The natural gifts of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” come from God, but these natural rights have been defended and nurtured by freedom loving Christians and people of goodwill who have gone be-fore us. We must do the same.
Our country has been established on Judeo-Christian principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This principle communicates the truth that every human being has equal dignity, and should also have equal protection under the law.
However, we are not equal in every capacity, so not everyone who wants to become a doctor will have that ability, nor the ability to run the fastest. Thus, organizations and governments sometimes need to justly discriminate against those who, for example, are unable or unwilling to study sufficiently to be a doctor, or do not have the biological capability to be the fastest runner.
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is a sacred order. Without our government and “We the people” protecting the first gift of “life”, the other gifts of “liberty”, especially religious liberty that points to God’s gift of life, and the “the pursuit of happiness”, which is based on knowing the truth of reality, are weakened.
Yet, some people want to destroy God’s gift of “life” and take away the sacred order of how life is transmitted – by the union of a man and a woman. Some of these confused people defend the false right to abortion and the false right to homosexual marriage. They are moving us away from God’s design of a truly human society ordered to human dignity and God’s glory.
Clearly abortion is unjust discrimination because it does not protect unborn babies from being murdered. Defending children who have a right to have a mother and father, and therefore not allowing for same sex couples to adopt a child is justified discrimination because God has ordered marriage to the natural gift of human life and the development of children who have a right to a mother and father.
The way we can protect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” which is part of God’s plan of salvation, is to live a life of deepening conversion to God and his “natural law”, for the “natural law” is the basis of staying open to God’s supernatural law of grace
found fully and assuredly in Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church.
Motivated by love of God and the human family, we need to become more involved with our communities and the election of community leaders. We need to know where the candidates stand on moral issues, as well as know the party platform that they represent. It is the “party platform” where the principles and values are described for each political party, which is a good indication of what kind of candidate they will be.
To be a pro-life, pro-family agent as God intended, we must measure party delegates and candidates for public office in light of the founding principles of our country. To do less is to watch our country sink further into sin and thus jeopardize our salvation.
The beginning of endorsing a candidate for political office and establishing goals and values (called “the party platform”) starts at the precinct caucus level which is run by the political parties, and will be held throughout our state of MN on Tuesday, February 1, 7:00 p.m. You can call the political party with which you affiliate or go online to MNvotes.org and look under “caucus finder” to discover the location of your lo-cal caucus.
God bless you and America!
Fr. Thomas McCabe