NEW YEAR MESSAGE 2013

Pope Benedict’s Message for the World Day of Peace on January 1st 2013 has particular relevance for us in Ireland this year. His theme is “Blessed are the Peacemakers” and it ranges over all aspects of peacemaking and all those things which are contrary to peace in our world.  We can all join in his prayer at the beginning of the letter: “I ask God, the Father of humanity, to grant us concord and peace, so that the aspirations of all for a happy and prosperous life may be achieved.”

In the course of his Message he describes peacemakers as those who love, defend and promote life in its fullness. In a passage that speaks very much to our current preoccupation with the questions of abortion, end of life care and suicide, the Holy Father has this to say:

“The path to the attainment of the common good and to peace is above all that of respect for human life in all its many aspects, beginning with its conception, through its development and up to its natural end. True peacemakers, then, are those who love, defend and promote human life in all its dimensions, personal, communitarian and transcendent. Life in its fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life.”

Referring to abortion, the Pope goes on to say:

“...the killing of a defenceless and innocent being, will never be able to produce happiness and peace. Indeed how could one claim to bring about peace, the integral development of peoples or even the protection of the environment without defending the life of those who are weakest, beginning with the unborn?”

The protection of unborn children is an issue of human rights and the most fundamental of all rights, the right to life.  Opposition to abortion is not a specifically religious stance. Only someone with a pre-scientific outlook on life could propose that a baby in the womb is essentially different to one already born. Each is fully human and has an equal right to life. The direct and intentional taking of the life of either is wrong. Of course there will be circumstances where treatment to save the life of the mother will unintentionally and indirectly result in the loss of the baby’s life despite the best efforts to preserve it. Such treatment, which is not direct abortion, is not only ethically permissible but it is also obligatory.

My hope and prayer for the New Year is that Ireland will continue to be a place where human life will be respected at all stages, both in our laws and in our medical practice. I urge everyone who shares this hope to pray for our legislators as they face these crucial decisions and make your views known to them in a firm but respectful manner.

I wish you all a very happy New Year and every blessing in the year ahead.