only fitting that the Declaration on Human Dignity, Dignitas Infinita (DI), was issued from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on April 2, 2024, the nineteenth anniversary of this great saint’s death. This is very much a “package” document that is meant to cover a very wide number of life and sexual issues.
It has been rather typical of the documents issued in this papacy in that it seeks to finds a common thread for both believers and non-believers alike as regarding the elusive but essential nature of human dignity and the respect due it and rights surrounding it.
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Victory Is Sure for All Who Love
In 1990, I had the privilege of attending the second Worldwide Encounter for Priests in Rome. One of my fellow participants was an Australian priest who had spent most of his active ministry in the Highlands of Peru. One night on a dark bus coming back from the sessions to our hotel, he began to tell the story of why he was on sabbatical. In the previous year, all through Lent, he had prepared an astonishing number of people to receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and First Holy Communion as they were received into the Church along with blessing a number of marriages. With a gathering of villages, they had celebrated all of Holy Week and they had a triumphant Easter which culminated with an Easter Vigil that finished at dawn. After that, the fiesta began. He was exhausted and went off to a local village to sleep. After about 12 hours, his villagers came to fetch him back to the main village which had just been attacked by the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.
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