Living The Worthy Life: What is right is right

Living The Worthy Life: What is right is right

 “We are at the end of a tradition and a civilization which believed we could preserve Christianity without Christ, religion without a creed, meditation without , family life without moral responsibility, sex without purity and economics without ethics. We have completed our experiment of living without God…”

Bishop Fulton Sheen 1933

Almost 90 years ago, Bishop Fulton these prophetic words- what has happened in the mean time to the world.  Can we live in a society where life is not valued? To many this may be a trick question. They change the question to a) A woman’s right to choose or B) A woman has the right  to do her body what she wants to. 

What happens when you devalue life? Can the end of civilization be much off when we devalue life like this?  These are questions of today. However, almost ninety years ago, a young Priest was asking these same questions.  How did he know? Why should we listen today? Is it too late to change?

Bishop Fulton Sheen explained it this way, “ Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody is right.”

There is something simple let  deeply complex in this concept.  One can not understand what is happening in the world today without understanding what has happen to the concept of morals. In an age when it appears people are more accustomed to be reading the latest  opinion poll rather than the Bible and in an age when more people are turning to get their moral compass from social media rather than the Church-maybe a simple look at life itself would be helpful here.  How can you value life when society marginalizes it so much?  

We throw away our elderly into substandard facilities when they reach a certain age; we appear to be more motivated to seek the pleasures of this earth rather than the next one; and we really must have a rather low opinion of life or else we would not such a low opinion of life as to not value it. 

There the elephant in the room is now out.  We are human beings. We make up society and without people society would not exist.  Therefore would it not stand to reason that we should value life at all phases of it- young, middle age, and elderly?  Would it not stand to reason that youngest form of life is the unborn? How can you really be naive to think that unborn Child is any different after they were born and five minutes before they were born?  Taking a life takes out society and takes out future. No where are these numbers and figures more shocking or revealing than when you look at the figures about abortions. All when has to do is to look at these statistics. 

Total number of abortions in the United States 1973-2018: 61,340,000

Population of 90 largest U.S. Cities: 61,433,388 (2018).  If counted all of the aborted babies since Roe v Wade (1973) would be equal to the number of people in our 90 largest cities- then if you added up the fact that these babies would have grown up and had babies themselves- that you are talking about an impact of at least 150 million people.

Number of babies aborted each year worldwide -- 50,000,000.

Number of babies aborted throughout the world since World War II:More than 1.8 billion.

 Top 3 countries in number of abortions annually:

1. Red  China -- 11,000,000.

2. Former Soviet Union -- 6,000,000.

3. The United States – 900,000

A society that sanctions this much killing is a society that is dying and decaying.  Bishop Sheen explained this very well when he said, ““In the Church (post-Vatican II) began a yearning for the lusts of the world. Think of it! ‘In Egypt we had fish for the asking, cucumbers and melons, leeks and onions and garlic.’ Abortion, violence, divorce and repudiation of vows which belonged to the Egypt of the world were now by some accepted or defended. No longer was a solid, moral phalanx thrown up against the spirit of evil. It was no longer what the Church believed or the Holy Father taught, or what the Word of God cautioned; the individual conscience of and by itself became the sole standard of right and wrong: ‘Each of us doing what he pleases’ (Deuteronomy 12:8).”

Are we rushing deep into our past and discovering some hidden faults?  The society in the 1950’s was much different. 

According the Gallop Poll- in 1948 69% of the people in the United States were Protestant and 22% of the population was Catholic.  Now in 2018 a mere 70 years later the same survey showed that 35% of the population now were Protestant and 22% of the population were Catholic. This number is staggering.

It appears that the Catholic Church was holding its own.  However, this is not the case. The only reason why the Catholic Church today is even close to the percentage it has seventy years ago deals with the fact that many of new immigrants to the United States are Catholics.  Without this needed influx, the Catholic Church in the US would have numbers just like the Protestant Church. Why?

Could it be because when the Mass is much shorter than the time it takes to get ready to go to Church, people start losing interest coming to Church at all. It is this lack of interest that we are looking at this subject today in this article.  

How do you get a politician’s attention?  Money of course. Go figure, If not money then maybe you get one to listen to you if you can get them some votes.

Well, today, we are trying to get the politician’s attention.  It will not be done through witty words but rather lucking at several cold hard fact asbout Abortion. 

As the rest of the world is quickly running away from Communism- young Americans appear to be running towards it.  They are supporting many different political leaders who advocate many of the Socialist and Communist principles that have withstood the very true test of  time. Who should you listen to here- a political type who is trying to replace God with the Government or the words of Bishop Fulton Sheen when he said, “Communism is the final logic of the dehumanization of man.” ?

The choice is clear here.  Some political types are advocating that a stand on principles that includes giving up of all of our principles.

I say not.  Not here and not now.  WIth the clamour of many self serving  say just to agree with them and to get along with everyone- I would like to share these immortal words of Bishop Fulton Sheen when he said,  “America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance - it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.”

Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right.  God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.dy is right.