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Encyclical: Keeping pro-life sensibility can help during tough times |
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By Chaz Muth - Catholic News Service
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Wednesday, 15 July 2009 |
“When a society moves toward the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good.”
FROM "CHARITY IN TRUTH"
Keeping a pro-life sensibility during hard economic times can actually help a society through those trying years, Pope Benedict XVI said in his third encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" ("Charity in Truth").
A
boy looks at empty plates while he waits for food at a Catholic church
complex in Manila, Philippines, in March. In his latest encyclical,
“Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”), Pope Benedict XVI said food
and water are the “universal rights of all human beings without
distinction or discrimination” and are part of the basic human right to
life. CNS photo / Romeo Ranoco, Reuters
In a social encyclical on development and the world's financial crisis,
the pope said it is important to keep in mind the teaching of "Humanae
Vitae," Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on human life, and said being
pro-life is being pro-development.
If society sees a new baby as a problem, how will its citizens view the poor? the pope asked in the encyclical, released July 7.
"When a society moves toward the denial or suppression of life, it ends
up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for
man's true good," Pope Benedict said. "The acceptance of life
strengthens moral fiber and makes people capable of mutual help."
In promoting a culture of life, the pope suggested people look not only
at the issue of abortion, but also at the planet as a living being. If
people destroy their environment, they will also destroy their own life
source, he said.
The pope also addressed life as part of the cultural struggle between
the supremacy of technology and human moral responsibility in the field
of bioethics.
"It is no coincidence that closing the door to transcendence brings one
up short against a difficulty: How could being emerge from nothing, how
could intelligence be born from chance?" he asked. "Faced with these
dramatic questions, reason and faith can come to each other's
assistance. Only together will they save man."
For reflection
• What can I do to support women experiencing unexpected pregnancy?
• Do my pro-life views include all of human life without exception, as the church teaches?
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