Catholic Diocese of Spokane, Washington

The Bishop Writes

(From the Oct. 2, 2008 edition of the Inland Register)

Life is a gift.

Four simple words. Eleven letters.

Life is a gift.

We live in a culture which celebrates life in so many rich and diverse ways. We cherish our children, committing time and resources to a quality education for all. We have a social safety net that strives to protect the poor and the vulnerable. We pride ourselves on our tradition of opportunity for all, no matter your station in life, no matter your race or your creed: America is a country which encourages us to better ourselves. It is often pointed out, and rightly, that American does not have to build walls to keep its citizens within its borders.

My own family is not far removed from Europe, where chances of economic and social success were very, very slim for someone like my father. He came to America as a young man and pursued the American dream for himself and for his children.

We pride ourselves that as a nation, we work for the common good. We recognize that when we care for one another, support one another, through education, through fair employment practices, through accessible health care, we all benefit. When the least of us suffers, we all suffer. When one of us falls through the cracks, or is neglected in any way, through misfortune, through hardship, through circumstance, the entire community is the lesser for it.

Contrast that noble aspiration, however, with some of the challenges we face as a society. And I have to ask myself, do we as a people truly believe that life is a gift?

In Washington State this year, we face a well-organized and well-funded campaign to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Our social safety net has unraveled in significant areas. Our education system is stretched to the point of breaking. Many people have no access to affordable health care. Our long-range economic outlook is clouded, drawing into question the dreams and hopes of our senior citizens as they face their retirement years with compromised retirement funds. Abortion remains a tragic legal option.

And yet we know, and we teach, life is a gift.

It is too easy for us to embrace a sort of Social Darwinism: a process of economic natural selection. That somehow, those who struggle to build their lives, to protect and nurture their children, to care for their aged, are somehow at fault. Have somehow come to deserve what they get. It is one thing to argue against abortion, for a child not yet born is innocent of any wrongdoing, is guilty only of being part of the beautiful mystery that is God’s gift of human life. Somehow, some seem to think that the sick are better off seizing control from God, embracing despair, abandoning hope – after all, so the argument might go, they will die anyway.

If that sounds callous, that’s because it is. If that sounds like a sin against God and humanity, that’s because it is.

Human life is not precious to God because it is innocent. Human life is precious to God because it is his unique gift, his creative act. Human life is a sacred trust given to us by our Creator, to nurture, to protect, to celebrate. Human life is a sacred trust, and a sacred gift. All human life, from the moment of conception until natural death.

That is the central fact of the Church’s teaching against abortion and against assisted suicide. It is why the Church insists that our society care for the young and for the old; for those who work, and those who cannot work; for the law-abiding, and for those who have broken the law and have trampled the gift that is life.

As we look at the issue of capital punishment in our country, the statistics are staggering. Those sentenced to death in this country are disproportionately poor. They rarely receive the adequate legal defense available to others of greater economic means. Proportionately, far, far fewer whites are convicted of capital crimes and sentenced to death in our country. In terms of the crimes themselves, the accused have a far greater chance of receiving the death penalty if they have taken the life of someone who is white, than if they have murdered some who is black, or Latino. False convictions, though few, still occur – and even one is too many. The process is agonizing in its complexity and its length. The time and financial resources consumed by capital cases is mind-boggling.

The sociological arguments against capital punishment are many and complex. I highly recommend anyone to read Sister Helen Prejean’s book Dead Man Walking, for which she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Although written in 1993, the book still convicts all of us for the way our society dismisses and destroys the lives of those who we believe have wronged us.

There is no reason to execute a convicted criminal in our country today. Must society be protected from those who would do harm? No question. Our prison system – a system which, tragically, grows by leaps and bounds – is more than adequate to the task of incarcerating those who are a demonstrable threat to society. We have no need to kill in order to protect.

But more importantly, just as the crime of murder is a sin against God’s gift of life, so capital punishment is a sin against hope. While the sinner is alive, there is the possibility of conversion. Hearts can change, and do change. When we eliminate that possibility through execution, we say, in effect, that this individual has no right to hope, no right to convert, no right to change, no right to atone.

The life of an unborn child is a gift. As is the life of a medically fragile adult, or a lonely, confused senior citizen, or the victim of murder, or the murderer himself.

For life is a gift. Not just innocent life; all human life.

October is Respect Life month. Our Church’s teaching about life is complex, and it is difficult. It’s perhaps easy to leap to defend a baby in the womb. It is harder to stand up for someone who has committed a heinous crime against another human being – perhaps someone we knew and loved.

The Gospel is not easy. The Gospel of Life is not easy. But God loves each of us, without measure, without question, without exception. God loves us, his children, his gift to our world.

Life is a gift.