Respecting life in a time of war and scandals
This year, our annual Respect Life Month observance is informed and shaped by three significant events:
1. Our world continues to be rocked by the fallout of the horrendous attacks on America, launched on Sept. 11, 2001, by Osama Bin Laden and his co-conspirators. While our military has largely succeeded in stamping out the terrorist camps in Afghanistan, which served as a breeding ground for this madness, fierce debate has arisen both nationally and internationally about the next steps in the war on terrorism, especially about what action should be taken against Saddam Hussein and his repressive Iraqi regime.
2. Our Church remains stunned, shocked and outraged by the revelations of sexual abuse by a small percentage of priests and by the moral failure of Church leaders who too often seemingly placed the image of the Church and the avoidance of scandal before the protection of children.
3. Our nation is in the throes of an economic decline, exacerbated by the scandal of greedy corporate executives who violated their fiduciary responsibility to employees, investors and the general public. This betrayal of trust has shaken the confidence of the American people in the stock market and created an economic crisis.
As we seek answers to those perplexing problems, the values which underlie our Respect Life observance -- an unswerving belief in the sacred dignity of the human person, and the solidarity that can and must exist among the members of the human family -- should serve as sure and practical guideposts.
War and peace
First, in the face of the current national and international debate about the war on terrorism, it is critically important that we in the Catholic community seek to draw upon our carefully nuanced and track-proven teaching about war and peace.
In particular, we must let our voices be heard in the current debate about a pre-emptive unilateral United States strike against the regime in Iraq. There is no question about the fact that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who, for years, has violated the human rights of his own people and others, and defied repeated U.N. resolutions calling for unconditional arms inspections to protect against Iraqi development of chemical and biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction.
Hence, every effort must be made to ensure that he ceases his internal repression, ends his threats towards neighbors, stops any support for terrorism, abandons his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and complies with U.N. resolutions.
Stopping Iraq
However, in confronting Hussein, as Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican's foreign minister, has pointed out, "We cannot combat evil with another evil,...nor can we confuse justice with revenge."
Therefore, he concludes, we must "make sure that entire populations do not pay the price for the cruelty of those responsible for terrorist attacks," and we must weigh the possible repercussions of such attacks not only on Iraqi civilians, but also on regional and global stability.
Echoing the same concern, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has written President Bush on behalf of the bishops, stating that "given the precedence and risks involved, we find it difficult to justify extending the war on terrorism to Iraq, absent clear and accurate evidence of Iraqi involvement in the events of Sept. 11th or of an imminent attack of a grave nature."
Diplomacy first
Rather, the road we bishops and many in the international community advise our nation to travel is the difficult and often frustrating path of diplomacy, one which employs armed intervention only as a last resort and only after having developed broad international support.
Indeed, war should be considered a remedy of last resort because it risks so much. For the United States, those risks involve the death of soldiers, economic losses caused by the effect of soaring oil prices on a fragile stock market, the need to post thousands of troops in Iraq for many years and the strong possibility of creating legions of new terrorists who hate America.
In the Middle East, there is the risk of killing civilian populations not only in Iraq but also in Israel and the Palestinian territories, where people would likely suffer directly from Saddam Hussein's retaliatory strikes, as well as in their neighbors, especially Jordan and Syria, which would probably not be immune from the spread of contagion or radiation.
Given those serious risks, we bishops urge the President "to step back from the brink of war and help lead the world together to fashion an effective global response to Iraq's threats that conforms with traditional moral limits on the use of military force."
Church scandal
Second, in addressing the scandal of clergy sexual misconduct, we must recognize that this behavior is, as our Holy Father notes, "both a sin and a crime." It is an act of violence that misuses power, betrays trust and exploits the innocent.
Like other assaults on human life, such as abortion, euthanasia, domestic violence and capital punishment, child sexual abuse insults human dignity, poisons society and dishonors the Creator.
As a Church, then, we must not only teach that all of these acts are morally unacceptable but also strive to understand the causes of such violations of human dignity and find constructive approaches to prevent them. For example, to combat abortion, we must offer pregnancy counseling, foster care and adoption. To reject euthanasia, we must promote hospice and palliative care for the terminally ill. To cope with domestic violence, we must provide shelters, family counseling, respite care and stress management seminars.
And to address child sexual abuse, which is a much wider problem than clergy sexual misconduct, we must implement, both in our Church and Diocese, the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young Adults." The Charter seeks to ensure that no one representing the Church -- clergy, religious or laity, salaried or volunteer --ever engages in sexual misconduct.
We will be conducting background checks on Church personnel and volunteers working with children; formulating and implementing standards of ministerial behavior; and creating in our parish, school, religious education and youth ministry settings, safe environment programs that are designed to establish boundaries, and to enable parents and others working with children to detect signs or symptoms of child sexual abuse.
Business ethics
Third, in addressing the scandal of Enron, Worldcom and other corporations, which has had such an impact on the economy, we must understand that the unethical business practices of these executives -- who lined their own pockets with millions of dollars, while bankrupting their companies and robbing their employees of jobs and pensions -- are but symptomatic of the greed and selfishness that have led to the growing gap between haves and have-nots within our society and globally.
In the United States, for example, the gap between the poor and the non-poor is greater than at any time in our nation's history. In the 1960s, the average income for the richest U.S. residents was six times more than for low-income families. Today, that income gap has nearly doubled, so that the wealthiest Americans report 11.7 times more income than those who are poor.
Sadly, in New York State, the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is the widest in our nation. The average income of the top 20 percent of families is $161,860, while the poorest 20 percent have an average income of only $12,640.
Welfare and poverty
That growing gap has been somewhat disguised by the results of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Welfare rolls have plummeted nationally from 4.4 million families in 1996 to approximately 2 million families currently, and more than 50 percent in New York State, with more than 916,000 women and children dropped from the caseloads.
Unfortunately, statistics show that many of those eliminated from the public assistance rolls, and who are now working, have slightly lower incomes than when they were receiving cash assistance.
Hence, we are living in the strange time when the words "working" and "poor" are used side-by-side in common parlance, as if that were normal or the way things have always been. To be "working and poor" is neither normal nor historical in this country, where work has traditionally been the remedy for poverty.
Solutions
We in the Church, in accord with our respect for the dignity of the person, must advocate for policies to address the systemic causes of these economic inequalities.
For example, later this year when the Welfare Reform Act comes up for reauthorization by Congress, we in the Church can insist that:
* the criteria for successful reform must be focused not on closing cases but eliminating poverty;
* those on welfare be offered the training and educational programs that provide the skills necessary for employment in a rapidly changing, hi-tech economy;
* those moving from welfare to self-sufficiency have access to affordable daycare, health insurance and transportation, without which transition would be impossible; and
* there be a safety net for those who have multiple problems, such as substance abuse and mental illness, combined with poor educational and employment habits.
Realistically, some individuals will always require government assistance and others will need intensive case management services if they are to transition into jobs that provide a living wage. In this latter regard, we should be supportive of increasing the minimum wage in New York State, which has been raised only 90 cents in the past 13 years.
Global poverty
Similarly, we must be concerned about our responsibility as a nation to do more to eliminate the burden of the poor in the so-called Third World countries.
For example, we cannot remain last among donor countries in international development aid. The United States contributes just one-tenth of one percent of its gross national product in official development assistance, as compared with the international development target of seven-tenths of one percent of the GNP, a target endorsed by our country many times but never achieved. We can and must do better. And our advocacy as a Church can help move us in that direction.
As we celebrate our annual Respect Life Month, we have many imminent threats to human life and dignity, and much work to do. May these challenges reinforce our commitment to be lovers, affirmers and believers in life, and lead us to be staunch advocates for policies and programs that combat violence in all of its forms, be it war, poverty, abortion, euthanasia, or child or spousal abuse.