By Judie Brown
A stickler for word usage is the way some people describe me. Of course they are right. Because there are some words in the English language that are abused to the hilt, somebody has to set the record straight.
When word abasement occurs, even among those in the Catholic/pro-life community, we take note. An example is the use of the word conservative to define Catholic priests.
The thesaurus states that conservative means orthodox or traditional. But when we are talking about the infinite powers of God, such adjectives are as meaningful as the ant crawling along your sidewalk. After all, by the very fact of his ordination Catholic priests are, according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori, “public persons [who] watch over the honor of his divine majesty, and to procure the salvation of souls,” though today some who wear the cloth probably do not know what that means.
So to be clear, the ordained Catholic priest is devoted to Christ in the Eucharist, the teacher of those in his care, and the loving father who has the power to forgive sins confessed to him with a sincere heart.
Honest folk will agree that the one thing that matters, whether one is an ordained priest or a lay person, is fidelity to truth. You cannot honestly put a label on that.
But priests are not the only ones the world attempts to categorize for political purposes. In fact, the wordsmiths in medicine and politics are far more dangerous with the words they use.
The latest innovation in the world of organ harvesting from the living is the term circulatory death (DCD). The United Network for Organ Sharing states, “The first step in the DCD process is the determination by the patient’s doctor that continued life-sustaining support of circulatory and lung function for this patient is futile, is not in the patient’s best interest, and that it should be withdrawn.”
But Dr. Heidi Kleissig explains, “DCD donors are not known to be dead after just two to five minutes of pulselessness. The reason that doctors don’t wait longer is because after ten minutes of pulselessness most organs would no longer be viable for transplantation. So, because doctors are moving more quickly, patients are waking up during the removal of their organs.”
This is an appalling reality today, as the business of organ donation becomes more about organ confiscation from people who are not dead!
And then there is the process of in vitro fertilization which, though condemned by the Catholic Church, is gaining widespread support because of the actions of US president Donald Trump, among others. A recent White House statement explains that Trump wants to lower the costs associated with IVF rather than use the opportunity to point out the moral pitfalls of such practices.
As one media report states:
President Donald Trump on Thursday waived away pro-life concerns within his coalition over the White House’s recently announced initiative to increase access to vitro fertility treatments, the latest reminder of IVF’s divisive status within the Republican Party.
When asked about the anti-abortion movement’s concerns over his work supporting IVF, the president said the White House plan to lower costs on a common IVF drug and encourage workplaces to insure such treatments was in fact a pro-life policy.
Deception such as this at the highest levels of our government should alert everyone that when true words are avoided or waved away, bad things can and will happen.
Thankfully, the United States Catholic bishops have made it clear that Trump is in error, pointing out that IVF is immoral.
Into this awful era of fiction parading as fact in so many sectors of our society, it comes as no surprise that a Michigan fawn was saved from euthanasia while embryonic, ailing, and elderly human beings are quietly being ushered from life! Truly our fellow Americans need hope now more than ever.
We thank Sister Joseph Mary Nazareth, SV, for her true words: “God desires me to be with Him forever. Love is not defeated by death.”
This is why we celebrate life. We know each human being is gift from God, and we strive to help others see these true words as a blessing.