St. Anastasia Catholic Church Troy, MI Fr. Steven Wertanen 31 March 2019 Fourth Homily in a series of five. From the St. Anastasia Lenten theme for 2019 Mass: God Healing the Human Family! The title of Week four is: Dignity of the Human Family Part 1 Being in the image of God, the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 357 Made in God s image, we are all God s children. Made in God s image, we are all God s children. We are all made in the image and likeness of God! You are made in the image and likeness of God! Everyone is made in the image and likeness of God! This means everyone every human being! This is true no matter of a person s race, sex, age, whether elderly or unborn. Whether mentally or physically handicapped. The prisoner, the refugee. Your greatest enemy has human dignity! Every person has dignity. And no human being should have their dignity or freedom compromised! Scripture makes it clear that each and every person is made in the image and likeness of God. This means that human beings reflect God. For example, in our ability to be creative, to make free rational decisions and to love. Catholic Social Teaching says that since God is reflected in every person, the dignity of every human person must be respected. Because human dignity comes from God, human dignity is not something that we can bestow or take away from another person. It is intrinsic to our existence. Failure to recognize the human dignity of each and every person opens the door to all manner of violence and injustice. We believe that every person is precious, that people are more important than things, and that the measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person. When we see people trying to justify treating other people in a certain way because, they re so small! They re not born yet! They are not self-aware, yet! Their skin is another color. They re so disabled! Whenever we see people being spoken of more like objects, then we know that the principle of the radical equality of every human person is being violated.
And this human dignity starts from the moment of a person s existence. From the moment that you are created, from the moment that you are conceived, all the way until the end of your life. Do we treat our neighbor with that human dignity? Human dignity is a gift from God. We didn t earn it. But, we deserve to be treated with the dignity that God created us in His image and likeness. Do we really see ourselves and others as a divine gift? We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. Pope John Paul II said, Life, especially human life, belongs to God; whoever attacks human life attacks God s very self. Our Lenten theme is Mass: God Healing the Human Family. This theme came about as a prayerful response to some news that greatly disturbed me when I was on vacation in January: the passing of New York Law The Reproductive Health Act which made late-term abortions more available, removed protections for an infant born alive during an abortion and stating that terminating a pregnancy is a fundamental right. Adding to my dismay was the order by the governor to have the Freedom Tower in New York City be lit up in pink to celebrate the passing of this law and the hundreds of people cheering in the chamber. Then, to discover that other states have been strongly considering passing similar laws. New York was not the exception! It looks to be the trend! Soon after this news, while still on vacation, I had a pop-up headline brought up on my cell phone: Black doll hung by a noose at Eastern Michigan University. That s what made me think, Can I assume that my parishioners know Catholic teaching on the Dignity of the Human person? Can I assume that we all know that racism and terminating a pregnancy is wrong? I m not a bold person. I think you can tell? I may fool you, but I really am an introvert. But, when I heard about the New York State law in January, I have to be honest, I was horrified! I have a way of understanding the many ways of thinking, right or wrong, of how people look at this issue but, I am at a point of truly not understanding where the thinking of our country is at and now is not the time to be silent. Thus, the theme Mass: God healing the Human family! Over these past couple of months, I ve had meetings about how to address and understand this issue by consulting the parish council, the staff, my leadership team and have spent many hours with Fr. Jake and Deacon Tom. To embrace this Lenten theme, we are called to be honest with ourselves where we may lack the full understanding of the Dignity of the Human Person and know that we can turn to the
Mass for healing and the grace to understand the Church s position on human dignity given to us by God. So, where is our society today? Peter Singer, a world-renowned moral philosopher at Princeton University, says that the value of a newborn baby as a human being is when it has characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness. In other words, since infants lack these characteristics, killing them, cannot be thought of as the same as human beings that have rationality, autonomy and selfconsciousness. This is where our society is leading in the direction that recognizing the dignity and value of a human being is only if it is has rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness. This isn t only Singer s opinion, in the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics, in 2012, there was an article defending what the authors call after-birth abortion. Also, there is a growing trend among people who defend legal abortion, this thought: They may admit that the unborn are technically human but, then, claim they are not persons. So, if not persons, they have no dignity or rights. But, think of this: We only question the personhood of someone, when we wish to harm them. We only question the personhood of someone, when we wish to harm them. From American slavery to the Nazi holocaust, the whole point of questioning the personhood of others was to deny them human rights. It s a technique used to exclude, rather than include human beings. All human beings are persons no exceptions! The growing trend in our society is to abandon the idea that all human life is of equal worth. Instead of cherishing the unborn as we do newborn, termination of their lives should apply to the unborn and the newborn. This philosophy is a clear example of the culture of death that Pope St. John Paul II warned us about. The Catholic Church stands, unwaveringly, on the side of life! The Church has always taught that the termination of the unborn is morally wrong. There are some who would say that this is not true. But, we can find from the first-century text, called the Didache, it states, You shall not procure abortion, nor destroy a newborn child. This teaching has not changed and is unchangeable. Our teaching comes from the human dignity that every human person has; that, they are made in the image and likeness of God, even from the first moment of their existence. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Dignitatis Personae declares, The body of a human being, from the very first stages of its existence, can never be reduced merely to a
group of cells the human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception. The science of embryology long ago recognized that at conception a new and distinct human being comes into existence. In other words, you, and all human life, begins as a single cell! If a fetus or unborn child is growing, then he or she must be alive. If an unborn child has human parents and human DNA, then he or she must be human. An unborn child is not a body part like skin cells or sperm or egg. Instead, he or she is an organism: a whole, intact individual being who, like the rest of us, will grow and develop with time, nutrients and the right environment. The unborn child is at the exact size and location he or she is supposed to be at that particular stage of human development. We ve all been through the same course of development is our own lives, no exceptions. Every one of us was conceived and grew through our proper stages as a human being. The logic is clear: if it is wrong to directly kill an innocent human being, then terminating a pregnancy is wrong because it directly kills an innocent human being. Pope John Paull II wrote: No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church. The termination of a pregnancy had been sold to us as a solution to our problems, but there are millions of women and men who have been wounded and even devastated by it. Believe me, I have heard from them and I sympathize with them and will always bring the compassion and mercy of God to them! Their healing will not come from ignoring this issue but, instead, from a clear affirmation of God s love in spite of our sins. For those who have been involved with an abortion procedure, please hear these beautiful words from John Paul II (and which I firmly embrace): Do not give into the discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the sacrament of reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can, with sure hope, entrust your child. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone s right to life. When we choose to target innocent human beings as an answer to our problems, we fail to love. We have to build up a culture of life in our hearts and minds, so that we, as a society, may come to view abortion as unthinkable.
For those who stand strong for pro-life issues, I thank you. Thank God for the grace, you have been given, to understand the human dignity and the preciousness of human life. You might say, Good, he is one of us! And I am. I believe, from my heart, everything that I have said and what the church teaches. But, I m also a sinner! And I know the love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness of God, offered to us to be forgiven, freed and redeemed! And so, I present myself here, today, out of great love and concern, to teach the truth of life and the compassion and forgiveness offered by Our Loving God. The Mass, as we have shared in the last three weeks, really is the Ultimate You re Not Alone! and it is, in the Mass, where God calls us together to heal His Human Family. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is for the ultimate healing of our soul. Where we may recognize where we may have fallen short in treating every human person with the Dignity given to them by God, it is God s greatest desire that we would be healed, redeemed and find freedom. Your life is always, always, always precious to God. You are always His beloved Sons and Daughters. You Are Not Alone! All life is precious, from conception to the end-of-life. Your soul is precious and important to God. May God heal us all, in our thoughts, minds, hearts, actions and past offenses. May we embrace the fullness of truth and embrace His offer of mercy for us and for all human beings. May God bless our country to embrace the truth and dignity of all human life.