My dear parishioners, grace and peace be yours in the Lord’s name! On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court abolished the abortion laws of all fifty states. The members of the Court, in an unprecedented and disturbing act of social engineering, wrenched the United States away from its Judeo-Christian tradition of reverence for human life. Many have called the court’s anti-life decision in Roe vs. Wade, a profoundly disturbing act of judicial arrogance.
 
Over 60 million voiceless unborn children have forfeited their lives to abortion in the ensuing decades. Some commentators claim that no one, including the justices themselves, could have foreseen the magnitude of the Courts Roe vs. Wade decision or its catastrophic personal and social consequences.
 
Within the past three decades, the novelty of social engineering has shifted to a national infatuation with genetic and medical engineering. The staggering complexity of interrelated life issues threatens to overwhelm hospital ethics boards and federal regulatory agencies. American law, by definition, is ill-suited as an instrument of meticulous control of all human activities. Cultural and religious ethicists of impeccable caliber are urgently needed. 
 
All too often, in our national legislature, moral judgment is confused with an individual's urge to generalize the merits of his particular experience and the values motivating him at the moment. Abortion—once considered an extreme medical remedy—has been so trivialized that its legislative advocates compare it to oral hygiene in significance. Our national legislature has no right to claim the last word over the dignity and lives of anyone—from the moment of natural conception to moment of natural death.
 
Presently no forum can match the uniformly potent moral and pastoral voice of the Catholic Church. As a divinely instituted authority under the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit, the teachings of the Church exist:  1.)  that its members may be clearly directed, and  2.)  that each nation of the world may be animated to give its citizens what is rightly due to them as human persons, especially the care and preservation of their lives!
 
The soundness of our nation depends on the forceful, yet peaceful, pro-active participation of Christian believers. We must articulate the incomparable dignity of man to our national legislators. We must witness to the reality of our profound relationship with the loving Father Who created us and graciously endowed us with the inalienable right to life, a right which admits of no compromise, a right incapable of being transferred, a right impossible to surrender—a right never to be stolen. Sincerely in the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Your pastor, Reverend Richard Barker