Pastor’s Message

From earliest times, Christians sharply distinguished themselves from other cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide. The earliest widely used documents of Christian teaching and practice after the New Testament in the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) and Letter of Barnabas, condemned both practices.

Over many centuries, the precious nature of life has been affirmed by the Church in many ways. In the 5th century AD, a time when science could not say what determined the beginning of life, St. Augustine observed that God has the power to make up all human deficiencies or lack of development in the Resurrection, so we cannot assume that any life would be excluded from enjoying eternal life with God. That all life is precious.

In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, observing that it is a sin "against nature" to reject God’s gift of a new life.

From the 13th to 19th centuries, some theologians speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion before "formation" or "ensoulment" might be morally justified. But these theories were discussed and then always rejected, as the Church refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an act that can never be morally right.

Later science revealed that a human life does indeed begin at conception. From this it is easy to understand the Church’s opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life has inherent dignity, and thus must be treated with the respect due to a human person. This is the foundation for the Church’s social doctrine, including its teachings on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration.