Way disabled treated shows belief about human dignity, says archbishop.

By Julie Asher
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Every child and adult with special needs, every unwanted unborn child and every person who is “poor, weak, abandoned or homeless” is “an icon of God’s face and a vessel of his love,” said Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

“How we treat these persons — whether we revere them and welcome them, or throw them away in distaste — shows what we really believe about human dignity, both as individuals and as a nation,” he said Jan. 22 in a keynote address at a pro-life conference in Washington.

He was the keynote speaker at the 13th annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life at Georgetown University. It is named for the late Cardinal John O’Connor, archbishop of New York from 1984 to 2000.

The student-run conference drew more than 700 young people and adults. The agenda included sessions on topics such as the international abortion situation; media and the pro-life movement; abortion and natural law; adoption’s role in the pro-life movement; and ethical controversies in evolving medical technologies.

The day ended with a discussion on pro-life legislation with members of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

In his keynote, Archbishop Chaput talked about “the kind of people we’re becoming and what we can do about it,” illustrating his theme by outlining the current situation facing unborn babies shown by genetic testing to have Down syndrome.

He said he has friends who have children with disabilities, in particular Down syndrome. He noted that about 5,000 children with the genetic disorder are born in the U.S. each year, and currently there are about 400,000 people in the country with Down syndrome.

But that population “may soon dwindle,” he said. “And the reason why it may decline illustrates, in a vivid way, a struggle with the American soul. That struggle will shape the character of our society in the decades to come.”

Prenatal testing today can detect 95 percent of the pregnancies that have a strong risk the child will be born with Down syndrome, he said. Studies show more than 80 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with it are aborted “because of a flaw in one of their chromosomes — a flaw that’s neither fatal nor contagious, but merely undesirable.”

“I’m not suggesting that doctors hold back vital information from parents. Nor should they paint an implausibly upbeat picture of life with a child who has a disability,” Archbishop Chaput said. But he suggested expectant parents hear from parents who already have special-needs children, not just from doctors and genetic counselors.

“They deserve to know that a child with Down syndrome can love, laugh, learn, work, feel hope and excitement, make friends and create joy for others,” he said.

Raising such a child, he acknowledged, “can be demanding. It always involves some degree of suffering,” as his friends have experienced.

“The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection or imperfection. … The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear,” Archbishop Chaput said.

That also is the choice society faces “in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not,” he said.

“Abortion kills a child; it wounds a precious part of a woman’s own dignity and identity; and it steals hope. That’s why it’s wrong. That’s why it needs to end. That’s why we march.”

Quoting Jesuit Father John Courtney Murray, he said, “Anyone who really believes in God must set God, and the truth of God, above all other considerations.”

So “Catholic public officials who take God seriously cannot support laws that attack human dignity without lying to themselves, misleading others and abusing the faith of their fellow Catholics,” Archbishop Chaput said.

“Catholic doctors who take God seriously cannot do procedures, prescribe drugs or support health policies that attack the sanctity of unborn children or the elderly; or that undermine the dignity of human sexuality and the family,” he continued. “Catholic citizens who take God seriously cannot claim to love their church, and then ignore her counsel on vital public issues that shape our nation’s life.”

As a nation, he said, the United States depends “on a moral people shaped by their religious faith.” With faith “animating its people and informing its public life, America becomes something alien and hostile to the very ideals it was founded on,” he added.

Archbishop Chaput warned Catholics “to wake up from the illusion that the America we now live in … is somehow friendly to our faith.”

“Changing the course of American culture seems like such a huge task,” he said. “But St. Paul felt exactly the same way. Redeeming and converting a civilization has already been done once. It can be done again. But we need to understand that God is calling you and me to do it.”