Something from Neuhaus

Today is March for Life in Washington, DC. Thousands of pro-Life people will gather in Washington DC on the anniversary of the date that abortion was legalized in this country.

I found something in the January edition of Forum Letter that is especially pertinent. It is the transcript of a sermon delivered by Richard John Neuhaus at the chapel at Valparaiso University in 1976. One thing that strikes me about Neuhaus is how his words, delivered in a different time, still speak relevant truth in a different time. Here are some excerpts from Neuhaus' sermon:

"Progress has always been historically the expansion of our understanding of human life and human rights and the protections which we are obligated to afford the most marginal, the most non-utilitaria, the most inconvenient forms of human existence.

There are those who say that only the person confronting the problem, and perhaps expanded only to women, have any right to speak on the subject. What an absurd, what a sexist, what a regressive notion to suggest that when the least and the most vulnerable and the weakest are assaulted, it is not the concern of us all.

There are those who say, "I know. But we are not speaking about life. Not really. We're speaking about potential human life." My God, don't they know? We are all potential human beings. At the very heart of the Christian insight is, as St. Paul says in Romans chapter 8, that the whole of creation is yearning as a woman in labor to be what has not yet been revealed. We are called as Christians to affirm our solidarity within the bond of potentiality, our solidarity across the lines of race, and of class, and of nation, and of sex, and of age, and of competence. Now, if Jesus is right, there is nobody who is nobody. Nobody so poor, so inconvenient, so ugly, so useless. If we understand the holiness of the ordinary, it has a radical transforming power within our own lives. Within our society, we might yet be again a light in the darkness, the salt of the earth, saying No! because we have said Yes! to the difference of discipleship.

He calls us today, sisters and brothers, to stand guard, to stand guard at the doors of life, at the entrance door of life, at the exit door of life, and all along the way of life, to celebrate, to affirm, to cherish, to reverence, to live for, and, if need be, die for His presence among us. Amen."

That was written and preached in 1976. Those words and sentiments still need to be proclaimed in 2010. May God grant us the courage to speak up on behalf of women, men, and unborn children about the harmful effects of abortion.