October is Respect Life Month, a time when we are called to pray and reflect on the fundamental belief that we have as Catholics in the dignity and the preciousness of every human life that God has created.
Over the past 40 plus years many have come to associate this exclusively with our advocacy for the unborn, our dogged opposition to abortion, which has tragically claimed millions of innocent lives. Those who have embraced this important ministry have been called “pro life.”
When you reflect on the great gift that God provides in his creation of us (“you formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb – Ps. 139) you would think that everyone would be “pro life.”
Of course, we know by now that such a label has been absconded by the partisan divisions that plague our society. Pro life, for some, means anti-women’s health. To some extent, we as Catholics have not done enough to push back against this oversimplified and inaccurate characterization of what it means for us to be pro life.
Our passionate advocacy that every life be cherished and protected compels us to engage on the issue of abortion. In being pro life, we are also called to stand up for other lives that are threatened, persecuted and suffering. This includes the elderly, the mentally ill, the condemned, the homeless, those who are bullied and harassed, those who suffer in natural disasters, live in trauma and suffer the loss of loved ones. It also includes those living in the shadows created by our broken immigration system.
If we are to be truly pro life, we must be a champion of all of these children of God. In catechetical circles this is sometimes called “a consistent ethic of life” or “the seamless garment.” The Lord Jesus points us to this in his many Gospel encounters with unlikely characters, from the Samaritan woman at the well to the tax collector to the leper, who others would not deem worthy of his love and attention. If we are to follow His example, then we must love not just the most sympathetic lives (an innocent unborn), but the ones we do not understand or the ones we fear or the ones who have a completely different lived experience than we do.
There is no qualification or criteria for our defense of human life. Pro life means all lives.
Let us reflect on the full spectrum of this important teaching of our faith this month. Let us talk about it among family and friends, and let us consider further support of the many “pro life” ministries in our communities of faith.
Full story at Inland Catholic Byte.
The “seamless garment” isn’t seamless: so many pet left-wing causes peripheral or irrelevant to what is authentically pro-life have been sewn on to the garment that it resembles a shoddy quilt. The shtick now is that if you don’t support universal health care, a $30 minimum wage, housing subsidies, guaranteed employment, food coupons, government-provided childcare, no-fault divorce, open borders, citizenship for all, and free contraception then you don’t have bona fide pro-life credentials. The seamless garment is just a hammer for leftist catholics to beat up true Catholics with.
I don’t know much about leftist Catholics. Where are you experiencing this?
May we all live in your cocoon? Sounds very peaceful.
Go hang out in the Oakland Diocese for a while.
…another example of bishops watering down their opposition to the killing of unborn babies.
The Bishop is not watering down the Church’s opposition to abortion. He is promoting the teachings of the Church which have always advocated for the dignity of the person from conception to natural death. His critics would do well to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church!
I have read the Catechism and no where does it state anything about bullying or minimum wage. More liberal nonsense
The bishop did not say anything about minimum wage. However the teaching of the Catholic Church is that workers should be paid a Living Wage. CCC 2434
Bullying is emotional, psychological and sometimes physical abuse. Respect for the dignity of persons forbids it. CCC 1735, 2258, 2304
Did you buy a fancy computer or smartphone instead of donating that money to the starving poor? If so, then you’re not pro-life. See how easy it is to misuse the seamless garment theory? The seamless garment theory isn’t Catholic doctrine; it’s an ideological tool for getting left-wing causes hitched onto the pro-life bandwagon and for protecting Catholic abortion-supporting politicians from criticism: because those politicians support big-government welfare programs, that “makes them pro-life” even if they support abortion.
Time to shred this seamless garment nonsense. Contrary to the beliefs of many social justice warriors, there is a hierarchy and protecting unborn babies from being torn apart in wombs is of greater concern than other so-called pro-life issues. And yes, seamless garment theory waters this down.
If you suddenly smelt smoke, look around and saw flames, you would try to escape the building. On your way out, you heard the screams of a young boy. You open the door and see him in the corner, suffering from smoke inhalation. You grab him with your one arm and start to leave the room. You notice a large jar with a 1000 embryos. You can’t carry those and the boy because you only have one arm. Do you save the one or the thousand?
Why do I only have one arm?
What are 1000 embryos doing in a jar? They are already dead, yes?
I hope we will all do as the heroes of Las Vegas and do as much as we can for as many as we can.
If you suddenly smelt smoke, look around and saw flames, you would try to escape the building. On your way out, you heard the screams of Bob One. You open the door and see him in the corner, suffering from smoke inhalation. You grab him with your one arm (what happened to my other arm?) and start to leave the room. You notice a large jar with a 1000 embryos. You can’t carry those and Bob One because you only have one arm (OK, I’ll play the one arm game). Do you save the one or the thousand?
Answer: I tell Bob One to man up and stop acting like a sniveling victim. I hand him the jar, grab Bob One by the ear, and lead all to safety.
A+ Answer, Gravey :)
:)
Rewording still requires attribution. And so recent a print — tsk, tsk.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/22360/pro-abortion-fanatic-presented-thought-experiment-ben-shapiro
There is no pat answer to this question. I would never be able to take out a container of a 1000 frozen embryos with one hand (and there is no such container in one place), but I could drag or maybe carry the child out and then get help to save the container. A person should save the one mostly likely to survive, which is the child. And to say that pro lifers never answer this question is stupid, as they do it all the time as physicians and fire fighters.
So there’s no misunderstanding, I was referring to Bob One’s plagiarism (see link). The link also answers his borrowed hypothetical.
I swear I can’t stop laughing at Gravey’s response.
I meant people in the link said stupid things, not you.
Bob One, first of all people who have inhaled a lot smoke cannot scream. Secondly, if the embryos are in a jar, and not frozen, they are already dead, so you get as fast as you can out of the building unless you actually see the young man. Then you drag him out with you unless it seriously endangers your life, and you would both be lost. I was on a triage. Luckily I never had to use it — just drilled for disasters.
You would probably hear the boy, though, because he most likely would be coughing.
I must say, though, I prefer gravey’s version. (Laughter.)
My brother lives in San Bernardino. He has never heard Bishop Barnes mention or talk about Pro-Life. He has never given a sermon or homily or written about Pro-Life, ever, ever, ever. All Barnes talks about is “Seamless Garment.” That is his way of laying the foundation for accepting “same sex marriage,” “homosexuality,” etc. Get the picture!
If we believe that life begins at conception, then embryos are considered, by us, to be human beings. Not all people believe that. The short story that I posted, a paraphrase of another person’s comments about abortion, is mainly meant as a springboard for discussion about our faith, not the facts of the case.
“Since” not “if.” As to the “springboard for discussion,” your paraphrase was posited by the original only a week earlier, for the express purpose of shutting down the pro-life argument. Shapiro (link) eviscerated it. Nice try though.