CNS STORY: False idols of autonomy, utility work against life, cardinal says

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LIFE-RIGALI (CORRECTED) Aug-7-2007 (630 words) xxxn

False idols of autonomy, utility work against life, cardinal says

By Catholic News Service

ARLINGTON, Va. (CNS) -- Like the Israelites who idolized the golden calf, the pro-life movement is challenged today by "the idolatrous gospel of total autonomy, sheer utility and false mercy," Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia told a gathering in Arlington Aug. 2.

The cardinal, who chairs the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, spoke on the opening day of the Aug. 2-4 annual conference of directors of diocesan pro-life offices and state Catholic conferences, sponsored by the bishops' pro-life secretariat.

"Those who have blind faith in embryonic stem-cell research and its so-called 'biblical power to cure' -- as House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi called it recently -- are worshipping a modern-day false idol," Cardinal Rigali said. "They are putting their faith in an exaggerated view of the wonders of science and in their own ingenuity to overcome disease and aging."

Similarly, the Israelites who in the Bible account had been recently freed from bondage in Egypt disobeyed God by worshipping the golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai, he said.

"In their impatience, stubbornness and disobedience, they created out of their own possessions -- their own jewelry and valuables -- a god they could control," he said. "A god they shaped, rather than one they would be shaped by."

Those who support keeping abortion legal in the United States "have also exchanged the truth for a lie" by promoting abortion "as a way to further women's freedom," Cardinal Rigali said.

"Instead of affirming the inviolable dignity of human life, the dignity of women and respect for the integrity of sexual relations and motherhood, they assert a false notion of freedom made in their own image, a self-made ethic that justifies their own choices," he said.

But the cardinal cited several signs of encouragement for the pro-life movement, including changing public opinion about abortion, the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the ban on partial-birth abortion and the Philadelphia City Council's quick reversal earlier this year of a declaration that it was "a pro-choice city."

He also noted a decline in the rate and number of abortions, especially among teens who are choosing to abstain from sex until marriage.

"To be free of disease, to be free of the fear of an ill-timed pregnancy, to be free of a broken heart -- this is the freedom that we want for our young people, and we rejoice that it is unfolding," he added.

Cardinal Rigali warned, however, that even those in the pro-life movement can fall victim to "the temptation to idolatry."

"Because the 'evil one' wants us to fail, there is a temptation to claim this (pro-life) territory as our own and guard it -- not as a gift from God but as the work of our own hands, the fruit of our own possessions," he said. "But if we do so, we risk burning out or even growing bitter in this beautiful task that has been entrusted to us."

He urged the participants in the meeting to visit the chapel set up at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Arlington "to pray for those in positions of cultural and political power here in Washington."

"If even a handful of the most recalcitrant promoters of the culture of death were to repent -- and then use their power to proclaim the truth about life -- it could have a tremendous impact in defense of life, both domestically and internationally," he said.

In addition to Cardinal Rigali's opening keynote talk, the meeting included lobbying visits to the Capitol Hill offices of members of Congress and speeches about the legal and political status of the abortion issue, the stem-cell debate, contraception, infertility, post-abortion healing and the link between abortion and breast cancer.

END

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