The Gospel of life is at the heart of
Jesus' message. Lovingly received day
after day by the Church, it is to be
preached with dauntless fidelity as "good
news" to the people of every age and
culture.
At the dawn of salvation, it is the Birth
of a Child which is proclaimed as joyful
news: "I bring you good news of a great
joy which will come to all the people; for
to you is born this day in the city of
David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord"
(Lk 2:10-11). The source of this "great
joy" is the Birth of the Saviour; but
Christmas also reveals the full meaning of
every human birth, and the joy which
accompanies the Birth of the Messiah is
thus seen to be the foundation and
fulfilment of joy at every child born into
the world (cf. Jn 16:21).
When he presents the heart of his
redemptive mission, Jesus says: "I came
that they may have life, and have it
abundantly" (Jn 10:10). In truth, he is
referring to that "new" and "eternal" life
which consists in communion with the
Father, to which every person is freely
called in the Son by the power of the
Sanctifying Spirit. It is precisely in
this "life" that all the aspects and
stages of human life achieve their full
significance.
Man is called to a fullness of life which
far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly
existence, because it consists in sharing
the very life of God. The loftiness of
this supernatural vocation reveals the
greatness and the inestimable value of
human life even in its temporal phase.
Life in time, in fact, is the fundamental
condition, the initial stage and an
integral part of the entire unified
process of human existence.
It is a process which, unexpectedly and
undeservedly, is enlightened by the
promise and renewed by the gift of divine
life, which will reach its full
realization in eternity (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-2).
At the same time, it is precisely this
supernatural calling which highlights the
relative character of each individual's
earthly life. After all, life on earth is
not an "ultimate" but a "penultimate"
reality; even so, it remains a sacred
reality entrusted to us, to be preserved
with a sense of responsibility and brought
to perfection in love and in the gift of
ourselves to God and to our brothers and
sisters.
The Church knows that this Gospel of life,
which she has received from her Lord, has
a profound and persuasive echo in the
heart of every person-believer and
non-believer alike-because it marvellously
fulfils all the heart's expectations while
infinitely surpassing them. Even in the
midst of difficulties and uncertainties,
every person sincerely open to truth and
goodness can, by the light of reason and
the hidden action of grace, come to
recognize in the natural law written in
the heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15) the sacred
value of human life from its very
beginning until its end, and can affirm
the right of every human being to have
this primary good respected to the highest
degree.
Upon the recognition of this right, every
human community and the political
community itself are founded.
In a special way, believers in Christ must
defend and promote this right, aware as
they are of the wonderful truth: "By his
incarnation the Son of God has united
himself in some fashion with every human
being".
This saving event reveals to humanity not
only the boundless love of God who "so
loved the world that he gave his only Son"
(Jn 3:16), but also the incomparable value
of every human person.
The Church, faithfully contemplating the
mystery of the Redemption, acknowledges
this value with ever new wonder. She feels
called to proclaim to the people of all
times this "Gospel", the source of
invincible hope and true joy for every
period of history. The Gospel of God's
love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of
the person and the Gospel of life are a
single and indivisible Gospel.
For this reason, man-living man-represents
the primary and fundamental way for the
Church.
Every individual, precisely by reason of
the mystery of the Word of God who was
made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14), is entrusted to
the maternal care of the Church. Therefore
every threat to human dignity and life
must necessarily be felt in the Church's
very heart; it cannot but affect her at
the core of her faith in the Redemptive
Incarnation of the Son of God, and engage
her in her mission of proclaiming the
Gospel of life in all the world and to
every creature (cf. Mk 16:15).
Today this proclamation is especially
pressing because of the extraordinary
increase and gravity of threats to the
life of individuals and peoples,
especially where life is weak and
defenceless. In addition to the ancient
scourges of poverty, hunger, endemic
diseases, violence and war, new threats
are emerging on an alarmingly vast scale.
The Second Vatican Council, in a passage
which retains all its relevance today,
forcefully condemned a number of crimes
and attacks against human life. Thirty
years later, taking up the words of the
Council and with the same forcefulness I
repeat that condemnation in the name of
the whole Church, certain that I am
interpreting the genuine sentiment of
every upright conscience: "Whatever is
opposed to life itself, such as any type
of homicide, genocide, abortion,
euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction,
whatever violates the integrity of the
human person, such as mutilation, torments
inflicted on body or mind, attempts to
coerce the will itself; whatever insults
human dignity, such as subhuman living
conditions, arbitrary imprisonment,
deportation, slavery, prostitution, the
selling of women and children; as well as
disgraceful working conditions, where
people are treated as mere instruments of
gain rather than as free and responsible
persons; all these things and others like
them are infamies indeed. They poison
human society, and they do more harm to
those who practise them than to those who
suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are
a supreme dishonour to the Creator".
Unfortunately, this disturbing state of
affairs, far from decreasing, is
expanding: with the new prospects opened
up by scientific and technological
progress there arise new forms of attacks
on the dignity of the human being. At the
same time a new cultural climate is
developing and taking hold, which gives
crimes against life a new and-if
possible-even more sinister character,
giving rise to further grave concern:
broad sectors of public opinion justify
certain crimes against life in the name of
the rights of individual freedom, and on
this basis they claim not only exemption
from punishment but even authorization by
the State, so that these things can be
done with total freedom and indeed with
the free assistance of health-care
systems.
All this is causing a profound change in
the way in which life and relationships
between people are considered. The fact
that legislation in many countries,
perhaps even departing from basic
principles of their Constitutions, has
determined not to punish these practices
against life, and even to make them
altogether legal, is both a disturbing
symptom and a significant cause of grave
moral decline.
Choices once unanimously considered
criminal and rejected by the common moral
sense are gradually becoming socially
acceptable. Even certain sectors of the
medical profession, which by its calling
is directed to the defence and care of
human life, are increasingly willing to
carry out these acts against the person.
In this way the very nature of the medical
profession is distorted and contradicted,
and the dignity of those who practise it
is degraded. In such a cultural and
legislative situation, the serious
demographic, social and family problems
which weigh upon many of the world's
peoples and which require responsible and
effective attention from national and
international bodies, are left open to
false and deceptive solutions, opposed to
the truth and the good of persons and
nations.
The end result of this is tragic: not only
is the fact of the destruction of so many
human lives still to be born or in their
final stage extremely grave and
disturbing, but no less grave and
disturbing is the fact that conscience
itself, darkened as it were by such
widespread conditioning, is finding it
increasingly difficult to distinguish
between good and evil in what concerns the
basic value of human life.
The Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals
held in Rome on 4-7 April 1991 was devoted
to the problem of the threats to human
life in our day. After a thorough and
detailed discussion of the problem and of
the challenges it poses to the entire
human family and in particular to the
Christian community, the Cardinals
unanimously asked me to reaffirm with the
authority of the Successor of Peter the
value of human life and its inviolability,
in the light of present circumstances and
attacks threatening it today.
In response to this request, at Pentecost
in 1991 I wrote a personal letter to each
of my Brother Bishops asking them, in the
spirit of episcopal collegiality, to offer
me their cooperation in drawing up a
specific document.
I am deeply grateful to all the Bishops
who replied and provided me with valuable
facts, suggestions and proposals. In so
doing they bore witness to their unanimous
desire to share in the doctrinal and
pastoral mission of the Church with regard
to the Gospel of life.
In that same letter, written shortly after
the celebration of the centenary of the
Encyclical Rerum Novarum, I drew
everyone's attention to this striking
analogy: "Just as a century ago it was the
working classes which were oppressed in
their fundamental rights, and the Church
very courageously came to their defence by
proclaiming the sacrosanct rights of the
worker as a person, so now, when another
category of persons is being oppressed in
the fundamental right to life, the Church
feels in duty bound to speak out with the
same courage on behalf of those who have
no voice.
Hers is always the evangelical cry in
defence of the world's poor, those who are
threatened and despised and whose human
rights are violated".
Today there exists a great multitude of
weak and defenceless human beings, unborn
children in particular, whose fundamental
right to life is being trampled upon. If,
at the end of the last century, the Church
could not be silent about the injustices
of those times, still less can she be
silent today, when the social injustices
of the past, unfortunately not yet
overcome, are being compounded in many
regions of the world by still more
grievous forms of injustice and
oppression, even if these are being
presented as elements of progress in view
of a new world order.
The present Encyclical, the fruit of the
cooperation of the Episcopate of every
country of the world, is therefore meant
to be a precise and vigorous reaffirmation
of the value of human life and its
inviolability, and at the same time a
pressing appeal addressed to each and
every person, in the name of God: respect,
protect, love and serve life, every human
life! Only in this direction will you find
justice, development, true freedom, peace
and happiness!
May these words reach all the sons and
daughters of the Church! May they reach
all people of good will who are concerned
for the good of every man and woman and
for the destiny of the whole of society!
In profound communion with all my brothers
and sisters in the faith, and inspired by
genuine friendship towards all, I wish to
meditate upon once more and proclaim the
Gospel of life, the splendour of truth
which enlightens consciences, the clear
light which corrects the darkened gaze,
and the unfailing source of faithfulness
and steadfastness in facing the ever new
challenges which we meet along our path.
As I recall the powerful experience of the
Year of the Family, as if to complete the
Letter which I wrote "to every particular
family in every part of the world", I look
with renewed confidence to every household
and I pray that at every level a general
commitment to support the family will
reappear and be strengthened, so that
today too-even amid so many difficulties
and serious threats-the family will always
remain, in accordance with God's plan, the
"sanctuary of life".
To all the members of the Church, the
people of life and for life, I make this
most urgent appeal, that together we may
offer this world of ours new signs of
hope, and work to ensure that justice and
solidarity will increase and that a new
culture of human life will be affirmed,
for the building of an authentic
civilization of truth and love.
"Cain rose up against his brother Abel,
and killed him" (Gen 4:
: the roots of
violence against life
"God did not make death, and he does not
delight in the death of the living. For he
has created all things that they might
exist ... God created man for
incorruption, and made him in the image of
his own eternity, but through the devil's
envy death entered the world, and those
who belong to his party experience it"
(Wis 1:13-14; 2:23-24).
The Gospel of life, proclaimed in the
beginning when man was created in the
image of God for a destiny of full and
perfect life (cf. Gen 2:7; Wis 9:2-3), is
contradicted by the painful experience of
death which enters the world and casts its
shadow of meaninglessness over man's
entire existence.
Death came into the world as a result of
the devil's envy (cf. Gen 3:1,4-5) and the
sin of our first parents (cf. Gen 2:17,
3:17-19). And death entered it in a
violent way, through the killing of Abel
by his brother Cain: "And when they were
in the field, Cain rose up against his
brother Abel, and killed him" (Gen 4:
.
This first homicide is presented with
singular eloquence in a page of the Book
of Genesis which has universal
significance: it is a page rewritten
daily, with inexorable and degrading
frequency, in the book of human history.
Let us re-read together this biblical
account which, despite its archaic
structure and its extreme simplicity, has
much to teach us.
"Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain
a tiller of the ground. In the course of
time Cain brought to the Lord an offering
of the fruit of the ground, and Abel
brought of the firstlings of his flock and
of their fat portions. And the Lord had
regard for Abel and his offering, but for
Cain and his offering he had not regard.
So Cain was very angry, and his
countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain,
?Why are you angry and why has your
countenance fallen? If you do well, will
you not be accepted? And if you do not do
well, sin is crouching at the door; its
desire is for you, but you must master
it'.
"Cain said to Abel his brother, ?Let us go
out to the field'. And when they were in
the field, Cain rose up against his
brother Abel, and killed him. Then the
Lord said to Cain, ?Where is Abel your
brother?' He said, ?I do not know; am I my
brother's keeper?' And the Lord said,
?What have you done? The voice of your
brother's blood is crying to me from the
ground. And now you are cursed from the
ground, which has opened its mouth to
receive your brother's blood from your
hand. When you till the ground, it shall
no longer yield to you its strength; you
shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the
earth'. Cain said to the Lord, ?My
punishment is greater than I can bear.
Behold, you have driven me this day away
from the ground; and from your face I
shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive
and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever
finds me will slay me'. Then the Lord said
to him, ?Not so! If any one slays Cain,
vengeance shall be taken on him
sevenfold'. And the Lord put a mark on
Cain, lest any who came upon him should
kill him. Then Cain went away from the
presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the
land of Nod, east of Eden" (Gen 4:2-16).
Cain was "very angry" and his countenance
"fell" because "the Lord had regard for
Abel and his offering" (Gen 4:4-5). The
biblical text does not reveal the reason
why God prefers Abel's sacrifice to
Cain's. It clearly shows however that God,
although preferring Abel's gift, does not
interrupt his dialogue with Cain. He
admonishes him, reminding him of his
freedom in the face of evil: man is in no
way predestined to evil. Certainly, like
Adam, he is tempted by the malevolent
force of sin which, like a wild beast,
lies in wait at the door of his heart,
ready to leap on its prey. But Cain
remains free in the face of sin. He can
and must overcome it: "Its desire is for
you, but you must master it" (Gen 4:7).
Envy and anger have the upper hand over
the Lord's warning, and so Cain attacks
his own brother and kills him. As we read
in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"In the account of Abel's homicide by his
brother Cain, Scripture reveals the
presence of anger and envy in man,
consequences of original sin, from the
beginning of human history. Man has become
the enemy of his fellow man".
Brother kills brother. Like the first
fratricide, every homicide is a violation
of the "spiritual" kinship uniting mankind
in one great family, in which all share
the same fundamental good: equal personal
dignity. Not infrequently the kinship "of
flesh and blood" is also violated; for
example when threats to life arise within
the relationship between parents and
children, such as happens in abortion or
when, in the wider context of family or
kinship, euthanasia is encouraged or
practised.
At the root of every act of violence
against one's neighbour there is a
concession to the "thinking" of the evil
one, the one who "was a murderer from the
beginning" (Jn 8:44). As the Apostle John
reminds us: "For this is the message which
you have heard from the beginning, that we
should love one another, and not be like
Cain who was of the evil one and murdered
his brother" (1 Jn 3:11-12). Cain's
killing of his brother at the very dawn of
history is thus a sad witness of how evil
spreads with amazing speed: man's revolt
against God in the earthly paradise is
followed by the deadly combat of man
against man.
After the crime, God intervenes to avenge
the one killed. Before God, who asks him
about the fate of Abel, Cain, instead of
showing remorse and apologizing,
arrogantly eludes the question: "I do not
know; am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen
4:9). "I do not know": Cain tries to cover
up his crime with a lie. This was and
still is the case, when all kinds of
ideologies try to justify and disguise the
most atrocious crimes against human
beings. "Am I my brother's keeper?": Cain
does not wish to think about his brother
and refuses to accept the responsibility
which every person has towards others. We
cannot but think of today's tendency for
people to refuse to accept responsibility
for their brothers and sisters.
Symptoms of this trend include the lack of
solidarity towards society's weakest
members-such as the elderly, the infirm,
immigrants, children- and the indifference
frequently found in relations between the
world's peoples even when basic values
such as survival, freedom and peace are
involved.
But God cannot leave the crime unpunished:
from the ground on which it has been
spilt, the blood of the one murdered
demands that God should render justice
(cf. Gen 37:26; Is 26:21; Ez 24:7-
. From this text the
Church has taken the name of the "sins
which cry to God for justice", and, first
among them, she has included wilful
homicide. For the Jewish people, as for
many peoples of antiquity, blood is the
source of life. Indeed "the blood is the
life" (Dt 12:23), and life, especially
human life, belongs only to God: for this
reason whoever attacks human life, in some
way attacks God himself.
Cain is cursed by God and also by the
earth, which will deny him its fruit (cf.
Gen 4:11-12). He is punished: he will live
in the wilderness and the desert.
Murderous violence profoundly changes
man's environment. From being the "garden
of Eden" (Gen 2:15), a place of plenty, of
harmonious interpersonal relationships and
of friendship with God, the earth becomes
"the land of Nod" (Gen 4:16), a place of
scarcity, loneliness and separation from
God. Cain will be "a fugitive and a
wanderer on the earth" (Gen 4:14):
uncertainty and restlessness will follow
him forever.
And yet God, who is always merciful even
when he punishes, "put a mark on Cain,
lest any who came upon him should kill
him" (Gen 4:15). He thus gave him a
distinctive sign, not to condemn him to
the hatred of others, but to protect and
defend him from those wishing to kill him,
even out of a desire to avenge Abel's
death. Not even a murderer loses his
personal dignity, and God himself pledges
to guarantee this.
And it is pre- cisely here that the
paradoxical mystery of the merciful
justice of God is shown forth. As Saint
Ambrose writes: "Once the crime is
admitted at the very inception of this
sinful act of parricide, then the divine
law of God's mercy should be immediately
extended. If punishment is forthwith
inflicted on the accused, then men in the
exercise of justice would in no way
observe patience and moderation, but would
straightaway condemn the defendant to
punishment. ... God drove Cain out of his
presence and sent him into exile far away
from his native land, so that he passed
from a life of human kindness to one which
was more akin to the rude existence of a
wild beast.
God, who preferred the correction rather
than the death of a sinner, did not desire
that a homicide be punished by the
exaction of another act of homicide".
"What have you done?" (Gen 4:10): the
eclipse of the value of life
The Lord said to Cain: "What have you
done? The voice of your brother's blood is
crying to me from the ground" (Gen
4:10).The voice of the blood shed by men
continues to cry out, from generation to
generation, in ever new and different
ways.
The Lord's question: "What have you
done?", which Cain cannot escape, is
addressed also to the people of today, to
make them realize the extent and gravity
of the attacks against life which continue
to mark human history; to make them
discover what causes these attacks and
feeds them; and to make them ponder
seriously the consequences which derive
from these attacks for the existence of
individuals and peoples.
Some threats come from nature itself, but
they are made worse by the culpable
indifference and negligence of those who
could in some cases remedy them. Others
are the result of situations of violence,
hatred and conflicting interests, which
lead people to attack others through
homicide, war, slaughter and genocide.
And how can we fail to consider the
violence against life done to millions of
human beings, especially children, who are
forced into poverty, malnutrition and
hunger because of an unjust distribution
of resources between peoples and between
social classes? And what of the violence
inherent not only in wars as such but in
the scandalous arms trade, which spawns
the many armed conflicts which stain our
world with blood? What of the spreading of
death caused by reckless tampering with
the world's ecological balance, by the
criminal spread of drugs, or by the
promotion of certain kinds of sexual
activity which, besides being morally
unacceptable, also involve grave risks to
life? It is impossible to catalogue
completely the vast array of threats to
human life, so many are the forms, whether
explicit or hidden, in which they appear
today!
Here though we shall concentrate
particular attention on another category
of attacks, affecting life in its earliest
and in its final stages, attacks which
present new characteristics with respect
to the past and which raise questions of
extraordinary seriousness. It is not only
that in generalized opinion these attacks
tend no longer to be considered as
"crimes"; paradoxically they assume the
nature of "rights", to the point that the
State is called upon to give them legal
recognition and to make them available
through the free services of health-care
personnel. Such attacks strike human life
at the time of its greatest frailty, when
it lacks any means of self-defence. Even
more serious is the fact that, most often,
those attacks are carried out in the very
heart of and with the complicity of the
family-the family which by its nature is
called to be the "sanctuary of life".
How did such a situation come about? Many
different factors have to be taken into
account. In the background there is the
profound crisis of culture, which
generates scepticism in relation to the
very foundations of knowledge and ethics,
and which makes it increasingly difficult
to grasp clearly the meaning of what man
is, the meaning of his rights and his
duties.
Then there are all kinds of existential
and interpersonal difficulties, made worse
by the complexity of a society in which
individuals, couples and families are
often left alone with their problems.
There are situations of acute poverty,
anxiety or frustration in which the
struggle to make ends meet, the presence
of unbearable pain, or instances of
violence, especially against women, make
the choice to defend and promote life so
demanding as sometimes to reach the point
of heroism.
All this explains, at least in part, how
the value of life can today undergo a kind
of "eclipse", even though conscience does
not cease to point to it as a sacred and
inviolable value, as is evident in the
tendency to disguise certain crimes
against life in its early or final stages
by using innocuous medical terms which
distract attention from the fact that what
is involved is the right to life of an
actual human person.
In fact, while the climate of widespread
moral uncertainty can in some way be
explained by the multiplicity and gravity
of today's social problems, and these can
sometimes mitigate the subjective
responsibility of individuals, it is no
less true that we are confronted by an
even larger reality, which can be
described as a veritable structure of sin.
This reality is characterized by the
emergence of a culture which denies
solidarity and in many cases takes the
form of a veritable "culture of death".
This culture is actively fostered by
powerful cultural, economic and political
currents which encourage an idea of
society excessively concerned with
efficiency. Looking at the situation from
this point of view, it is possible to
speak in a certain sense of a war of the
powerful against the weak: a life which
would require greater acceptance, love and
care is considered useless, or held to be
an intolerable burden, and is therefore
rejected in one way or another. A person
who, because of illness, handicap or, more
simply, just by existing, compromises the
well-being or life-style of those who are
more favoured tends to be looked upon as
an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In
this way a kind of "conspiracy against
life" is unleashed. This conspiracy
involves not only individuals in their
personal, family or group relationships,
but goes far beyond, to the point of
damaging and distorting, at the
international level, relations between
peoples and States.
In order to facilitate the spread of
abortion, enormous sums of money have been
invested and continue to be invested in
the production of pharmaceutical products
which make it possible to kill the fetus
in the mother's womb without recourse to
medical assistance. On this point,
scientific research itself seems to be
almost exclusively preoccupied with
developing products which are ever more
simple and effective in suppressing life
and which at the same time are capable of
removing abortion from any kind of control
or social responsibility.
It is frequently asserted that
contraception, if made safe and available
to all, is the most effective remedy
against abortion. The Catholic Church is
then accused of actually promoting
abortion, because she obstinately
continues to teach the moral unlawfulness
of contraception. When looked at
carefully, this objection is clearly
unfounded. It may be that many people use
contraception with a view to excluding the
subsequent temptation of abortion. But the
negative values inherent in the
"contraceptive mentality"-which is very
different from responsible parenthood,
lived in respect for the full truth of the
conjugal act-are such that they in fact
strengthen this temptation when an
unwanted life is conceived. Indeed, the
pro- abortion culture is especially strong
precisely where the Church's teaching on
contraception is rejected. Certainly, from
the moral point of view contraception and
abortion arespecifically different evils:
the former contradicts the full truth of
the sexual act as the proper expression of
conjugal love, while the latter destroys
the life of a human being; the former is
opposed to the virtue of chastity in
marriage, the latter is opposed to the
virtue of justice and directly violates
the divine commandment "You shall not
kill".
But despite their differences of nature
and moral gravity, contraception and
abortion are often closely connected, as
fruits of the same tree. It is true that
in many cases contraception and even
abortion are practised under the pressure
of real- life difficulties, which
nonetheless can never exonerate from
striving to observe God's law fully.
Still, in very many other instances such
practices are rooted in a hedonistic
mentality unwilling to accept
responsibility in matters of sexuality,
and they imply a self-centered concept of
freedom, which regards procreation as an
obstacle to personal fulfilment. The life
which could result from a sexual encounter
thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all
costs, and abortion becomes the only
possible decisive response to failed
contraception.
The close connection which exists, in
mentality, between the practice of
contraception and that of abortion is
becoming increasingly obvious. It is being
demonstrated in an alarming way by the
development of chemical products,
intrauterine devices and vaccines which,
distributed with the same ease as
contraceptives, really act as
abortifacients in the very early stages of
the development of the life of the new
human being.
The various techniques of artificial
reproduction, which would seem to be at
the service of life and which are
frequently used with this intention,
actually open the door to new threats
against life. Apart from the fact that
they are morally unacceptable, since they
separate procreation from the fully human
context of the conjugal act, these
techniques have a high rate of failure:
not just failure in relation to
fertilization but with regard to the
subsequent development of the embryo,
which is exposed to the risk of death,
generally within a very short space of
time. Furthermore, the number of embryos
produced is often greater than that needed
for implantation in the woman's womb, and
these so-called "spare embryos" are then
destroyed or used for research which,
under the pretext of scientific or medical
progress, in fact reduces human life to
the level of simple "biological material"
to be freely disposed of.
Prenatal diagnosis, which presents no
moral objections if carried out in order
to identify the medical treatment which
may be needed by the child in the womb,
all too often becomes an opportunity for
proposing and procuring an abortion. This
is eugenic abortion, justified in public
opinion on the basis of a
mentality-mistakenly held to be consistent
with the demands of "therapeutic
interventions"-which accepts life only
under certain conditions and rejects it
when it is affected by any limitation,
handicap or illness.
Following this same logic, the point has
been reached where the most basic care,
even nourishment, is denied to babies born
with serious handicaps or illnesses. The
contemporary scene, moreover, is becoming
even more alarming by reason of the
proposals, advanced here and there, to
justify even infanticide, following the
same arguments used to justify the right
to abortion. In this way, we revert to a
state of barbarism which one hoped had
been left behind forever.
Threats which are no less serious hang
over the incurably ill and the dying. In a
social and cultural context which makes it
more difficult to face and accept
suffering, the temptation becomes all the
greater to resolve the problem of
suffering by eliminating it at the root,
by hastening death so that it occurs at
the moment considered most suitable.
Various considerations usually contribute
to such a decision, all of which converge
in the same terrible outcome. In the sick
person the sense of anguish, of severe
discomfort, and even of desperation
brought on by intense and prolonged
suffering can be a decisive factor. Such a
situation can threaten the already fragile
equilibrium of an individual's personal
and family life, with the result that, on
the one hand, the sick person, despite the
help of increasingly effective medical and
social assistance, risks feeling
overwhelmed by his or her own frailty; and
on the other hand, those close to the sick
person can be moved by an understandable
even if misplaced compassion. All this is
aggravated by a cultural climate which
fails to perceive any meaning or value in
suffering, but rather considers suffering
the epitome of evil, to be eliminated at
all costs. This is especially the case in
the absence of a religious outlook which
could help to provide a positive
understanding of the mystery of suffering.
On a more general level, there exists in
contemporary culture a certain Promethean
attitude which leads people to think that
they can control life and death by taking
the decisions about them into their own
hands. What really happens in this case is
that the individual is overcome and
crushed by a death deprived of any
prospect of meaning or hope. We see a
tragic expression of all this in the
spread of euthanasia-disguised and
surreptitious, or practised openly and
even legally. As well as for reasons of a
misguided pity at the sight of the
patient's suffering, euthanasia is
sometimes justified by the utilitarian
motive of avoiding costs which bring no
return and which weigh heavily on society.
Thus it is proposed to eliminate malformed
babies, the severely handicapped, the
disabled, the elderly, especially when
they are not self-sufficient, and the
terminally ill. Nor can we remain silent
in the face of other more furtive, but no
less serious and real, forms of
euthanasia. These could occur for example
when, in order to increase the
availability of organs for transplants,
organs are removed without respecting
objective and adequate criteria which
verify the death of the donor.
Another present-day phenomenon, frequently
used to justify threats and attacks
against life, is the demographic question.
This question arises in different ways in
different parts of the world. In the rich
and developed countries there is a
disturbing decline or collapse of the
birthrate. The poorer countries, on the
other hand, generally have a high rate of
population growth, difficult to sustain in
the context of low economic and social
development, and especially where there is
extreme underdevelopment. In the face of
over- population in the poorer countries,
instead of forms of global intervention at
the international level-serious family and
social policies, programmes of cultural
development and of fair production and
distribution of resources-anti-birth
policies continue to be enacted.
Contraception, sterilization and abortion
are certainly part of the reason why in
some cases there is a sharp decline in the
birthrate. It is not difficult to be
tempted to use the same methods and
attacks against life also where there is a
situation of "demographic explosion".
The Pharaoh of old, haunted by the
presence and increase of the children of
Israel, submitted them to every kind of
oppression and ordered that every male
child born of the Hebrew women was to be
killed (cf. Ex 1:7-22). Today not a few of
the powerful of the earth act in the same
way. They too are haunted by the current
demographic growth, and fear that the most
prolific and poorest peoples represent a
threat for the well-being and peace of
their own countries. Consequently, rather
than wishing to face and solve these
serious problems with respect for the
dignity of individuals and families and
for every person's inviolable right to
life, they prefer to promote and impose by
whatever means a massive programme of
birth control. Even the economic help
which they would be ready to give is
unjustly made conditional on the
acceptance of an anti-birth policy.
Humanity today offers us a truly alarming
spectacle, if we consider not only how
extensively attacks on life are spreading
but also their unheard-of numerical
proportion, and the fact that they receive
widespread and powerful support from a
broad consensus on the part of society,
from widespread legal approval and the
involvement of certain sectors of
health-care personnel.
As I emphatically stated at Denver, on the
occasion of the Eighth World Youth Day,
"with time the threats against life have
not grown weaker. They are taking on vast
proportions. They are not only threats
coming from the outside, from the forces
of nature or the ?Cains' who kill the
?Abels'; no, they are scientifically and
systematically programmed threats. The
twentieth century will have been an era of
massive attacks on life, an endless series
of wars and a continual taking of innocent
human life. False prophets and false
teachers have had the greatest success".
Aside from intentions, which can be varied
and perhaps can seem convincing at times,
especially if presented in the name of
solidarity, we are in fact faced by an
objective "conspiracy against life",
involving even international Institutions,
engaged in encouraging and carrying out
actual campaigns to make contraception,
sterilization and abortion widely
available. Nor can it be denied that the
mass media are often implicated in this
conspiracy, by lending credit to that
culture which presents recourse to
contraception, sterilization, abortion and
even euthanasia as a mark of progress and
a victory of freedom, while depicting as
enemies of freedom and progress those
positions which are unreservedly pro-life.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4:9): a
perverse idea of freedom
The panorama described needs to be
understood not only in terms of the
phenomena of death which characterize it
but also in the variety of causes which
determine it. The Lord's question: "What
have you done?" (Gen 4:10), seems almost
like an invitation addressed to Cain to go
beyond the material dimension of his
murderous gesture, in order to recognize
in it all the gravity of the motives which
occasioned it and the consequences which
result from it.
Decisions that go against life sometimes
arise from difficult or even tragic
situations of profound suffering,
loneliness, a total lack of economic pros-
pects, depression and anxiety about the
future. Such circumstances can mitigate
even to a notable degree subjective
responsibility and the consequent
culpability of those who make these
choices which in themselves are evil. But
today the prob- lem goes far beyond the
necessary recognition of these personal
situations. It is a problem which exists
at the cultural, social and political
level, where it reveals its more sinister
and disturbing aspect in the tendency,
ever more widely shared, to interpret the
above crimes against life as legitimate
expressions of individual freedom, to be
acknowledged and protected as actual
rights.
In this way, and with tragic consequences,
a long historical process is reaching a
turning-point. The process which once led
to discovering the idea of "human
rights"-rights inherent in every person
and prior to any Constitution and State
legislation-is today marked by a
surprising contradiction. Precisely in an
age when the inviolable rights of the
person are solemnly proclaimed and the
value of life is publicly affirmed, the
very right to life is being denied or
trampled upon, especially at the more
significant moments of existence: the
moment of birth and the moment of death.
On the one hand, the various declarations
of human rights and the many initiatives
inspired by these declarations show that
at the global level there is a growing
moral sensitivity, more alert to
acknowledging the value and dignity of
every individual as a human being, without
any distinction of race, nationality,
religion, political opinion or social
class.
On the other hand, these noble
proclamations are unfortunately
contradicted by a tragic repudiation of
them in practice. This denial is still
more distressing, indeed more scandalous,
precisely because it is occurring in a
society which makes the affirmation and
protection of human rights its primary
objective and its boast. How can these
repeated affirmations of principle be
reconciled with the continual increase and
widespread justification of attacks on
human life? How can we reconcile these
declarations with the refusal to accept
those who are weak and needy, or elderly,
or those who have just been conceived?
These attacks go directly against respect
for life and they represent a direct
threat to the entire culture of human
rights. It is a threat capable, in the
end, of jeopardizing the very meaning of
democratic coexistence: rather than
societies of "people living together", our
cities risk becoming societies of people
who are rejected, marginalized, uprooted
and oppressed. If we then look at the
wider worldwide perspective, how can we
fail to think that the very affirmation of
the rights of individuals and peoples made
in distinguished international assemblies
is a merely futile exercise of rhetoric,
if we fail to unmask the selfishness of
the rich countries which exclude poorer
countries from access to development or
make such access dependent on arbitrary
prohibitions against procreation, setting
up an opposition between development and
man himself? Should we not question the
very economic models often adopted by
States which, also as a result of
international pressures and forms of
conditioning, cause and aggravate
situations of injustice and violence in
which the life of whole peoples is
degraded and trampled upon?
What are the roots of this remarkable
contradiction?
We can find them in an overall assessment
of a cultural and moral nature, beginning
with the mentality which carries the
concept of subjectivity to an extreme and
even distorts it, and recognizes as a
subject of rights only the person who
enjoys full or at least incipient autonomy
and who emerges from a state of total
dependence on others. But how can we
reconcile this approach with the
exaltation of man as a being who is "not
to be used"? The theory of human rights is
based precisely on the affirmation that
the human person, unlike animals and
things, cannot be subjected to domination
by others. We must also mention the
mentality which tends to equate personal
dignity with the capacity for verbal and
explicit, or at least perceptible,
communication. It is clear that on the
basis of these presuppositions there is no
place in the world for anyone who, like
the unborn or the dying, is a weak element
in the social structure, or for anyone who
appears completely at the mercy of others
and radically dependent on them, and can
only communicate through the silent
language of a profound sharing of
affection. In this case it is force which
becomes the criterion for choice and
action in interpersonal relations and in
social life. But this is the exact
opposite of what a State ruled by law, as
a community in which the "reasons of
force" are replaced by the "force of
reason", historically intended to affirm.
At another level, the roots of the
contradiction between the solemn
affirmation of human rights and their
tragic denial in practice lies in a notion
of freedom which exalts the isolated
individual in an absolute way, and gives
no place to solidarity, to openness to
others and service of them. While it is
true that the taking of life not yet born
or in its final stages is sometimes marked
by a mistaken sense of altruism and human
compassion, it cannot be denied that such
a culture of death, taken as a whole,
betrays a completely individualistic
concept of freedom, which ends up by
becoming the freedom of "the strong"
against the weak who have no choice but to
submit.
It is precisely in this sense that Cain's
answer to the Lord's question: "Where is
Abel your brother?" can be interpreted: "I
do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"
(Gen 4:9). Yes, every man is his
"brother's keeper", because God entrusts
us to one another. And it is also in view
of this entrusting that God gives everyone
freedom, a freedom which possesses an
inherently relational dimension. This is a
great gift of the Creator, placed as it is
at the service of the person and of his
fulfilment through the gift of self and
openness to others; but when freedom is
made absolute in an individualistic way,
it is emptied of its original content, and
its very meaning and dignity are
contradicted.
There is an even more profound aspect
which needs to be emphasized: freedom
negates and destroys itself, and becomes a
factor leading to the destruction of
others, when it no longer recognizes and
respects its essential link with the
truth. When freedom, out of a desire to
emancipate itself from all forms of
tradition and authority, shuts out even
the most obvious evidence of an objective
and universal truth, which is the
foundation of personal and social life,
then the person ends up by no longer
taking as the sole and indisputable point
of reference for his own choices the truth
about good and evil, but only his
subjective and changeable opinion or,
indeed, his selfish interest and whim.
This view of freedom leads to a serious
distortion of life in society. If the
promotion of the self is understood in
terms of absolute autonomy, people
inevitably reach the point of rejecting
one another. Everyone else is considered
an enemy from whom one has to defend
oneself. Thus soci- ety becomes a mass of
individuals placed side by side, but
without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes
to assert himself independently of the
other and in fact intends to make his own
interests prevail. Still, in the face of
other people's analogous interests, some
kind of compromise must be found, if one
wants a society in which the maximum
possible freedom is guaranteed to each
individual. In this way, any reference to
common values and to a truth absolutely
binding on everyone is lost, and social
life ventures on to the shifting sands of
complete relativism. At that point,
everything is negotiable, everything is
open to bargaining: even the first of the
fundamental rights, the right to life.
This is what is happening also at the
level of politics and government: the
original and inalienable right to life is
questioned or denied on the basis of a
parliamentary vote or the will of one part
of the people-even if it is the majority.
This is the sinister result of a
relativism which reigns unopposed: the
"right" ceases to be such, because it is
no longer firmly founded on the inviolable
dignity of the person, but is made subject
to the will of the stronger part. In this
way democracy, contradicting its own
principles, effectively moves towards a
form of totalitarianism. The State is no
longer the "common home" where all can
live together on the basis of principles
of fundamental equality, but is
transformed into a tyrant State, which
arrogates to itself the right to dispose
of the life of the weakest and most
defenceless members, from the unborn child
to the elderly, in the name of a public
interest which is really nothing but the
interest of one part. The appearance of
the strictest respect for legality is
maintained, at least when the laws
permitting abortion and euthanasia are the
result of a ballot in accordance with what
are generally seen as the rules of
democracy. Really, what we have here is
only the tragic caricature of legality;
the democratic ideal, which is only truly
such when it acknowledges and safeguards
the dignity of every human person, is
betrayed in its very foundations: "How is
it still possible to speak of the dignity
of every human person when the killing of
the weakest and most innocent is
permitted? In the name of what justice is
the most unjust of discriminations
practised: some individuals are held to be
deserving of defence and others are denied
that dignity?" When this happens, the
process leading to the breakdown of a
genuinely human co-existence and the
disintegration of the State itself has
already begun.
To claim the right to abortion,
infanticide and euthanasia, and to
recognize that right in law, means to
attribute to human freedom a perverse and
evil significance: that of an absolute
power over others and against others. This
is the death of true freedom: "Truly,
truly, I say to you, every one who commits
sin is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34).
"And from your face I shall be hidden"
(Gen 4:14): the eclipse of the sense of
God and of man
21. In seeking the deepest roots of the
struggle between the "culture of life" and
the "culture of death", we cannot restrict
ourselves to the perverse idea of freedom
mentioned above. We have to go to the
heart of the tragedy being experienced by
modern man: the eclipse of the sense of
God and of man, typical of a social and
cultural climate dominated by secularism,
which, with its ubiquitous tentacles,
succeeds at times in putting Christian
communities themselves to the test. Those
who allow themselves to be influenced by
this climate easily fall into a sad
vicious circle: when the sense of God is
lost, there is also a tendency to lose the
sense of man, of his dignity and his life;
in turn, the systematic violation of the
moral law, especially in the serious
matter of respect for human life and its
dignity, produces a kind of progressive
darkening of the capacity to discern God's
living and saving presence.
Once again we can gain insight from the
story of Abel's homicide by his brother.
After the curse imposed on him by God,
Cain thus addresses the Lord: "My
punishment is greater than I can bear.
Behold, you have driven me this day away
from the ground; and from your face I
shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive
and wanderer on the earth, and whoever
finds me will slay me" (Gen 4:13-14). Cain
is convinced that his sin will not obtain
pardon from the Lord and that his
inescapable destiny will be to have to
"hide his face" from him. If Cain is
capable of confessing that his fault is
"greater than he can bear", it is because
he is conscious of being in the presence
of God and before God's just judgment. It
is really only before the Lord that man
can admit his sin and recognize its full
seriousness. Such was the experience of
David who, after "having committed evil in
the sight of the Lord", and being rebuked
by the Prophet Nathan, exclaimed: "My
offences truly I know them; my sin is
always before me. Against you, you alone,
have I sinned; what is evil in your sight
I have done" (Ps 51:5-6).
22. Consequently, when the sense of God is
lost, the sense of man is also threatened
and poisoned, as the Second Vatican
Council concisely states: "Without the
Creator the creature would disappear ...
But when God is forgotten the creature
itself grows unintelligible".17 Man is no
longer able to see himself as
"mysteriously different" from other
earthly creatures; he regards himself
merely as one more living being, as an
organism which, at most, has reached a
very high stage of perfection. Enclosed in
the narrow horizon of his physical nature,
he is somehow reduced to being "a thing",
and no longer grasps the "transcendent"
character of his "existence as man". He no
longer considers life as a splendid gift
of God, something "sacred" entrusted to
his responsibility and thus also to his
loving care and "veneration". Life itself
becomes a mere "thing", which man claims
as his exclusive property, completely
subject to his control and manipulation.
Thus, in relation to life at birth or at
death, man is no longer capable of posing
the question of the truest meaning of his
own existence, nor can he assimilate with
genuine freedom these crucial moments of
his own history. He is concerned only with
"doing", and, using all kinds of
technology, he busies himself with
programming, controlling and dominating
birth and death. Birth and death, instead
of being primary experiences demanding to
be "lived", become things to be merely
"possessed" or "rejected".
Moreover, once all reference to God has
been removed, it is not surprising that
the meaning of everything else becomes
profoundly distorted. Nature itself, from
being "mater" (mother), is now reduced to
being "matter", and is subjected to every
kind of manipulation. This is the
direction in which a certain technical and
scientific way of thinking, prevalent in
present-day culture, appears to be leading
when it rejects the very idea that there
is a truth of creation which must be ac-
knowledged, or a plan of God for life
which must be respected. Something similar
happens when concern about the
consequences of such a "freedom without
law" leads some people to the opposite
position of a "law without freedom", as
for example in ideologies which consider
it unlawful to interfere in any way with
nature, practically "divinizing" it.
Again, this is a misunderstanding of
nature's dependence on the plan of the
Creator. Thus it is clear that the loss of
contact with God's wise design is the
deepest root of modern man's confusion,
both when this loss leads to a freedom
without rules and when it leaves man in
"fear" of his freedom.
By living "as if God did not exist", man
not only loses sight of the mystery of
God, but also of the mystery of the world
and the mystery of his own being.
23. The eclipse of the sense of God and of
man inevitably leads to a practical
materialism, which breeds individualism,
utilitarianism and hedonism. Here too we
see the permanent validity of the words of
the Apostle: "And since they did not see
fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up
to a base mind and to improper conduct"
(Rom 1:2
. The values of
being are replaced by those of having. The
only goal which counts is the pursuit of
one's own material well-being. The
so-called "quality of life" is interpreted
primarily or exclusively as economic
efficiency, inordinate consumerism,
physical beauty and pleasure, to the
neglect of the more profound
dimensions-interpersonal, spiritual and
religious-of existence.
In such a context suffering, an
inescapable burden of human existence but
also a factor of possible personal growth,
is "censored", rejected as useless, indeed
opposed as an evil, always and in every
way to be avoided. When it cannot be
avoided and the prospect of even some
future well-being vanishes, then life
appears to have lost all meaning and the
temptation grows in man to claim the right
to suppress it.
Within this same cultural climate, the
body is no longer perceived as a properly
personal reality, a sign and place of
relations with others, with God and with
the world. It is reduced to pure
materiality: it is simply a complex of
organs, functions and energies to be used
according to the sole criteria of pleasure
and efficiency. Consequently, sexuality
too is depersonalized and exploited: from
being the sign, place and language of
love, that is, of the gift of self and
acceptance of another, in all the other's
richness as a person, it increasingly
becomes the occasion and instrument for
self-assertion and the selfish
satisfaction of personal desires and
instincts. Thus the original import of
human sexuality is distorted and
falsified, and the two meanings, unitive
and procreative, inherent in the very
nature of the conjugal act, are
artificially separated: in this way the
marriage union is betrayed and its
fruitfulness is subjected to the caprice
of the couple. Procreation then becomes
the "enemy" to be avoided in sexual
activity: if it is welcomed, this is only
because it expresses a desire, or indeed
the intention, to have a child "at all
costs", and not because it signifies the
complete acceptance of the other and
therefore an openness to the richness of
life which the child represents.
In the materialistic perspective described
so far, interpersonal relations are
seriously impoverished. The first to be
harmed are women, children, the sick or
suffering, and the elderly. The criterion
of personal dignity-which demands respect,
generosity and service-is replaced by the
criterion of efficiency, functionality and
usefulness: others are considered not for
what they "are", but for what they "have,
do and produce". This is the supremacy of
the strong over the weak.
24. It is at the heart of the moral
conscience that the eclipse of the sense
of God and of man, with all its various
and deadly consequences for life, is
taking place. It is a question, above all,
of the individual conscience, as it stands
before God in its singleness and
uniqueness. 18 But it is also a question,
in a certain sense, of the "moral
conscience" of society: in a way it too is
responsible, not only because it tolerates
or fosters behaviour contrary to life, but
also because it encourages the "culture of
death", creating and consolidating actual
"structures of sin" which go against life.
The moral conscience, both individual and
social, is today subjected, also as a
result of the penetrating influence of the
media, to an extremely serious and mortal
danger: that of confusion between good and
evil, precisely in relation to the
fundamental right to life. A large part of
contemporary society looks sadly like that
humanity which Paul describes in his
Letter to the Romans. It is composed "of
men who by their wickedness suppress the
truth" (1:1
: having denied God
and believing that they can build the
earthly city without him, "they became
futile in their thinking" so that "their
senseless minds were darkened" (1:21);
"claiming to be wise, they became fools"
(1:22), carrying out works deserving of
death, and "they not only do them but
approve those who practise them" (1:32).
When conscience, this bright lamp of the
soul (cf. Mt 6:22-23), calls "evil good
and good evil" (Is 5:20), it is already on
the path to the most alarming corruption
and the darkest moral blindness.
And yet all the conditioning and efforts
to enforce silence fail to stifle the
voice of the Lord echoing in the
conscience of every individual: it is
always from this intimate sanctuary of the
conscience that a new journey of love,
openness and service to human life can
begin.
"You have come to the sprinkled blood"
(cf. Heb 12: 22, 24): signs of hope and
invitation to commitment
25. "The voice of your brother's blood is
crying to me from the ground" (Gen 4:10).
It is not only the voice of the blood of
Abel, the first innocent man to be
murdered, which cries to God, the source
and defender of life. The blood of every
other human being who has been killed
since Abel is also a voice raised to the
Lord. In an absolutely singular way, as
the author of the Letter to the Hebrews
reminds us, the voice of the blood of
Christ, of whom Abel in his innocence is a
prophetic figure, cries out to God: "You
have come to Mount Zion and to the city of
the living God ... to the mediator of a
new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood
that speaks more graciously than the blood
of Abel" (12:22, 24).
It is the sprinkled blood. A symbol and
prophetic sign of it had been the blood of
the sacrifices of the Old Covenant,
whereby God expressed his will to
communicate his own life to men, purifying
and consecrating them (cf. Ex 24:8; Lev
17:11). Now all of this is fulfilled and
comes true in Christ: his is the sprinkled
blood which redeems, purifies and saves;
it is the blood of the Mediator of the New
Covenant "poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins" (Mt 26:2
. This blood, which
flows from the pierced side of Christ on
the Cross (cf. Jn 19:34), "speaks more
graciously" than the blood of Abel;
indeed, it expresses and requires a more
radical "justice", and above all it
implores mercy, 19 it makes intercession
for the brethren before the Father (cf.
Heb 7:25), and it is the source of perfect
redemption and the gift of new life.
The blood of Christ, while it reveals the
grandeur of the Father's love, shows how
precious man is in God's eyes and how
priceless the value of his life. The
Apostle Peter reminds us of this: "You
know that you were ransomed from the
futile ways inherited from your fathers,
not with perishable things such as silver
or gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ, like that of a lamb without
blemish or spot" (1 Pt 1:18-19). Precisely
by contemplating the precious blood of
Christ, the sign of his self-giving love
(cf. Jn 13:1), the believer learns to
recognize and appreciate the almost divine
dignity of every human being and can
exclaim with ever renewed and grateful
wonder: "How precious must man be in the
eyes of the Creator, if he ?gained so
great a Redeemer' (Exsultet of the Easter
Vigil), and if God ?gave his only Son' in
order that man ?should not perish but have
eternal life' (cf. Jn 3:16)!". 20
Furthermore, Christ's blood reveals to man
that his greatness, and therefore his
vocation, consists in the sincere gift of
self. Precisely because it is poured out
as the gift of life, the blood of Christ
is no longer a sign of death, of
definitive separation from the brethren,
but the instrument of a communion which is
richness of life for all. Whoever in the
Sacrament of the Eucharist drinks this
blood and abides in Jesus (cf. Jn 6:56) is
drawn into the dynamism of his love and
gift of life, in order to bring to its
fullness the original vocation to love
which belongs to everyone (cf. Gen 1:27;
2:18-24).
It is from the blood of Christ that all
draw the strength to commit themselves to
promoting life. It is precisely this blood
that is the most powerful source of hope,
indeed it is the foundation of the
absolute certitude that in God's plan life
will be victorious. "And death shall be no
more", exclaims the powerful voice which
comes from the throne of God in the
Heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:4). And Saint
Paul assures us that the present victory
over sin is a sign and anticipation of the
definitive victory over death, when there
"shall come to pass the saying that is
written: ?Death is swallowed up in
victory'. ?O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?' " (1 Cor
15:54-55).
26. In effect, signs which point to this
victory are not lacking in our societies
and cultures, strongly marked though they
are by the "culture of death". It would
