Let Us Be a Christian Community which Welcomes Children

      January 22, 2017, marks the 44th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision when the Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning abortion are unconstitutional. The court maintained states’ rights to regulate abortion in accord with protection of the health of the mother and protection of the life of the child. The court also decided that the states’ interests in protecting the life of the child increase as the pregnancy progresses.

      As Catholic Christians we believe in the sanctity of all life, from the womb to the tomb. Universal life and the specific life of individuals is rooted in the loving Will of God that we might have life and have it to the full! (John 10:10). The need to respect life is fundamental to who we are as God’s beloved ones and fundamental to the mutual respect everyone deserves.

      Many believers will never face a so-called “crisis pregnancy.” They will never face the temptation to avoid welcoming a child into the world by aborting it. The majority of Catholic Christians will only rejoice at the news that a child has been conceived and will soon be born.

      Nonetheless, there are others who are less sure about their ability to welcome a child into the world. Those persons are not confident that they are ready to love and care for that child and raise him/her to adulthood with care and responsibility. They do not make a conscious choice to hate their unborn child. Rather, because of weakness, bad counsel, lack of support from the father-spouse, insecurity about finances, emotional instability, or the trauma of rape or incest, having an abortion appears as an insufficient but legal choice.

      The culture we have created in our world today is that there is a strategy and a means for avoiding stress and hardship in almost every situation. Pills are to avoid every pain, stress, and anxiety. Abortion is for a crisis pregnancy. Euthanasia is for disabled elderly, or pain-suffering persons of any age. Capital punishment (death penalty) is for criminals whom we cannot forgive, and so on.

      We must face the reality that there will be surprise, crisis, pain, suffering and death in our lives. The question that is most important is proposed by the moral theologian Stanley Hauerwas: What kind of people do we need to be in order to welcome children into the world?

      For Christians, bringing children into the world is an act of faith. We act with faith that we will be able to love, teach, protect, and nurture these children in order that they may discover God’s love in their own lives and then share that love. We act with faith in every situation, in crisis or not.

      We need to be the kind of faith community that welcomes children by supporting families who are in crisis during the pregnancy. We need to support teenagers, young parents, single mothers, financially struggling families who are expecting a child, etc.

      So, the question above is not just what kind of mother or father do the parents need to be in order to welcome a child, but rather what kind of faith community do we need to be.

      As we pray and march and protest and lobby for life-respecting laws, let us continually check our own moral and spiritual foundations. Are we ready to do extraordinary things in order to help welcome children into the world? May the Christian community say “yes!!!?”