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November 3, 2006

A Shepherd’s Message

By Archbishop Daniel N. DiNardo

Next week is voting day in the mid-term elections. Both national and local issues will play a role in how each voter decides for a given candidate. In our own State of Texas there are some vital concerns about the human person and the common good at stake this year.

I would first want to strongly urge our Catholic faithful to vote; this is a privilege and a responsibility of citizens. Mid-term elections do not usually attract a large number of voters. My hope and prayer is that our people will exercise their freedom well, precisely by voting, and not, by some cynical sense of not making a difference, evade this great responsibility.

Of the principles governing our choices for elective office, the most important is the respect and dignity owed to the human person from conception to natural death. The beginnings and the end of life are most significant times; in our own culture they have become the most vulnerable times for each human person. The threats to human life are mounting, particularly the practice of abortion and euthanasia. Joined to these assaults on human life are the current threats of embryonic stem cell research that involves the destruction of human embryos. There are many who argue that since these embryos will be destroyed anyway, let us use them for medical experiment. But human personal life begins at conception. A self-developing organism ”directing” its growth and development is already present. All of us, even before we had a name, were in such a state. Humanity is not something “made” and bestowed on us by someone’s largesse. It is simply recognized. From conception we are already who we are; we are simply in our earliest existence. To treat human embryos as mere material, as pure objects, is precisely the point of view of the culture of death. Human beings are led to think of themselves as constructs, as bits of matter in motion. Once this form of self-understanding takes place respect for the distinctiveness and sacredness of human life begins its descent into vagueness. In such a fog of thinking any experimentation on human beings becomes thinkable, and doable. As voters we must resist such efforts strenuously.

Other issues in protecting human life concern the direct targeting of civilians in war and the use of terrorism for any purpose. Added to these issues is the question of the preemptive use of force against another nation, a position at odds with the traditional just war teaching in our faith.

At the level of the family, our faith always defends marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The ends of marriage are the mutual love and union of the spouses and the procreative gift of children. Many people today confuse the nature or end of something with human purposes. Human purposes involve wishes and deliberations. But the end of something is apart from such purposes. The end of something is when it has reached its best state, what theology calls its perfection and completion in and for itself. The ends of marriage always involve one man and one woman, united in a loving union and prepared for the conception and raising of children. These ends do not come into being through some form of human foresight, human wish or human deliberation. Confusion on the end and purpose of marriage is rampant in our culture and has profound effects on the family.

One of the principles of our faith is the pursuit of social justice. From such a principle, which has special regard for the poor and the vulnerable, we look to support programs and policies that provide for a living wage, that make health care more affordable and more accessible, that allow for income security for average wage workers when they retire, that promote safe and affordable housing, that protect family farms and farm workers. Because of our respect for the human person, our faith also looks to the very complex issue of immigration reform and border security with an eye to the human beings involved. A just reform must be comprehensive and concern itself with more than punitive sanctions.

There are numbers of other issues that come to our attention at election time. In many cases we must make prudential judgments and take seriously our responsibility to examine and be informed well on the issues and candidates for office.

I hope and pray that fellow Catholics will deliberate and cast their votes wisely and allow their considered moral judgments to have their place in the public square of this nation.

I want to express my deepest congratulations to Monsignor Daniel Flores, a priest of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Rector of the Cathedral there, and until last May Vice-Rector and Professor at our own St. Mary Seminary here in Houston. Last Saturday he was named Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit by Pope Benedict XVI. He is an outstanding priest, articulate and faithful to the Church’s teaching, wise and compassionate. His theological acumen and bilingual ability will serve him well in the Office of Bishop. He will be deeply missed in Texas and will be welcomed mightily by the people of God in Michigan. Many years!

I also want to offer my congratulations again to the many couples who celebrated 25 and 50 years of marriage in celebrations two weekends ago. This is a yearly celebration in this archdiocese and I was privileged and honored to be the main celebrant of the two Masses that honored all these couples. It was a fitting witness to the beauty of the sacrament of marriage and its essential place in celebrating and handing on our Catholic Faith.