| “We must do all that we can to support the mother and to help her sustain the right to life of her child. To do otherwise is to go down a slippery slope and to relegate human beings to being no more than property, as in the antebellum South where people were sold as slaves. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now for any human being to think that human lives are properties that can be owned, traded, or destroyed. If the right exists for one person to terminate another human life, at what point is the line drawn? At what point do we withhold life-giving medicine, at what point do we justify genocide, at what point do we allow murder?
As a Church, we must continue to fight against the terrible sin of abortion. And we must also look at the economic, social, and psychological reasons that cause people to seek an abortion. Poverty is one of the most common of these causes. As Catholics, we must do all we can to eradicate these driving forces behind abortion.
All this demands that we change hearts. It is important to educate others but unless we change hearts, the pro-life movement will not succeed. It is the beat of our hearts that is the source of each person’s life breath. It is the sharing of our hearts that unites us in love. It is the depth of feeling in our hearts what is morally right that encourages us to hope. A heartless person, a heartless policy, a heartless society is dead, without life and love. Our challenge is to change hearts in order to change culture. And we can only face that challenge by grounding our efforts in prayer, prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Bishop Wall, Bishop Baldacchino and I agreed to join in consecrating our dioceses to the hearts of Jesus and Mary so that all of New Mexico would be supported by divine grace in our efforts to promote and protect human life.
Therefore, I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to join me in consecrating ourselves, our archdiocese, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, asking for the graces we need to protect, support and honor human life. In doing so, I am confident that we will move our State of New Mexico to have a change of heart when it comes to protecting human life in the womb and beyond. May God bless us all now and always. Your servant in Christ, Most Reverend John C. Wester Archbishop of Santa Fe.”
Send a “THANK YOU” email to Archbishop Wester: vg@archdiosf.org. |
