Threats to human life are constantly in the news these days. We have wars abroad and shootings in our cities, schools, and shopping malls. Added to that is the ongoing holocaust of abortion and the newer abomination of so-called physician-assisted suicide. The choice between life and death recently appeared on the ballots of some of our states and, unfortunately, death won in the majority.
Pope St. John Paul II’s vision of building a Culture of Life seems more distant now than it was when he first used the term almost 35 years ago. We are no longer only killing babies. Now we are toying with nuclear war while we are killing the elderly, disabled, lonely, mentally ill, and maybe even the homeless and drug addicts.
Where is the fire of hope that Pope St. John Paul II kindled so many years ago?
Abortion
We have a long battle of a much different sort raging here in the United States, and its casualties far exceed those of war. Since 1973, the year of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decisions, over 66 million babies have died at their mother’s request or by their consent. Worldwide, that number since 1980 is over 1.75 billion! Thankfully, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, but with all the brouhaha that ensued over abortion access, there were still an estimated 1,037,000 abortions in the U.S. in 2023—the year after the decision was handed down by the court. That’s an increase of 11 percent since 2020.
Overturning Roe was the right thing to do, but it didn’t have the effect of saving babies’ lives as many of us had hoped.
Seventeen states have voted on access to abortion since the Dobbs Decision. Prior to the November 2024 general election, the so-called “right” to abortion prevailed in all seven states where it appeared on a ballot. That tide turned on November 5 in the General Election when protecting babies prevailed in three of the ten states where the “right” to kill them was up for a vote. Those states were Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, but the margin of victory was far too slim.
Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia
John Paul II often mentioned abortion and euthanasia in the same sentence. He saw it as “one of the more alarming symptoms of the ‘culture of death’, which is advancing above all in prosperous societies, marked by an attitude of excessive preoccupation with efficiency and which sees the growing number of elderly and disabled people as intolerable and too burdensome.” (Evangelium Vitae no. 64) The declaration Dignitas Infinita states that euthanasia is “unique in how it utilizes a mistaken understanding of human dignity to turn the concept of dignity against life itself.” (no. 51) Pope Francis has called it “bad compassion.”
The first time John Paul II used the terms culture of life, and culture of death was in 1991 in his encyclical Centesimus Annus, written to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII social encyclical Rerum Novarum.
In reflecting on the dangers of consumerism and destruction of the environment, John Paul II reminded us of another “ecology” of even greater importance. He wrote that “too little effort is made to safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic ‘human ecology.’” (No. 38)
The “moral conditions for an authentic human ecology” are hard to find in a culture of death that votes in favor of abortion and authorizes doctors to end people’s lives at their request. A culture of death reveals a culture without hope.
Tragically, in Great Britain, Parliament has recently voted 330 to 275 in favor of legalizing physician-assisted suicide. 76% of the general population and 80% of healthcare workers have indicated that they believe “terminally ill patients should be given the freedom and protection to take the choice,” so the future may already be sealed.
The bishops of England and Wales are calling on Catholics to continue to voice their opposition as the bill moves into committee for more detailed scrutiny. They have repeatedly warned that the “right to die can easily become a duty to die.” We can see how that slippery slope has progressed in other countries that have passed similar legislation, beginning with The Netherlands. It has become the fifth leading cause of death in Canada.
John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus, wrote that we need to “destroy” the social structures that keep us from living in accordance with the truth—things like killing babies in the womb and the sick and elderly—and “replace them with more authentic forms of living in community.” To build forms that “safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic ‘human ecology.’”
But how?
True hope, love, and joy
Voltaire, toward the end of his novel Candide—having been faced with all kinds of horrors—realized the best thing to do was to simply tend one’s own garden. That sounds far too simplistic, but in both gardening and raising children, the young plants we tend to the most grow to be the most productive.
Where is the hope? It is in being attentive to our children, distancing them from the corrupting cultural influences that enter our homes through technology, and nurturing them in faith through good education and prayer. That is the greatest weapon in the battle against the culture of death.
The Lord of Life has already defeated death and those who promote it have already lost. That is our joy, and joy in a family is life-giving. Optimism is also life-giving. It generates hope, from which flows life and love. A culture of death can never survive in the light of that truth.
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It seems more than a little hypocritical to write an article about the “culture of death” and refrain from including any mention of Trump’s involvement with Elon Musk. Elon Musk is very pro-IVF and has fathered nearly all of his 12 children via IVF. Musk is also pro-eugenics. Furthermore, his Neuralink program involves implanting computer chips into human brains which sounds like something Nazi scientists would do. Elon Musk has an army of sycophants more than willing to do his bidding. With the advancement of AI the Singularity is likely to occur within the next decade. We are entering into dangerous times with our ears plugged up and our hands over our eyes and you’re still focused on the same old fight while your true enemies are ushering in the Great Reset.
It does not help matters to agree to promote the ridiculous notion of what pseudo-scientists call a Singularity in terms of computer processing. AI does not exist, never has existed, never can exist, and never will exist. Intelligence is not a product of electron flow on a circuit board.
Give it up Edward. Just because you say the same thing 800,000 times, that doesn’t magically make it true.
Denying sanity and rationality does not make an insane idea, created out of materialist religion hatred, a rational possibility.
The singularity will be more than AI. It is the melding of robotics with human flesh. Which is already happening. Not only via replacement limbs, but also in Elon Musk’s Nazi doctor aka Neuralink experiments. Look it up. Read about the monkeys that were tortured and died in the most horrific manner due to failed Neuralink experiments.
The first human patient has already experienced setbacks. But that isn’t stopping them from trial recruiting in Canada.
A devastating future awaits us all as the technocrats usher in the Great Reset.
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/
Please don’t be foolish and submissive to anti-religious bigotry. An attempt to do something stupid and impossible does not make it any less stupid and impossible. Must I insist on my credentials, which should not be necessary? I have a Masters in electrical engineering and a doctorate in physics. I used to design central processors for a living. I know how computers work right down to the atomic level.
Electrical circuits do not think. They cannot make value judgments any more than a light bulb can contemplate the beauty of a work of art it illuminates. Your television set is more sophisticated than the televisions of 60 years ago by an order of tens of thousands. Do you think they are the slightest bit closer to being able to contemplate what the talking heads are saying on the screen?
The stupid notion of electrical circuits thinking is a product of religion hatred. Religion haters have always needed to find alternative ways to explain consciousness within existence that does not involve a soul, so they always concoct materialist theories that have the effect of trivializing human existence. It helps them to rationalize exterminating the unfit as well if they don’t seem to materially function very well. Computers and electrical circuits are an easy sell because they seem so amazing to the gullible. But they’re not. They are actually simple machines with millions of layers of simplicity, which makes the whole pile of junk seem amazing. I am aware of the simple bioengineering that helps stimulate nerve cells to stimulate muscular reactions among the handicapped. Any computer technician could design these logic chips in a matter of minutes. But no electrical circuit will ever have consciousness. Man cannot create God.
singularity is “likely” to occur, lol. incorrect, the singularity is an absolute inevitability. it is our destiny as a species. the next steps in our evolution is to break out of this biological shell. although you are a bit too optimistic when you say “within the next decade”.
It’s absolute childish nonsense.
You are proposing very old heresies while thinking of being innovative.
The Christian answer is yes we recognize the yearn to be more and better and perfect but it won’t be accomplished in this life. Our destiny is a “transhumanism”, the perfect body and state of the soul in the next life as we are in union with God. It never ended well when humans tried to do it in this life. Never. But we never learn from history…
a Having 12 babies instead of having them aborted seems to be exceedingly pro-life, almost Biblical!
b Only the first 5 boys were conceived through IVF the rest were not. See Newsweek:
https://www.newsweek.com/entertainment/celebrity-news/elon-musks-12-children-why-he-has-so-many-1987776
c Even if all 12 had been conceived through IVF instead of aborting them again seems pretty Pro-life
d Women who decide to have babies and become mothers through IVF or surrogacy (as some of Musk women did) rather than remain without babies are an example to those mothers who choose to kill their babies in the womb rather than having them.
e Anyone who has gone blind through macular degeneration or glaucoma would be very grateful to have some technology implanted in his brain that would allow him to see again.
How very pro-eugenics of you Herr Oscar!
the embryos discarded are a life
For every IVF child born alive there are many who are aborted, or die in the process (knowingly), or kept frozen until “disposed” or used again. IVF is always morally wrong not just by the way children are conceived but also because their right to life is not recognized. You can’t be pro life and pro IVF.
Pray for him and write him a letter in charity explaining the moral defect of IVF.
The term “assisted suicide” is deceptive.
The Associated Press, in an Oct. 12, 2024 report, found that virtually all of Canada’s [so-called] Medical Aid in Dying cases “are actually euthanasia, with a doctor or nurse practitioner giving the fatal injection”.
Why the pretense?
Let’s stop with laws, government and moral hand-wringing as the solution/response to the culture of death in our culture. Instead, let every Catholic bishop in the USA state most emphatically that EVERY parish in the USA will be a safe haven for any woman who is pregnant, in crisis and considering an abortion. Let there be signs posted everywhere to this effect:
“Pregnant & considering an abortion? Before you do, contact any Catholic parish and we WILL help you with whatever you need.”
When that is our response, Catholic teaching on the matter will mean something.
This is absolutely logically sound policy to begin resolving the hypocrisy of the Church on abortion. It would come, however, with some disruption of normal parish life, even if parishes in most places would not likely have many applicants, if any. Also, would not that parish be indirectly bonding itself to adopt the child and provide support to age 18.
Jim Adams: The Catholic Church just about wrote the book on care for ophans. Religious communities were built around this great act of charity.
Deacon is right, “Jesus loves you and we will help you” but it would likely have to be transitory to get the child into a decent family.
Our parish is a lot of ole’ folks, many of whom can barely make it to mass, but there are some younger ones.
What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Ah yes, the “culture of death”. This is one of my all time favorite jokes. Who is the group celebrating the brutal torture and execution of an innocent man again?
Show us how little you know about Catholic beliefs and theology without just saying, “I don’t know anything about Catholic beliefs and theology.”
If we turn from Christ, the author of life who created all things and keeps them in existence we by nature of the act turn toward death as the answer to our perceived unresolvable life issues.
Abortion
Euthanasia
Post-Conciliarism
The three ills from which the modern world is suffering.
You left contraceptives and Viagra off your list.
Andrew if you load up your self into the Singularity and then Carl Olson blocks you from reading and commenting on CWR for good, we’d never hear from you ever after via here and then we’d never be able to identify that it’s really you anywheres else. Surely that would indicate a retrogression via tech no matter how ingenious or futureized.
Knowall above – Who you callin’ ole?
Some of those “ole'” folks have resources, know-how and willingness to help.