Dear Parishioners,
The planets aligned last week, literally. Five planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn—lined up in planetary order on June
24, 2022. This day would normally
have been the Solemnity of the Nativity
of St. John the Baptist. However, because
the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus (a feast day with a varying, movable date) also fell on the exact same
day this year, it took precedence.
It was also the day we saw the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
A coincidence? Maybe a
Divine Coincidence?
Since 1973, when Roe v. Wade opened the door to legal abortion in our country,
America has been on a continual, downward spiral. Moral decay quickly follows when there is a
loss of respect for the sanctity of every human person—from conception
until natural death. What started as a 7-2 decision by US Supreme Court
Justices who legislated rather than interpreted the law, well
over 60 million innocent children have been surgically or chemically
killed in the US. The dissenting opinion of Justice Byron White
(with Chief Justice William Rehnquist concurring) at that time stated the
following:
I
find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the
Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional
right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its
action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing
state abortion statutes.
The court last Friday finally acknowledged that the reasoning
behind Roe was indeed seriously flawed. Now the decision for or against legalized
abortion falls back to the individual states to decide, as it was before Roe.
No matter how the media or others try to portray the situation, this is
where we are right now. New Jersey
decides for New Jersey.
Sadly, we are not a state that legally protects the
lives of the unborn. The uphill (and now
local) battle waged by Pro-Life
Catholics and all who support the rights of the unborn to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not yet won. In fact, it is in the process of
intensifying.
However, we can see clearly that what might have seemed
unlikely or even impossible is never so with God’s Divine
Assistance. Our prayers and efforts are ever more necessary to accomplishing the task of making New Jersey a Pro-Life state and not one that permits the continued
surgical or chemical death of unborn children.
Reasonable people would certainly hold to the Golden Rule: Do unto
others as you would have them do to you.
Well, what about the preborn?
Would we want to be surgically
torn apart or chemically poisoned? Do we not appreciate the fact that we were given a chance to live in this
world?
Each year since Roe v.
Wade, the March for Life has protested
and stood up for the life of preborn children in our nation’s capital. The founder and organizer of this march was
an attorney named Nellie Gray. She died
ten years ago in 2012, not living to see what she had hoped would eventually occur, the
overturning of Roe. June 25th, the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary this year, was
her birthday. Happy birthday
Nellie! The planets aligned.
Fr. Ed Namiotka
Pastor
Nellie Gray
