Our Actions and Decisions Must Reflect the Dignity of the
Human Person
This is an edited version
of the homily Bishop Samuel Aquila delivered at the
Catholic Legislative Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy
Spirit in Bismarck on January 18,
2007.
In the Responsorial Psalm, we
prayed the words, “Here am I, Lord, I come to do your
will.” We acknowledged the presence of God in our
lives and we acknowledged that we are called as a Catholic
people to do the will of God. We cried out with the
psalmist, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart” (Ps 40:9). These
words speak to us of who we are as a people of faith - we
are called to live our faith in the world, our hearts and
our minds are truly to be formed by God, we recognize the
presence of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, his only Son.
Thus all of our decisions, all of our works, all of our
actions flow from these truths.
Recently I saw the film “Blood Diamond”. It is
not a film for the weak hearted, for it is violent and
disturbing. Yet, the film asks important questions. The
story tells of the trafficking of diamonds in and out of
Africa and the brutality which takes place among the
peoples. During the film, the question is asked,
“What has happened to Africa?” One character
replies “It seems as if God has abandoned
Africa.” This is not the answer of faith, for it is
not that God has abandoned Africa, but rather it is
humanity who has abandoned God. Humanity does not wish to
recognize God in their midst. Humanity wants to create God
in its own image and likeness.
As a Church we are called to be a people who speak
consistently to the dignity of the human person from the
moment of his or her conception until natural death and to
recognize that this reality is the lens through which we
must look and the one that must guide all of our decisions
-- that human life has dignity bestowed on it, not by man
or woman, but by God. Each and every one of us is created
in the image and likeness of God, every human being from
the moment of his or her conception. It is precisely that
dignity, that truth, which we must recognize as Catholics
who are involved in politics, as Catholics who speak to
society and to the world.
Catholics, no matter what field of life we work in, cannot
abandon God. We cannot leave God at the door when we walk
into the Legislature, but rather we must allow the truth of
God and the truth of the dignity of the human person to
guide us in every decision we make. With each law or bill
we consider, we must be, first, a people who recognize that
there is the inherent dignity of human life that is
bestowed by God and that can never be violated.
Once we begin to be the ones who determine what is good or
what is evil, once we begin to be the ones who determine
which human person has dignity and which one doesn't, we
will see, as shown in the film “Blood Diamond,”
what happens to a society. In that society the lust for
power, the lust for money, the lust for control overtakes
and guides the human heart with the result that violence
and murder govern the society.
Recently, there were raids on the Swift meat processing
plants throughout our country. Archbishop Charles Chaput
rightly spoke out against those raids as he addressed the
whole question of immigration. He received an e-mail in
response from one of the faithful. The e-mail read,
“Sorry Bishop: No sympathy (from me) for the illegal
alien criminals arrested by ICE. In fact, I hope their
offspring starve to death. I do not pray for illegal
aliens, I pray for their victims. I have no problem with
God, and He has no problem with me. I hope their families
starve to death, and it’s crap like this that drives
Catholics away from the Church.”
One is truly stunned, not only by the hardness of heart
revealed in the crassness of his language, but even more so
that someone would have the presumption and the arrogance
to say, “I have no problem with God and He has no
problem with me.” To say that “I hope that
their offspring starve to death” shows that the one
who wrote this e-mail has no concept of God or the dignity
of the human person as revealed by Jesus Christ in the
Gospels. The two great commandments do not guide his heart
or conscience, and his conscience is either erroneous or
dead.
We must ask ourselves what hardens the human heart so much
that it refuses to recognize the dignity of the human
person, whether it is the dignity of those in Africa, the
dignity of illegal aliens, the dignity of the person on
death row or the dignity of the unborn child. As Catholics
and as Americans, we must discover once again what our
forefathers knew in their hearts: The dignity of the human
person is bestowed by God, and regardless of which side of
the aisle we sit on in the Legislature, we must stand for
that dignity and that truth! We must be a people who
witness to it no matter what the cost. To deny or remove
God from political discourse only opens the door to the
destruction of the human person and to violence such as
war, genocide, murder, abortion, and euthanasia as so
evidenced throughout the last century and at the beginning
of this new century.
We must ask ourselves, “What allows a person who
believes in God to write about illegal immigrants in this
manner and blithely go along thinking it is okay? Or to
support the so-called right to abortion, even while
possibly personally opposed, and blithely go along thinking
it is okay? Or to cheer when a capital punishment sentence
is given and blithely go along thinking it is okay?”
Only a person who has rejected the basic premise of the
dignity of the human person can take such stances. Only a
person, whether consciously or unconsciously, who takes the
position that “I will determine the dignity of human
life” can speak about illegal immigrants in such a
manner as we have seen above, support so-called abortion
rights or cheer when capital punishment occurs. As faithful
Catholics we acknowledge that the gravest attacks against
the dignity of human life are those that destroy innocent
human life as in abortion, euthanasia and genocide.
As a Catholic people we must be those who mean the words
that we speak and pray, “Here am I, Lord, I come to
do your will.” Those words must form not only our
hearts, but our words and our actions. We must embrace the
meaning and act upon the words we pray in the Our Father,
“thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Every act of violence that attacks an innocent human person
from the moment of conception to natural death is against
the will of God and rejects the inherent dignity of the
human person. Every Catholic politician must recognize and
act upon this truth to be a faithful Catholic. Our
forefathers and foremothers, mostly Christians, recognized
this truth in the founding documents of our country, and we
have sorely lost this truth today because of our denial of
God.
I encourage you, my brothers and sisters, as we continue
with the celebration of the Eucharist this evening and
throughout this session of the Legislature of North Dakota,
to stand in faith before God. First of all, recognize the
dignity of the human person. Then, in all of the questions
that come before you, search your hearts and ask
yourselves, “Do I truly mean the words of the
psalmists which I prayed this evening, ‘To do your
will, O my God, is my delight, and your law is within my
heart’?”
Second, know that we can be assured by the words given to
us by the author of Hebrews in the first reading. My
dearest sisters and brothers, when you open your hearts to
the Lord, he will pray for you. Let the words of Hebrews
speak to you. Jesus is always able to save those who
approach God. He lives forever to make intercession for us.
Jesus is praying for each and every one of us that we may
do the will of the Father. When we pray the Our Father
during this Eucharist and pray the words, “Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven” let us mean
those words and believe that Jesus intercedes for us.
Finally, let us be a people who stand with our God no
matter what the cost. We too may, at times, share in the
cross of Jesus Christ because of our Catholic faith. It was
precisely Jesus’ faithfulness to the Father and his
love for the Father that brought him to the cross. It was
the hardness of hearts of men and women who rejected that
message that led to his crucifixion. May we too have hearts
like Jesus that are willing to say, “Here am I, Lord,
I come to do your will.”
During the upcoming season of Lent, I encourage all
Catholics, and especially Catholic politicians and those in
public service, to search their hearts on their obedience
to the will of the Father. Let us pray that we may have the
fortitude, not to follow the positions of some political
party or some thought that wishes to deny God or remove God
from all civil discourse in order to determine the dignity
of the human person, but rather to be people who truly seek
the common good in the light of the truths that our
forefathers and foremothers held to be so evident and are
reflected in both reason and faith. Let us pray that every
person in our country and throughout the world who does not
believe or act upon these truths may have a change of heart
and mind. May every person come to recognize that the
inherent dignity of human life is bestowed, not by man or
woman, but by God alone. May we experience more fully the
truth of God’s love for us, receive his love and
extend it to others.
