October Message...
This past month, the entire world paused to mourn the passing of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, that icon of compassionate care and concern for the poor and destitute whose very name is synonymous with selfless love.
This humble, simple woman was born and raised in one of the poorest and most atheistic countries in Europe, Albania. As a young woman of 19, she journeyed to India to teach as a Sister of Loreto. She left that community in 1948 to serve the poor in the streets of Calcutta.
In 1950, Mother Teresa founded her own religious community, the Missionaries of Charity, which became, under her guidance and leadership, world-renowned for its outreach to the poorest and most vulnerable on the face of the earth.
God's image
People of all religious, ethnic, social and economic backgrounds can identify readily with Mother Teresa, this beautiful servant of charity, because her message of unconditional love was not only so strikingly attractive but also so genuinely credible because of the sensitive, compassionate hands-on care she and the members of her community offer.
The key to Mother Teresa's loving and affirming approach to life, I submit, was her firm belief that every human person is made in the image and likeness of God, and her unswerving conviction that in serving people in need, she was serving Christ Himself.
She said: "We discover Christ under the distressing disguise of the poor, the sick, the outcast. Christ presents Himself to us under every disguise: the dying, the paralytic, the leper, the invalid, the orphan."
That belief and conviction moved Mother Teresa to care for abandoned children and the dying in Calcutta...AIDS sufferers in San Francisco and Los Angeles...the homeless in Washington and New York City...the famine-starved in Yemen and Ethiopia...the radiation victims at Chernobyl...the lepers of southeast Asia...the survivors of Armenia's earthquake...and inhabitants of South Africa's squalid townships, just to mention a few of her many works.
Model for us
What an exemplary model to have so vividly in our minds as we begin our annual Respect Life Month observance. For Mother Teresa's life and message epitomize the scriptural call to choose life and to revere life in all of its various stages.
Certainly, the need for us in the United States to accept and implement Mother Teresa's vision is well evident, given the fact that most Americans, including many Catholics, are not yet aware of the difference between refusing extraordinary medical treatment and physician-assisted suicide; that more than 70 percent of our populace does not appreciate what actually happens in a partial-birth abortion; and that the same percentage of Americans still support the death penalty.
We, in the United States, therefore, need to heed the challenge of Mother Teresa: "Instead of death and sorrow, let us bring peace and joy to the world."
Imitating Teresa
Let me suggest two specific and immediate ways in which we in our Diocese of Albany during our Sesquicentennial Year can keep alive the memory of Mother Teresa, and be ourselves lovers and affirmers of and believers in life.
1. We can be staunch in our opposition to abortion. Mother Teresa stated: "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."
Mother Teresa was no respecter of persons in proclaiming this message. She articulated it boldly and clearly to those assembled in Oslo, Norway, when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and to those present in our nation's Capitol when she received the Congressional Gold Medal from our government last June. In both instances, there were many in her audience who were leading advocates of the pro-abortion mentality, but their presence did not inhibit Mother Teresa from proclaiming the truth with love.
Partial-birth abortion
We can continue Mother Teresa's courageous defense on behalf of the unborn by working to have our nation and state ban partial-birth abortions. Last year, the New York State Senate banned this cruel and barbarous procedure, but the State Assembly did not bring a similar bill out of committee for a vote by the full body.
I urge you, then, to write Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly Health Committee chairperson Richard Gottfried to demand that this issue be debated by the entire Assembly on its merits. It would be helpful to send a copy of your correspondence to your local state Senator and Assemblyperson.
Similarly, last year, both houses of Congress passed a federal ban on partial-birth abortion that one of our own senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, branded as "infanticide." Unfortunately, President Clinton vetoed this legislation. While his veto was overridden in the House of Representatives, it fell short in the Senate. Again, I urge you to write the President expressing your opposition to partial-birth abortion and to send copies your congressperson and our two United States Senators.
Death penalty
2. The second area wherein we in the Catholic community can testify to our belief in the sanctity of human life is in our opposition to the death penalty.
On several occasions, along with Our Holy Father Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa petitioned governors in our country, as well as leaders in other countries, to grant a reprieve to condemned murderers on death row.
Some Catholics have rationalized that since the Church historically has upheld the right of the state to execute violent criminals to protect society from further harm, they are fully in accord with the teaching of the Church in advocating for capital punishment. Such a rationalization, however, becomes less justifiable, if not totally indefensible, in light of the recent updating of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The most notable addition to the text, first published in 1992, was the section on capital punishment, which was changed to reflect Pope John Paul's arguments against the death penalty in his 1995 encyclical "The Gospel of Life."
Firmer teaching
The new section specifies that Catholic tradition has allowed for use of the death penalty only when the identity and responsibility of the condemned are certain and when capital punishment is the only way to protect the lives of others.
But the section adds the judgment made by Pope John Paul in his 1995 encyclical that, with the resources and responsibilities available to governments today for restraining criminals, "cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
Commenting on the revised text, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the catechism evokes "principles that do not exclude absolutely capital punishment, but give very severe criteria 'for its moral use.'" Cardinal Ratzinger concluded: "It seems to me it would be very difficult to meet the conditions today."
What to do
The bishops of our state and nation have concluded further that those conditions are nonexistent in the United States. Currently, there is no legislative activity in our state to repeal the death penalty; probably, there will not be until our state courts rule on the constitutionality of the 1995 legislation restoring capital punishment in the Empire State.
In the interim, we can ask our county district attorneys to use their discretion not to seek the death penalty in cases of capital offense. And we can sign the "Declaration of Life," a document with significant legal weight that states: "Should I die as a result of violent crime, I request that the person or persons found guilty of homicide for my killing not be subject to or put in jeopardy by the death penalty under any circumstances, no matter how heinous their crime or how much I have suffered."
Such a statement, I believe, opts for forgiveness and peace over vengeance and violence. This declaration witnesses dramatically to our reverence for human life and keeps alive the loving and forgiving spirit of Mother Teresa.
May we as Catholic Christians, then, observe our annual Respect Life Month by making our elected representatives aware of our opposition to partial-birth abortion and by signing the Declaration of Life. In so doing, we, like Mother Teresa, will accomplish "something beautiful for God."
(Editor's note: For a copy of the Declaration of Life, contact the Family Life Office at 40 N. Main Ave., Albany, NY 12203 or call 453-6677. During October, The Evangelist will carry a series of commentaries on topics related to Respect Life Month. The series begins on page 24.)