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Mass for LifePontifical North American CollegeJanuary 23, 2012Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien

Some years ago, the Associated Press published two stories on the same day,

stories which then appeared in newspapers throughout the United States. Each of-

fers a different way of speaking about unborn life: First story--

“A thirteen year-old panda gave birth to a cub at San Diego Zoo, but a

second baby died in the womb, officials said Wednesday.”

The second story:

“A cancer-ravaged woman, robbed of consciousness by a stroke, has

given birth after being kept on life support for three months to give

her fetus extra time to develop.”

There you have it, science class: Female pandas have babies. Female hu-

mans have fetuses!

The one glimmer of light emanating from the Scribes so hostile to Christ in

today’s Gospel, in their absurd and sacrilegious claim that that healings and good

works performed by Jesus are rooted in the power of the devil, is that, unlike most

enemies of the Church today, the Scribes do recognize the existence of the devil.

So, surely, does Jesus! He calls the devil a liar and the father of lies. In fact, in

John’s Gospel, he accuses his opponents of their belonging to the devil, their fa-

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ther, and that in their opposition to his teaching they are willingly carrying out the

devil’s desires (Jn. 8:44).

There is no need for us to demonize today’s proponents of abortion—nor do

I suggest this in any way. But it would be naïve to the extreme to deny, in Christ’s

words, that Satan as the ruler of this secular world, is inspiring his many unwitting

modern allies with a seductive, inner voice encouraging, for instance, ambiguous,

misleading and deceptive language to contradict natural reason and the teachings

of Christ’s Church:

· It’s not a baby, but a fetus.

· We’re not pro-abortion at all—we’re for freedom of choice.

· It’s not the killing of a human life, it’s the termination of a pregnancy.

· It’s not about contraception, sterilization and abortifacients, it’s about reduc-

ing health costs and ensuring access to the full range of preventive health

services to poorer women.

And should we be surprised that the same Satan who acts in the world solely

on the basis of hatred for God, rejoices thousands of times over daily, to find hu-

man accomplices who—out of unbridled selfishness—take advantage of desperate

and confused mothers to destroy that divine image in the unborn, obliterating yet

other images of the God he simply detests.

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And are they not also accomplices of the Evil One who in the inspired

thoughts of our Holy Father to us last Thursday, undermine the very foundations of

true religious freedom and:

· deny basic ethical principles derived from nature and nature’s God; who

· on the basis of extreme individualism promote notions of freedom detached

from moral truth; who

· in the name of separation of Church and State demand the Church remain

silent in our Nation’s discussion of the values which will shape our future;

who

· would reduce religious freedom simply to freedom of worship and deny con-

science rights when believers are forced to cooperate in intrinsically evil

practices; and finally, is not that subtle, seductive voice of evil compromise

at work in elected officials who

· fail to offer public witness to their faith, especially with regard to the great

moral issues of our time: respect for God’s gift of life, the protection of hu-

man dignity and the promotion of authentic human rights.

As Americans, as priests and seminarians, we join on this anniversary of

Roe v. Wade, hundreds and thousands of our brothers and sisters all across our

Country in crying out for the legal protection of unborn children. We claim, in the

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words of our Pope and our Vatican Council, that “there is no realm of worldly af-

fairs which can be withdrawn from the Creator and his dominion.”

At this moment we also join with the four or five thousand young people

who packed our Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for

Mass last night—and in several hours, the many more thousands of seminarians

and other young people who will overflow Washington’s Convention Center and

other houses of worship in our Nation’s Capital: as understandable as is sympathy

for baby pandas, for God’s sake, protect the lives of our unborn children!

In union with them and with Catholics and other life-respecting people

across our great Country, ours is this prayerful offering of that one Eucharistic Sac-

rifice of live and of life, pleading “that we, whom God has made stewards of cre-

ation, may remain faithful to this sacred trust, and constant in safeguarding the dig-

nity of every human life.