Weekly Letter from the Pastor

Dear Fellow Parishioners of St. Benedict:

October is pro-life month. During this very challenging time in our country and our church, it is always essential for us to get back to the very essence of who we are: human persons, created in the image and likeness of God, called to a personal relationship with him, and called to eternal life.

That might sound very theological, and perhaps a bit esoteric, but it is the core of what it means to be human. With that come certain rights – rights that the Founding Fathers of our country deemed “inalienable” as they forged the Declaration of Independence 242 years ago. We have been engaged in a struggle to secure and sanctify during the course of our history. “Four-score and seven years” later we were “engaged in a great civil war” to settle the fundamental question over the dignity of enslaved Americans and our moral obligation to emancipate them from the unnatural bonds of that chattel. Today, we remain embroiled in the national debate over the rights of the preborn over and against the rights of their mother’s to control their own body and biological processes. It is riveting, heart-wrenching, and deeply polarizing. This is, as we know, no easy or quick solution. Now, forty-five years after the liberation of abortion rights laws on the national level through the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, virtually all of us have been affected by abortion in one way or another. As time goes on, the divide gets deeper and the extremes get more and more entrenched.

At the same time, we are struggling with the rights and dignity of children to safety, food, shelter, and the opportunities gained through education. Children have the right to not be violently and indiscriminately separated from their parents, either at a border crossing, or as the result of economic or familial hardship. We struggle with the rights of people to immigrate, to seek a better life for themselves and for their families. We must pay some special attention to those who suffer the effects of war and terrorism throughout the world.

The failure of our church and of our society to protect people from physical and sexual abuse and harassment is becoming a global issue. The #Metoo movement sweeping our country and the world, is exposing the systemic denial of the personal dignity of others as they are objectified to mere objects of another’s lusts and gratification. Human trafficking, prostitution, and the proliferation of pornography, systemically destroy the fundamental dignity of humanity one person at a time.

Access to adequate and sustainable food, potable water, and protective housing, should be a non-issue in the twenty-first century, but sadly more people live in poverty today than live in security and comfort.

Medical care – even the most basic first aid – is lacking in much of the world, and even here in our own country, where neither the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, nor its subsequent modifications and repeal, have done much to provide adequate care for many people.

Person’s at the end stages of life, when most vulnerable and in need of compassion and dignity, are being shuttled off to cold institutions and handled more as commodities than people. We do our best to “make them comfortable” while doing our best to expedite and sterilize the dying process.

Yes, this is pro-life month. Let us continue, then, to pray and work for the rights and dignity of all people – from the moment of conception until natural death.

Blessings and peace,
Fr. Garry