By Bishop Peter Baldacchino -

Miami Auxiliary Bishop Peter Baldacchino delivered these remarks at the opening of the 31st annual Respect Life State Conference, which took place Oct. 20 and 21 in Weston.

I greet everyone gathered here for this 31st Respect Life State Conference being hosted this year by our Archdiocese of Miami.

In a very special way I greet Madame Lejeune (widow of Dr. Jerome Lejeune from Paris) and the members of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation; and I also recognize among us the presence of the staff of the Florida Catholic Conference as well as Respect Life state directors;priests and religious; and all those who with a generous heart have been working for months, preparing this State Conference, helping all of us to better live out this most fundamental duty of service to the Church and indeed to humanity.

Each year during the month of October we celebrate Respect Life Month in Catholic churches throughout the United States of America, providing all of us the opportunity to exercise our duty to speak the truth about the dignity of the human person. 

The title of this state conference, “For the least of them,” roots us in the mission of the Church and gives our human actions an eschatological direction.

In what way can we say that what we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to the Lord?

Saint John Paul II, in his encyclical The Gospel of Life, told us that "For the Christian, it is an absolute imperative to respect, love and promote the life of every brother and sister, in accordance with the requirements of God's bountiful love in Jesus Christ." (Evangelium vitae 77).

Life is indeed a mystery that surpasses us, a gift that we receive freely from God. At the same time, it is a mission to which we are called for a specific purpose.

The dignity of a person has a transcendental value, which cannot be limited to its natural expression, and it has rightly been recognized as such by all those who genuinely seek the truth, independent of their religious tenets.

However, we know, — indeed we believe, — that every person has been created in the image and likeness of God, and because of this truth all human beings are gifted (intrinsically, in their very nature!) with an invaluable dignity. A person is not a something; but rather a somebody. And this somebody is capable of knowing himself/herself, of giving himself/herself in love, of being loved, and of knowing the existence and the love of God.

Respect for life has always been a priority in the activity of the Church since it has always been “part and parcel” of the announcement of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Already towards the end of the 2nd century, the Letter to Diognetus states that Christians live in any country as their homeland, but for them, their homeland is a foreign country and like other people, they do marry and have children, but they do not kill their offspring, contrary to the custom of the time.

And these customs and practices, unfortunately not only the tragedy of abortion (!), have nowadays arisen and taken the authoritative form of civil laws, of behaviors that are approved and oftentimes promoted as a form of advancement in the name of a wrongly-interpreted understanding of “freedom.”

Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate has said something that provides the theological background necessary to understand the extent of the problem we face, and why we need to attend this Conference: "In economically developed countries,” he says, “legislation contrary to life is very widespread, and it has already shaped moral attitudes and praxis, contributing to the spread of an anti-birth mentality; frequent attempts are made to export this thinking to other States as if it were a form of cultural progress. Openness to life is at the center of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fiber and makes people capable of mutual help.”

These words, although they refer mainly to contraception and abortion, express the gravity of the task we are confronted with as a whole. At stake lie some of the essential constitutive elements of civil society, which is the understanding of man as a relational being, a being that exists because he is made for other persons who have his same dignity, a being able to love and to receive love, in a personal and inter-personal relationship.

The dignity of each human being, and of human life itself, derives from the fact that God made man in his image (imago Dei). The Father has two hands to shape men, [A.] the Word (Verbus) and [B.] the Holy Spirit, and His hands have left their traces within the clay He used to form man. Each man carries within him this imprint. So, I am an image of the creator. Furthermore, as "images of God," we are to have respect for all other "images of God," taking as our example Jesus Christ himself. Indeed, nobody belongs to another man; yet, everyone belongs to God, every man is of God's possession!

In this sense, whatever we will do to someone that carries the Image of God in him, is as though we have done it to the Lord himself!

However, through Jesus Christ, we believe and proclaim that God went even farther than that, since he has wanted his Holy Spirit to dwell within those whom he has adopted as children. The divine presence, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of divine holiness, who created all things, wants to dwell within the heart of men as within a temple, so that man can reach the stature (the fullness) of "Image of Christ," being a true Child of God. "I do not live anymore — it is Christ living in me" will be the claim of our beloved Saint Paul.

In him, (in Jesus!) we are finally able to see the complete self-giving of the Father; He is our example, our goal and our hope. In Christ, we see the love of God towards mankind become real through His attitude of service, of considering others superior to oneself, of giving life to all, an attitude which should characterize our own relations with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In this sense, all of us — also through our initiatives to promote Respect for Life — are called to imitate Christ and follow his footsteps. We too are called to live the Gospel of life in such a way that we may make an impact on society, through our teaching and through our own examples.

To defend the lives of infants, to refute euthanasia, to preserve the dignity of the elderly, to minister to the poor and migrants, seeing in them a creature of God, …brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ; to assist and encourage those families who boldly decide to raise numerous children, to stand for the right of each child to be born in a family with a father and a mother, to defend and respect the human embryonic life, requires a strong faith and a bold commitment.

Our conference during these days will help us to reflect on these issues of utmost importance and on many other areas of great concern.

As the 1,700-year-old letter to Diognetus says: “We Christians do not belong to this world” and we are not called to be applauded in this world.

We cannot. Indeed, we shall not(!) simply present a political program (even though programs are indeed necessary to regulate behaviors that go contrary to the moral law!); we shall not simply try to make life on this earth more acceptable to all who are currently in a state of need (even though we shall certainly continue to strive in this direction, avoiding the spread of evil and continuing to promote all that is good!); we shall continue to defend life and to announce the Gospel of Life, precisely because life is what Christ came to give the world, and indeed life eternal!

For this eternal life to be achieved, each one of us is called to live out the forgiveness of sins and to put on the new life in Christ as a personal reality. The selfishness of the nations — unjust laws, immorality — are merely a reflection of the deeply-rooted sin that tends to inhabit the soul of man. If not overcome within us, our efforts to defend life could be ultimately useless and ineffective.

It is necessary that the Gospel of life be promoted and advanced at every level. Let not our conference merely become a simple meeting of experts, a showcase of ideas and plans. We are being charged to bring its content to our churches, to our pastors, catechists, ministers and indeed to all the faithful.

Let the Gospel of life be constantly announced and proclaimed as a divine gift, as important as life itself is to us(!).  It is simply not enough that we display booklets and encourage the few to read.

In this sense our conference today connects with the Respect life program of the USCCB that, for the October 2017-September 2018 chose the theme “Be not afraid” — the same Gospel words that Saint John Paul II chose at the beginning of his pontificate.

We, as Church, need not be afraid of going against the current of the world, proclaiming the Gospel of Life, declaring that the respect of life and dignity of each person is necessary and must be announced as a good news, as the fruit of the new image of Christ in humankind, planted through the proclamation of the Word of God and nourished by the Sacraments.

We need not be afraid to encourage our faithful brothers and sisters to welcome life, as single persons and as families; to see in the other person an image of God, even if that be at a high cost! We are called to encourage all not to be afraid to risk even losing human life to defend true life, since ultimately, he who loses his life will find it.

If only, we could bring forth this message and make it resound and become alive in our communities! Then we would truly become the bearers of a new gospel, a new message, a new life within this world of ours.

As the Letter to Diognetus said to the Christians of the year 300 AD (end of second century): Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body.  Let us then take on our role of providing this society of ours with a renewed vision of life. Let us become the soul of this world, let us continue presenting to the society of our times the True Life, the one of Our Lord Jesus Christ.