Way disabled treated shows belief about human dignity, says archbishop
By Julie Asher
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Every child and adult with special needs, every
unwanted unborn child and every person who is “poor, weak, abandoned
or homeless” is “an icon of God’s face and a vessel of
his love,” said Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.
“How we treat these persons — whether we revere them and welcome
them, or throw them away in distaste — shows what we really believe
about human dignity, both as individuals and as a nation,” he
said Jan. 22 in a keynote address at a pro-life conference in Washington.
He was the keynote speaker at the 13th annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference
on Life at Georgetown University. It is named for the late Cardinal John
O’Connor, archbishop of New York from 1984 to 2000.
The student-run conference drew more than 700 young people and adults.
The agenda included sessions on topics such as the international abortion
situation; media and the pro-life movement; abortion and natural law;
adoption’s
role in the pro-life movement; and ethical controversies in evolving
medical technologies.
The day ended with a discussion on pro-life legislation with members of
the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
In his keynote, Chaput talked about “the kind of people
we’re becoming and what we can do about it,” illustrating
his theme by outlining the current situation facing unborn babies shown
by genetic testing to have Down syndrome.
He said he has friends who have children with disabilities, in particular
Down syndrome. He noted that about 5,000 children with the genetic disorder
are born in the U.S. each year, and currently there are about 400,000 people
in the country with Down syndrome.
But that population “may soon dwindle,” he said. “And
the reason why it may decline illustrates, in a vivid way, a struggle
with the American soul. That struggle will shape the character of our
society in the decades to come.”
Prenatal testing today can detect 95 per cent of the pregnancies that
have a strong risk the child will be born with Down syndrome, he said.
Studies show more than 80 per cent of unborn babies diagnosed with
it are aborted “because
of a flaw in one of their chromosomes — a flaw that’s neither
fatal nor contagious, but merely undesirable.”
“I’m not suggesting that doctors hold back vital information
from parents. Nor should they paint an implausibly upbeat picture of life
with a child who has a disability,” Chaput said. But
he suggested expectant parents hear from parents who already have special-needs
children, not just from doctors and genetic counsellors.
“They deserve to know that a child with Down syndrome can love, laugh,
learn, work, feel hope and excitement, make friends and create joy for
others,” he said.
Raising such a child, he acknowledged, “can be demanding. It always involves some degree of suffering,” as his friends have experienced.
“The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs
is never between some imaginary perfection or imperfection. . . . The
real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between
love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear,” Chaput said.
That also is the choice society faces “in deciding which human lives
we will treat as valuable, and which we will not,” he said.
“Abortion kills a child; it wounds a precious part of a woman’s
own dignity and identity; and it steals hope. That’s why it’s
wrong. That’s why it needs to end. That’s why we march.”
Quoting Jesuit Father John Courtney Murray, he said, “Anyone
who really believes in God must set God, and the truth of God, above
all other considerations.”
So “Catholic public officials who take God seriously cannot support
laws that attack human dignity without lying to themselves, misleading
others and abusing the faith of their fellow Catholics,” Chaput said.
“Catholic doctors who take God seriously cannot do procedures, prescribe
drugs or support health policies that attack the sanctity of unborn children
or the elderly; or that undermine the dignity of human sexuality and the
family,” he continued. “Catholic citizens who take God seriously
cannot claim to love their church, and then ignore her counsel on vital
public issues that shape our nation’s life.”
As a nation, he said, the United States depends “on a moral people
shaped by their religious faith.” With faith “animating its
people and informing its public life, America becomes something alien and
hostile to the very ideals it was founded on,” he added.
Chaput warned Catholics “to wake up from the illusion
that the America we now live in . . . is somehow friendly to our faith.”
“Changing the course of American culture seems like such a huge task,” he
said. “But St. Paul felt exactly the same way. Redeeming and
converting a civilization has already been done once. It can be done
again. But we need to understand that God is calling you and me to
do it.”
Copyright (c) 2012 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
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