A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Our lord entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. Now Martha had a sister named Mary, and Mary seated herself at the lord's feet and stayed there listening to his words. On the other hand, Martha, who was busy with all the details of hospitality, putting a big meal together, came to Jesus and said to him, Lord, are you not concerned that my sister has left me all alone to do all the household tasks? Tell her, to help me.
Our lord in reply said to her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and We not people of the the world. Lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. The events of the past week make it obligatory for us to reconsider, to reaffirm in our own straight thinking as Catholics and followers of Jesus Christ, the son of god. Now these are all very important considerations.
God comes first. He created us to come back to himself, and we do it by living a life that he wants us to live, not a comfortable life, not a life maybe of our own choosing, really. We wanna do the will of god, thy will be done. Now the basic text is from the very first book of Genesis that god made human beings to his own image and likeness and blessed them. He took mud, and out of the mud, he made human beings to his own image and likeness and blessed them.
God comes first and last and in the middle. That's the theory of the thing. In fact, you you know what's been happening. The last thing, if at all people think of god. Now there's there are just three facts I want to begin with.
The first fact is the Dred Scott decision in 1857 before the civil war. And that decision, in effect, declared slaves to be none persons before the law. They couldn't sue in any court. They were none persons. Chief justice Taney wrote the decision.
Every judge wrote their own decision. It goes chiefly by his name. 1857. It took the civil war, one of the bloodiest wars in history, and two amends amendments to the constitution, the thirteenth and the fourteenth, in order to set things straight and to declare that slaves are human beings with human rights. And certainly, certainly one of the most in aim of a human rights is that you have a right to your life once you got it and not to have it destroyed by an unjust aggressor.
The second fact, again, the supreme court, but now it's it's 2773. And we have the ignominious Wade versus Roe decision, which declares in effect the unborn living infant, a known person, a thing, whatever it is, they never told us what it is, without any rights. Now in the past week, we've heard a whole lot about rights, women's rights, and what they can do to preserve their rights, not a word about the right of the unborn person in their womb. There's something there, of course. If it isn't and if it's not living, you have no problem.
Now very coincidentally, on the fifteenth of this past week, there was a very significant letter in the Washington Post by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who used to be one of our parishioners. It's an excellent letter. I hope you all read it as far as it goes. But this was her point, that an unborn infant has rights and that the supreme court has declared that it doesn't, that it's a nonperson. And, therefore, you can kill it up to the during the entire period of its gestation at will.
Now her letter was prompted not so much by the events up in New York, but by the the action of the Supreme Court on the on governor Casey's bill to the Pennsylvania bill to control abortion. Now the Supreme Court, in June, upheld Roe versus Wade. Get that straight. It upheld it. All it did was to say that the states had the right to restrict it somewhat.
Here, of course, is where the lawyers are gonna have a heyday as long as the restriction did not put an unreasonable burden on the mother. What's an unreasonable burden? Well, we'll we'll be hearing more about that. And so we are still living with Roe versus Wade, which declares the unborn living infant a nonperson without rights. And yet we talk about the rights of the seals and the whales and the dolphins and spiders.
Everybody and everything seems to have rights today except the unborn living infant. Now I wanna just quote from that letter. I I I'm sure most of you read it. But what she's and it's a I've never seen it said as well as this far as it goes. She says, according to the Supreme Court, unborn infants in the womb are not considered persons under our constitution and therefore have no rights.
That's indisputable. We cannot, she continued, be satisfied as Americans or as human beings. See, this is her argument. All she's appealing to is to the people of The United States as Americans and as human beings. There's nothing metaphysical about it.
We cannot, she says, be satisfied as Americans or as human beings. You can't get more basic than that, giving yourself the benefit of the doubt. With laws that exclude the unborn infant from the human community or deny them any rights. But then she then she goes on, and this is important, very important. We must also work to guarantee all mothers their full dignity and provide them with opportunities and resources to help them carry their infants to term and to assist them with the care of their children.
That's a very important point. It's not we can't just go around telling people, don't have your baby. You must not have you must not have an abortion, or you must have your baby. You must not abort it unless we can give some kind of hope to that poor woman or girl. What can she do about her situation?
This is the whole point. But now I I have this is a huge question. But please be get this clear. We are not talking here about life. We are talking about rights.
Life is the cheapest thing on God's earth. Who hesitates in killing a mosquito or a rattlesnake or cutting down a tree? We're not we are talking about alienable rights, r I g h t s. There are plenty of occasions when you can take a life, even including your own, under certain consent considerations with the indirect voluntary. But so let's get this straight.
The issue is rights. Does that unborn baby have any rights? And it can't have rights unless it's a person. It's silly to talk about whales and animals having rights. Oh, they could have them legal.
And so let us get that issue clear. We are is that a person or isn't it? Or let us let me more correctly say, must we treat it as a person or can we deny that it's a person, which is being done absolutely without even any advertance to it. Now I wanna bring out two points this morning. In addition to missus Stryver's letter, I cannot improve on what she says.
But the point is she assumes that we have rights, and it's not enough to claim you have a right. What we need in the world today is a foundation for rights. And if you take god out of the picture, as the as we are doing today, we can't even have a moment of silence even because it smacks of prayer and, therefore, is against the constitution for God's sake. We are talking here then about the rights of people, of persons, And that's the most important thing we have to keep in mind. Do where do we get these rights?
What is the foundation? You certainly don't get them by claiming them. So where where where do we today in The United States Of America place our rights? I know where the declaration of independence placed them, but, of course, we have thrown that out. That's that's as dead as the dodo bird with our advanced thinkers because it's so contradictory of what they want.
Now remember, since after the period of enlightenment when we threw out god, we have tried to bring in all kinds of things to justify rights. Think of John Stuart Mill, Hume. Think of all of them. The the these were earnest men. These were intelligent people, and they were floundering around just as The USA today as a nation is floundering around.
And many of our young people are in the mess. They don't see any light at the end of the tunnel because there's, in many instances, no light there for them to see. Now we begin with god, And the first point is that's where our rights are lodged in god almighty, that he made every single human being to his image and likeness. Likeness. This is a if only human talk about people wanting to have self esteem.
What are we giving them? What are we offering to these adolescents? We're telling them you must build up self esteem. We mustn't hold them back in class. We they must all be on the baseball team.
All of this stuff to build up their self esteem, and it's nothing but a house of cards. It's worse than a house of cards. A card is real. We what are we offering our young people to say this is why you must respect your body? This is why you must practice chastity?
Pardon me for using that naughty word. What do we tell them? Say no. Isn't that absurd? Why should they say no to a great pleasure, to maybe the only pleasure they have, perhaps to the only embrace that they know?
You've gotta have a good reason, And the reason that Christianity puts in is god. Can you do better than that? Because every human being is god's special creation. This is now I'm not get what I'm saying here is not my opinion. It is the opinion of the official Catholic church teaching its doctrine as formally as it can because it's speaking from the rock of Peter with the authority of Jesus Christ, son of God.
Keep all of this thing in your mind. We're talking about god. We're talking about god's will. We're talking about my obligation to god and how I go back to god because he created me. That's what we're talking about.
And we look at ourselves and we say, God, you made us to your own image and likeness and blessed us, each one. I know that babies come from mothers and fathers. Believe it or not, I do know that. They do make a contribution and they make a tremendous, I say heroic con and I mean that word heroic. Any parent who's halfway decent parent deserves the word heroic.
Of course, they make a contribution because they are the hands of the handless Christ, but they don't create a human being. They cooperate with god think of this every time I do a baptism. They cooperate with god almighty in bringing a human being into existence. Notice I didn't say into the world. Isn't that something to think about?
What are you worth? Look at Jesus Christ, the son of god. That's what you're worth. Every single human being as our holy father has said time and again is unrepeatable, absolutely unique. Every single human being, the worst to the best.
So that's the first reason, the basic foundation that a unborn infant who's still living the ex not living, no problem. That the unborn infant has rights because it is a child of god almighty, the temple of the holy spirit. The second point, this is what is terribly important in the light of last week. What right has the state to step into your bedroom? This was proclaimed.
You know? Keep the state out of your bedroom. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Well, the state's in your bedroom in many ways whether you like it or not. After all, even to get married, have to have a state license.
Why has the state not only the right but the obligation, the responsibility to preserve, to safeguard the rights of its citizens, of its people, of its persons, of its unborn living persons called infants. Why? That's the very first obligation of the state. The state today is doing everything under the sun, but who says it ought to be doing that or has to do it? But one thing we can say about the state in its using that as a big capitalist, whether it be the city, the county, or the nation or whatever, that is the organized polity which the Greeks used to call the city, the polis.
Its first and most basic obligation is to preserve the safety of its citizens against inside enemies, that you can leave your house in the evening and take a walk in the sunset, that you'd go take a to take your bike down in the Rock Creek and take a nice ride there, that you could drive your car along the road and park it without any fear of being walloped and your car stolen and you being shot. So the state has, first of all, the obligation for keeping its citizens safe and secure in their house, in their homes, in their daily lives. From those within the state who would deprive them of that inalienable right and from enemies from without who would deprive them of that inalienable right. See, we're talking about rights, and this is where missus Shriver is so absolutely on the beam. Rights.
Therefore, it's a absolute clear deduction that the state therefore has a right in the first instance to take care of the innocent citizen. The the citizen who's done no harm to anybody, who's not an unjust aggressor by no means. No baby ever put itself in the mother's womb that I know of. Even our lord Jesus Christ was put there by the holy spirit. Therefore, if the state has a right and an obligation of the most primary basic sort to preserve the safety, the the welfare of its citizens, then it certainly applies to those citizens who are most innocent and the most and the most utterly defenseless, the unborn infant in a woman's womb.
And let what we do by what we do today by law is simply to go and tear it apart into pieces, little tiny pieces so it can be ejected. Where that little baby in there is is what is it? Remember, the burden of proof doesn't rest on me rest on those who say it's not human. How can you prove that it's not human? If it's if the mother's human, if the father's human, how is it not human?
And if it's human, it's gotta be a person. And if it's a person, it has rights because it's a child of god almighty. That is where the right is. Rests on god. And if you take away god, forget it.
Let's go bully. Have a drink. Do something important. You know? Don't let's argue about a nonentity.
And so please consider this. First of all, we come from god. That's the first thing you've gotta get straight in your life. Do you believe in god? Did he make you?
Are you his creation or not? Yes or no? If you come from god, what do you get from god? Then how much do you preserve it? You see, it's in theory, none of this is being a follower of Jesus Christ, the son of god is not that difficult.
It's not to be confused. It's to be anchored solidly. But you know, because a ship is anchored doesn't mean that it does it's not subject to turbulence. And you, each individual you, the image of god almighty, the creature redeemed by his son Jesus Christ, you are that ship. I hope anchored solidly to god and to his son Jesus Christ speaking through his church, where you get not only turbulence because you are that that's all Christ ever promised you.
It was you're going to suffer. You're going to have a lot of trouble, and you're going to have to carry your cross. But that cross, if you carry it, will be sweet and that burden light. The son of god said that because we are his. We are made to the image and likeness of his father.
In the name of the father, the son, holy spirit. Amen.