Alex Warters's Profile

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

, 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.

"By his incarnation the Son of God has united
himself in some fashion with every human being".²

man-living man-represents the primary
and fundamental way for the Church. ⁴

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

"Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of
murder, 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".

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

"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"

"In the account of Abel's murder 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".¹

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" (

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.

human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks
human life, in some way attacks God himself.

"What have you done?"

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 the

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!

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".

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.

to the point of damaging
and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and
States.

though the Church's first care must be for souls, how she can
sanctify them and make them share in the gifts of heaven,

He proved them by His actions, as when He miraculously
multiplied bread to alleviate the hunger of the crowds

Bread it was for the body, but it was intended also to foreshadow that
other bread, that heavenly food of the soul, which He was to give them on "the
night before He suffered."

It is a charity which combines
the precepts and practice of mutual love