GOD'S STANDARD FOR HUMAN LIFE - "YOU SHALL NOT KILL"..........

The 5th Commandment of the Living and True God of the Universe is uniequivocal : "You Shall Not Kill". The Catholic Church teaches a respect for life that is wholistic and unconditional. We are formed in our Catholic-Christian Faith to be pro-life from the moment of conception to natural death. Therefore, it is alarming and selfishly sinful when anyone, but especially a believer in God desecrates the dignity of a human life by intentionally killing a person. In our Faith Tradition that applies to abortion, murder, euthanasia, suicide, or any direct violation or destruction of the life of a human being. Rationalizing or justifying the intentional taking of a human life is not only sinful, but dead wrong in accordance with God's Law. Presently in the news is the aftermath of the killing of a midwestern doctor who performed abortions, who was murdered by another man last summer on a Sunday morning in church. The suspect has already admitted to killing the doctor. Now, as his trial begins in Kansas, the alledged killer of the doctor is pleading what he did is voluntary manslaughter, because he was trying to save unborn children. Granted, the doctor performing abortions was in violation of the 5th Commandment's mandate for the sanctity for human life. But for another person to make the self determination that in order to save the unborn, they have the right to kill a doctor who anyone else, is an equally grevious violation of the reverence for human life we must uphold. Rationalizing or justifying the intentional killing of a human being as voluntary manslaughter, is a mockery of the moral values of God's Law and the legal implications of our judicial system. To accept or support the murder, even of someone whose morality and definition of life greatly differs from our own Catholic-Christian belief or personal opinion, is an act of violence in contempt of the Divine Commandment, "You Shall Not Kill". There is much we are and can do to bear witness to the sanctity and respect for human life that is truly and fully Pro-Life. Self determined exceptions to our dignity for life from conception to natural death, tear the fabric of what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin called, "the seamless garment" of human life. We must continue to pray, actively work and advocate, for the right to life for all persons. Please God, civility and discipleship will lead us to eradicating death and affirming life, that does not perpetrate falsehood and fantasy, but perpetuates the sacred truth of Life as God's most precious gift to humankind..........Choose Life, Not Death, As Believers in Eternal Life, Fr. Troy