Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi, bishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and head of the Doctrine of Faith at the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM), offers readers of Exaudi his weekly article entitled “Abortion, another barbarity.”
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LOOK
Our beautiful and beloved Mexico, which we boasted so much about, is falling from one barbarity to another.
We were terrified that the municipal president of Chilpancingo, just six days after taking office, was decapitated, and his head placed on the hood of his truck. Murders and throat-cuttings are multiplying in various parts. Several families from Chiapas have had to flee to Guatemala to escape the armed groups that rule the region. Many people have fled to the United States or elsewhere, requesting political asylum, because criminal gangs take their property and even their lives. High-impact crimes and so-called common crimes are not decreasing as one would wish; the news is full of red notes. It seems that organized crime has established itself in the country. Is this not barbaric? And we declare ourselves Christians, among Catholics and Protestants! Our facts show the opposite.
The party in power sweeps everything away, returning to a hegemonic and absolutist power of other times. Since they have a majority in the federal congress and in almost all state congresses, they do what they want. They are destroying the autonomy of the judicial power and throwing out many judges who, after so many years of study and work, did not come out positive in a lucky draw. With the fallacy that the majority of voters favored them in various positions, they deduce that our people support them in everything they decide. Isn’t this barbaric?
More and more local legislatures are decriminalizing abortion, because the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation has so determined. Perhaps they are paying for their sin! With the argument of not criminalizing women who abort, because they say they can do whatever they want with their bodies, they do not take into account the natural right of the conceived to life. It is a human being who is killed, even if it has been conceived for a few seconds. It is an innocent and defenseless being, not a criminal, who is cruelly eliminated. It is not religion, but science itself that affirms that there is already human life not until the twelfth week, but from the beginning of gestation. The majority of legislators are believers in God, but they do not care about going against the fifth commandment that orders not to kill, but rather they obey party orders, and if they do not conform to them, they lose power and economic income. They betray their faith, they sell their conscience. We are heading towards the moral abyss. Is this not barbaric?
DISCERN
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Declaration on Human Dignity, categorically states:
The Church never ceases to recall that the dignity of every human being has an intrinsic character and is valid from the moment of conception until natural death. Precisely the affirmation of such dignity is the indispensable prerequisite for the protection of a personal and social existence, and also the necessary condition for fraternity and social friendship to be realized among all the peoples of the earth.
On the basis of this intangible value of human life, the ecclesiastical magisterium has always spoken out against abortion. In this regard, St. John Paul II writes: Among all the crimes that man can commit against life, procured abortion has characteristics that make it particularly serious and ignominious. Today, however, the perception of its gravity has been progressively weakened in the conscience of many. The acceptance of abortion in our mentality, in our customs and in the law itself is a clear sign of a very dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is increasingly incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. In the face of such a serious situation, the courage to face the truth and to call things by their name is needed more than ever, without giving in to compromises of convenience or the temptation of self-deception. In this regard, the Prophet’s reproach resounds: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Is 5:20). In the case of abortion, we see the spread of ambiguous terminology, such as “interruption of pregnancy,” which tends to conceal its true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon itself is a symptom of a malaise in the conscience. But no word can change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct elimination, however it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, which goes from conception to birth.
The children who are going to be born are the most defenseless and innocent of all, and today they want to deny their human dignity in order to do with them what they want, taking their lives and promoting legislation so that no one can prevent it.
It must therefore be stated with total force and clarity, also in our time, that this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of every human right. It presupposes the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in every situation and at every stage of his or her development. Likewise, it is an end in itself and never a means to resolve other difficulties. If this conviction falls, there are no solid and permanent foundations left for defending human rights, which would always be subject to the circumstantial conveniences of the powerful in power. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of any human life, but if we also look at it from the perspective of faith, every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out for vengeance before God and is configured as an offense to the Creator of man. The generous and courageous commitment of St. Teresa of Calcutta in defense of every conceived child deserves mention here (No. 47).
ACT
Let us defend the human life of the newly conceived, even if the powers of this perverse world impose laws to the contrary. Human sense, science and Christian faith invite us to defend the right to human life at any stage.
