WASHINGTON (CNS) — Catholics “must do all we can to be God’s witnesses of merciful love in the world” and stand up for “the life and dignity of the human person wherever it is threatened or diminished,” said the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
“Protecting the life of the unborn children is the pre-eminent human rights issue of our time, not only because of the sheer magnitude of the numbers, but because abortion attacks the sanctuary of life, the family,” Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, said in a Jan. 18 statement.
“Every abortion not only destroys the life of an innocent child, but it wounds and scars mothers and fathers … in reality, the welfare of parents and their child are always intimately linked,” he wrote.
The archbishop also made it clear that pro-life Catholics “are concerned about the life and dignity of the human person wherever it is threatened or diminished,” and highlighted the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church as an example of “grave injustice” to this dignity.
“The abuse of children or minors upends the pro-life ethic,” he explained, because it is an “egregious offense against the dignity of the human person.”
Archbishop Naumann issued his statement ahead of the Jan. 22 anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in the companion cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that legalized abortion in all 50 states.
The U.S. Catholic Church observes Jan. 22 as the National Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of the Unborn Jan. 22.
Archbishop Naumann gave the opening prayer at the annual March for Life in Washington Jan. 18, which according to march officials numbered more than 100,000. He urged the crowd there to “go change the world.”