Better politics
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said: “We justify our indifference for the poor by living our lives as if they do not exist. We ignore the poor and do not allow their pleas to touch our hearts. Let us accept the challenge of emerging from this crisis with an economy that works for all. Let us engage in ‘a better kind of politics’ by entering into dialogue with elected officials, calling them to an authentic politics rooted in the dignity of the person that promotes the common good.”
An urgent human rights challenge
In The Washington Post of September 3, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, wrote: “Abortion is the most pressing human rights challenge of our time. Can we speak softly when the blood of 60 million innocent American children cries out for justice? When their mothers are condemned to silence, secretly suffering the injuries of the culture of ‘choice’? We need to speak strongly for these mothers, and of our obligations to provide new options for women facing crisis pregnancies. You cannot be a good Catholic and support a government-approved right to kill innocent human beings. The answer to crisis pregnancies is not violence but love, for mother and child.”
Interior deafness
In his Angelus address last Sunday Pope Francis spoke of interior deafness: “We all have ears, but very often we are not able to hear. Why is this? Brothers and sisters, there is an interior deafness that we can ask Jesus to touch and heal today. It is interior deafness, which is worse than physical deafness, because it is the deafness of the heart. Taken up with haste, by so many things to say and do, we do not find time to stop and listen to those who speak to us. We run the risk of becoming impervious to everything and not making room for those who need to be heard.”
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)