Celebrating the Gospel of life
Gonzalo Herranz
department of Bioethics, University of Navarra
workshop on the message of the Encyclical Evangelium vitae on its anniversary
University of Navarra, 21 March 1996
I. Celebrating the Gospel of life in the Pope's letter
II. What is it to celebrate the Gospel of life?
The celebration of the Gospel of life in the university teaching
Celebration in pro-life activism
III. Celebrating the value of life, an ongoing task
Bricks to build the culture of life
In the fourth and final chapter of the Encyclical Evangelium vitae, the Pope prophetically proposes to us the construction of a new culture of life. The Pope asks us all, to begin with, to develop and root in us the humble and grateful awareness of being the people of life and for life, so that we may go out into the wide world, into the city of mankind, promoting a radical and profound cultural change. The Gospel of life that has been freely given to us must transform us into joyful heralds of the truth about life. Each one of us must stand before people with gestures of humble love, of quiet joy, in order to spread the good news without vainglory or bitterness.
The Pope tells us that, although the evangelisation of life is of one piece, a global and powerful action, it nevertheless involves the Church and the followers of Christ in the triple mission statement prophetic, priestly and kingly action of the Lord. It involves, therefore and inseparably, the dimensions of advertisement, celebration, and charitable service, which are three ways of spreading the Gospel of life.
I will try to make some reflections on the second of these directions: celebrating the Gospel of life. Of the three, it is probably the one which, in the historical past and in present reflection, has received the least attention, although, in my opinion, it is no less important than the other two. I have not found among the commentaries on the Encyclical in the first year of its publication a single one that deals specifically with what the celebration of the Gospel of life is. There are, it is true, pastoral subject considerations, even preceding the publication of the Encyclical, which have inspired, in some countries or dioceses, the nascent tradition of celebrating an annual Day of Life. But I suspect that the celebration of the Gospel of life has not aroused much interest among scholars of the document. There is, therefore, not much bibliography to go on.
There is no apparent lack of reasons to explain this. It seems obvious, at first sight, that the celebration of the Gospel of life cannot compete, in theoretical interest, with the urgent task of analysing theologically and announcing to the world the doctrine of the Encyclical; nor, in priority internship, can it overshadow the enormous and urgent task of serving this Gospel in deeds and in truth.
It seems to me, however, that the celebration of the Gospel of life is a topic of consideration, in need of study and development, because it is decisive in finding the tone that the other two directions, advertisement and service, of the evangelising action of life to which the Pope invites us, must take.
All too often we see that, in the work of those who want to contribute - through thought and action - to the construction of the culture of life, there are components of harshness, bitterness or resentment. Often, especially in particularly conflictive environments, due to the chronic and relentless struggle with powerful and bitter enemies, the thinking and action of the defenders of life tends to deteriorate into an anti-bellicosity, into an ideology that is more negating than affirmative, into an activism strongly marked by the anti (anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-contraception, anti-assisted reproduction), so that it is not very attractive to those who observe it from the outside. Worse still, the obsessive fixation on disavowing the enemy favours the withdrawal cultivation and strengthening of one's own identity and even threatens to nullify the efficacy of evangelising action.
I believe it is justified to have the celebration of the Gospel of life as topic worthy of consideration and conversation, in spite of the fact that my reflections are not yet mature. In any case, this intervention of mine will serve to recall some points of the Encyclical.
I am going to deal with three points. The first is to summarise what the Pope tells us in the Encyclical about celebrating the Gospel of life. Then, I will try to identify the role that the celebration should play in the Education of those who work in health care and pro-life activism. Finally, I will make a few brief comments on the permanent character that celebrating the value of life will have for all time on our work , on the need to always include an element of celebration in all that - whether by thought, written or spoken word, or action - we contribute to building the culture of life.
I. Celebrating the Gospel of life in the Pope's letter
The Pope's indications on this point in the Encyclical are not few, but they are decisive and illuminating.
1. On the one hand, celebrating the Gospel of life is one of the three directions that the Pope repeatedly includes in the programme that the Church has to face in order to fulfil her mission statement in favour of life and to overcome positively the crisis, in which our culture is immersed, on the value of life and the meaning of death.
The Pope uses the expression "celebrate the Gospel of life " for the first time in the Encyclical when, at the close of Chapter I, he says: "Therefore, in the light and with the strength of this faith [in Christ], and in the face of the challenges of today's status , the Church becomes more conscious of the grace and responsibility she receives from her Lord to proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life".
But I think that, right from the beginning of the letter and without saying so, the Pope is explaining to us what it means to celebrate life. The Pope always recommends - and this is his constant example - that whenever possible we begin our ethical reflections and teachings with some reference letter to Scripture, that we try to give them a biblical foundation. Faithful to his own recommendation, the Pope gives a scriptural foundation to this long moral reflection which is Evangelium vitae. Well, it turns out that the first biblical support on which the Pope rests serves to place us in an atmosphere of celebration. The text of the Encyclical opens with an air of celebration, of joy: At the dawn of salvation, the birth of a child is proclaimed as joyful news: " advertisement brings you great joy, which will be for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:10-11). The birth of the Saviour certainly produces this great joy. Christmas brings out the profound meaning of every human birth, and messianic joy is thus the foundation and the height of joy for every child who is born (cf. Jn 16:21).
Luke's Gospel remains the guide to understand the joy with which to celebrate the advertisement and the advent of every human life, the dignity of every unborn child. The Pope says in point 45 of the Encyclical that the revelation of the New Testament confirms the indisputable recognition of the value of life from its very beginning. The Pope presents the exultant scene of Mary's Visitation to Elizabeth as an outburst of joy for life, celebrating both the fruitfulness and hopeful expectation of life and the value of the human person from conception. Elizabeth rejoices in her pregnancy and thanks God for the late but happy opportunity to become a mother: "The Lord... has deigned to take away my reproach among men" (Lk 1:25). Using a quotation of St. Ambrose, the mysterious value of prenatal life is exalted: "the child leaped for joy and the mother was filled with the Holy Spirit, but the mother was not enriched before the child, but after the child was filled, the mother was also filled".
2. On the other hand, at the beginning of Chapter IV of the Letter, the Pope outlines the ways and fields in which the Gospel of life is to be celebrated. He tells us that the three dimensions of proclaiming, celebrating and serving the Gospel of life are inseparable. It goes on to add that, within the life of the Church, each of the Gospel workers must fulfil them according to his or her own charism and ministry. Thus, unity and diversity, fidelity and spontaneity (p. 78). And he concludes a little further on, on p. 79, that "all of us together feel the duty to proclaim the Gospel of life, to celebrate it in the liturgy and in the whole of life, to serve it with the various initiatives and Structures of support and promotion". That is to say, there is a celebration that has to do with the liturgy, but another celebration takes place in the wide world, in the shore-less field of the whole of existence.
But it is in points 83 to 86 that the Pope deals at length with the celebration of the Gospel of life. It is not easy to summarise them, but I will try.
The corresponding section of the letter has as its motto words from Psalm 139/138: "I thank you for so many wonders: I am a wonder". This ejaculation of gratitude and wonder gives a joyful and grateful tone to much of what follows. With profound psychological and pastoral intuition, the Pope reminds us that we are sent into the world as a "people for life" and that the advertisement of the Gospel of life must be a true and genuine celebration which, with its gestures, symbols and rites, becomes a vehicle for the beauty and grandeur of this Gospel. The dimensions of this celebration are therefore not small, nor are its objectives.
In an unexpected twist, the Pope immediately tells us that for the feast to be authentic it is necessary that our souls have reflected deeply on this Gospel, that we have cultivated in ourselves, and fostered in others, a contemplative gaze. We must make acts of faith, deepen our faith in the God of life, who has created each person as a wonder. We need to see human life in the depths of contemplation in order to marvel unceasingly at its gratuitousness and beauty and at the invitation to freedom and responsibility that is included in it. That contemplative gaze, which is respectful, non-possessive, and penetrating, will reveal to us in each person the living image of the Creator, will make us see through transparency the intangible dignity of each human being so often hidden beneath the appearance of illness, suffering, vulnerability, or the precariousness that precedes death. This contemplative gaze finds meaning in every human life, for it discovers in the face of every human being a call to mutual consideration, dialogue and solidarity. In-depth reflection on the Gospel of life should fill us with religious admiration for every human being, should make us capable of venerating and respecting him or her. The Pope returns to the point of departure, affirming that it is by virtue of this contemplative vision of man that the people of life can burst into hymns of joy, praise and thanksgiving for the inestimable gift of life, a gift which mysteriously includes the call of every human being to participate in Christ in the life of grace and in an endless communion with God the Creator and Father.
Having thus laid the foundation, the Pope invites us to take an active part in the celebration of life and to build the culture of life in its festive dimension. He offers us a set of ideas, gentle and strong, which, if we were to assimilate them thoroughly, could give our dialogue with people an ever-renewed freshness and an inexhaustible capacity to overcome prejudices.
The first activity in which the celebration of the Gospel of life is to be manifested is joy in the creative Love of God, in the divine Life, life-giving in itself and creator of life, from which every living being proceeds and from which it comes to souls to be immortal. We believe in a God staff, Creator and Giver of life, whom it is not enough simply to confess as the remote Principle, Cause and unique Foundation of life. It is also necessary to praise, contemplate and celebrate God as the Life that vivifies all life.
The Pope goes on to list possibilities and suggestions for celebrating life. He invites us to rejoice daily, in our prayer, with praise to God our Father who knit us together in the womb and saw us and loved us while we were still unformed (cf. Ps 139/138, 13, 15-16). He invites us, with the words that serve as the motto of this section of the encyclical, to give thanks to God for the marvel that we are (Ps 139/138, 14). Taking a few lines from a reflection on the death of Paul VI, John Paul II presents the mysterious contrast between life and death as an occasion for joy: "This mortal life, despite its tribulations, its dark mysteries, its sufferings, its fatal expiry, is a most beautiful fact, an ever original and moving wonder, an event worthy of being sung with joy and glory".
The Pope insists time and again, for this is the foundation of the culture of life, on establishing in our conscience the clear and profound idea of the dignity of every human being. And that dignity, so often obscured by illness and ignorance, must nevertheless always be celebrated because it never lacks a spark of God's glory: "In every child who is born and in every man who lives and dies, we recognise the image of God's glory, a glory that we celebrate in every man, a sign of the living God, an icon of Jesus Christ".
More ideas are contained in these points 83 to 86 of the Encyclical, but we will have the opportunity to consider them later.
II. What is it to celebrate the Gospel of life?
If we had fully absorbed into our souls, into our moral conscience, this unconditioned attitude of admiration and joy before the almost divine dignity of man, our activity in favour of the culture of life that the Pope invites us to build, a culture that encompasses everything and has a thousand different aspects, would be very fruitful and lively.
I can speak, with some hesitation knowledge, of the role that the celebration of the Gospel of life can play in two areas: the teaching of Medicine (I dare not speak of other university programs of study ), and the social actions promoted in favour of life.
The celebration of the Gospel of life in the university teaching
Paradoxically, the contemplative gaze of which the Pope speaks does not seem very keen among many university students. To begin with, how poorly inspired and poorly written seem most of the books our students study! They are coldly descriptive, written without enthusiasm for life, with a one-dimensional pseudo-objectivity, boringly formalistic. It would be necessary to rewrite the treatises on biology and pathology of man with a new attitude, which, together with the rigour of scientific observation and the critical assessment of facts and hypotheses, would include the definitely human trait of admiration. It would often suffice to introduce into books and explanations small pauses that would give rise to wonder and its innumerable motives. As a great contemporary researcher has suggested, we would be better educators if we provided, in our classes and in our textbooks, opportunities for our students and readers to probe our ignorance, to make some estimates of how much remains to be discovered, of the inexhaustible richness of living reality. In this way we could protect medical students, doctors and those who cultivate the life sciences from the terrible temptation of mechanistic simplism, from the risk of the routine vision of life, from the trivialisation of the astonishing, from the affective desertification of the biological.
It is necessary to bring life to life. Only in this way can we protect them from the subtle narcotisation of scientism. The mechanistic obsession - not the scientific analysis of biological mechanisms and processes and their adaptation to abnormal conditions induced by disease - tends to engrave in the mind of the student and researcher, that only what is mechanistically explainable has reality, which comes to mean, as an intellectual habit, that only what is dead is biological, since the paradigm in force today - that of molecular biology and medicine - states that everything has to be explained in terms of molecules. From the embryo to the living soul, everything supramolecular is thus killed, because in the mechanistic mentality everything that cannot be immediately explained in molecular terms tends to be considered unreal. Life itself thus becomes an unreality.
The consequences are catastrophic, as the impoverishment of the biological Philosophy reveals. Tomlin has argued that, with the mechanistic model as the sole form of orthodoxy, Biology has been absorbed into a kind of Thanatology. Life is defined and explained in terms of what is dead. But the reductionist mentality reigns over everything created: to speak, for example, of human embryos as human beings to be respected is considered an eccentricity. To admit that a human nature is expressed in the embryo seems a betrayal of science. Basically, it cannot be affirmed that living beings actually exist, because what is real by definition is the non-living.
But life exists. And so do living beings. And we have to love them in their integrity in order to know and recognise them as such. There is a truly professional and scientific way of doing this. All it takes is honesty of intellect, sincerity of vision, and a joyful love of life. I like to quote excerpts from articles by Lewis Thomas, articles collected in his anthologies: The Lives of a Cell, The Medusa and the Snail. Lewis Thomas's life was not illuminated by the light of faith: it was spent in the gloom of longing for God. But as well as being a biologist and pathologist with a penetrating and original eye, and a fascinating writer, he was a lover of life, a witness to the wonders of living, which enabled him to be for others a Biological Watcher - that is how he signed his articles. He wrote about living beings in a way that very few have done so far.
From a article graduate On Embryology I take this sample, in which Lewis Thomas tells us what happens in the first days of our life. He does so with such panache that what happens at that dawn of life becomes an intense experience, an astonishment. "You start from a single cell that comes from the fusion of a sperm and an oocyte. The cell divides into two, then four, then eight, and so on. And, very soon, at a certain point, it turns out that among them there is one that is going to be the precursor of the human brain. The mere existence of that cell is the first of the wonders of the world. We should spend our waking hours commenting on that fact. We should spend the whole day calling each other on the phone, in endless amazement, to meet and talk about that cell alone. It is unbelievable. But there it is, perched in its place in every one of the billions of human embryos in all of history, in all parts of the world, as if it were the easiest and most ordinary thing in life.
If you want to live from surprise to surprise, here is the source of them all. One cell differentiates itself to produce the massive apparatus of trillions of cells, given to us to think, to imagine, and also, for that matter, to stay in one piece in the face of such a formidable surprise. All the information needed to learn to read and write, to play the piano, to argue in front of a committee on congress, to cross the street in traffic, or to perform that wonderfully human act of stretching out your arm and leaning against a tree: it is all contained in that first cell. In it is all grammar, all syntax, all arithmetic, all music.
It is not known how this differentiation takes place. At the very beginning of the embryo, when it is nothing more than a pile of cells, it seems that all this information and much more is latent in each of its cells. When the stem cell of the brain appears, what will determine the brain is connected and, at the same time, all other potentialities are disconnected or cancelled, so that this cell can no longer choose, as its precursors could, to become a thyroid cell, a liver cell or any other variety of tissue. It can only be a brain.
Nobody has the faintest idea how it is done, but the truth is that nothing in the world seems more interesting. If, before I die," Lewis Thomas concluded, "someone finds an explanation of this phenomenon, I would do something crazy: I would hire one of those aeroplanes that can write signs in the sky, indeed, a whole squadron of them, and send them around the world to write one exclamation mark after another, until I run out of money.
The reason for having read Thomas's long excerpt is not, it is understood, in the masterly pondering with which a biological fact of extraordinary magnitude is highlighted (Thomas's words, in a certain sense, refer only to the scientific-biological aspect of the problem and are slightly tinged with biologism). The extensive quotation was worth reading because of the infectious enthusiasm, unbridled wonder and love of life it expresses. We should strive to bring equal enthusiasm, wonder and love into our academic lessons and discussions, and into conversations with our friends. This, I believe, should be the tone we should use, from time to time, when we have to argue for human life, for biological respect for each and every one, including the very young embryonic human being.
But more is needed. To be an active promoter of the culture of life, a friendly and intense knowledge is not enough. It is necessary to foster the growth of character. The culture of life requires generosity and service, overcoming selfishness, a capacity for adventure. The Pope says in point 88 of the letter that a patient and courageous educational work is needed to urge each and every one to become position of the burden of others, that a continuous promotion of vocations of service is needed, particularly among young people. This effort educational is essential and urgent in today's cold and selfish social context.
result In an analysis of the crisis of humanity that the internship of medicine has been suffering for some years now, a Jewish doctor, Prof. Shimon Glick, states that this crisis is the direct result of the impoverishment in moral and ethical values that many Western democratic societies have introduced in their educational systems. One need only calculate the human and moral quality of young men and women candidates for the medical profession who have been raised and educated as children or adolescents in a relatively affluent but openly permissive environment, who have become accustomed to getting effortlessly and quickly what they want and whenever they want it; who are taught that the ultimate object of life is to aspire to well-being and self-satisfaction of desire at the lowest possible moral cost. Is it reasonable to expect, Glick asked, that such children will grow into moral adults who give themselves with generous energy to the betterment of society when they choose medicine as a vocation?
Today's educational lacks the Education for generosity, for the joy of giving and giving. Esteem for moral values is not encouraged. The Education on virtue has been expelled after being labelled as moralising. Only what one has and possesses is taken into account. There is no self-respect, because respect for others is not celebrated.
Sometimes, by succumbing to the lure of the world's values (the pseudo-elitism of high qualifications, the concept of the professional degree program as an exercise in mere competitiveness, the social Darwinism of the survival of the best or the most aggressive), the university allows itself to be deprived of the best it has, which is not so much to promote technical achievement, but to forge the character of its students. Human and moral integrity is the most important thing that a university can still produce today.
I do not believe that the transformation of the university can be achieved in the Western world without a profound change, without a new evangelisation, without a return to Christian roots. And I think that this return will not be made by futurologists or specialists in calculating sociological trends, but by those who are capable of restoring the joy of living. And in this respect, the celebration of life seems essential. The strength of the teaching on the value of life is the admiration that everyone feels when they realise the marvellous way in which their body and soul are built and the destiny to which they are driven by being an icon of Jesus Christ.
Celebration in pro-life activism
It seems to me that one of the most insidious temptations threatening the defenders of life is to succumb to sadness. They have every reason to do so if things are looking bleak. But it would be a pity if the good salt were to lose its flavour, if the preachers of the Gospel of life were to become bitter and vengeful, if they were to put more irritation than joy, more rancour than hope, more antagonism than charity, in their words and actions. It is understandable that those who daily enter contact with the ideological aggressiveness of the neo-Malthusians and of those who control the nerve centres of political inspiration and professional control, or who try to understand the extent and intensity of the massive destruction of human lives that, with the protection of the law, is perpetrated in the world today, have every reason to feel very sad and distressed: many are the sins that are committed, many are the lives that are cut short, much is the impenitent obstinacy.
But we cannot forget that such sentiments are incompatible with the evangelisation of life. In all circumstances, the Gospel of life is good news, full of hope and promise, to be presented with serenity and love. And if possible, with liveliness in the eyes and a smile on the face, with an understanding and generous heart, with patience, courage and simplicity, and never lacking a touch of humour.
I recall once again the first page of the Encyclical. It charges us that the Gospel of life be preached faithfully and forcibly, without fear, but with the joy of good news to people of every age and culture, for it is a new law of freedom, joy and blessing. The Pope reminds us that God's commands are never separated from his love, that they are always a gift given for man's joy and growth.
core topic It is very important that we find the right tone for our words and our work in favour of life. In Veritatis splendor, at the very beginning, the Pope speaks of the effort to find "ever new expressions of love and mercy to be addressed not only to believers, but to all people of good will" and then reminds us that the Church is an expert in humanity, a Mother and Teacher who places herself at the service of every person, of the whole world.
Pro-life activism must be informed by joy. We are told in Evangelium vitae that the Gospel of life is for the Church not only a joyful proclamation, but in itself source of joy. It is not a political conviction, or a way of judging demographics, or of evaluating social relations that must impel us to defend life, but, if we have the spirit of the Gospel of life, the gratitude we feel for the incomparable dignity of man. This is the reason that must impel us to share our message with other men and women.
Having read many publications of pro-life movements, especially a large section from the United States, I miss the affirmative, encouraging, joyful, celebratory spirit that should energise pro-life actions. There is too much politics in these publications, too many personal references to the perpetrators of evil, too much localism. Many of these publications are not very inspiring. They lack intellectual generosity.
But this generosity is necessary for us. The Pope wanted to add a new element to pro-life activism. After recalling, in point 84 of the Encyclical, that the celebrations of the liturgical year should be a privileged occasion to welcome, savour and communicate the Gospel of life and an occasion to express admiration and gratitude for life received as a gift, and after pointing out the close relationship of the Sacraments with the most significant moments of Christian existence - birth, life, suffering and death - the Pope adds that it is necessary to know how to appreciate and value the gestures and symbols in which the various cultural traditions and customs of peoples are rich. It is a tradition that cannot be forgotten. All peoples have celebrated, with stories and songs, with poems and dances, with meetings and feasts, the joy of life that is born, the respect and defence of every human existence, the care for those who suffer or are in need, the protection of the elderly, the sharing in the pain of those who die, the mourning of those who mourn, the hope and desire for immortality.
In order to create a framework for these ideas and following a suggestion made by the Consistory of Cardinals in 1991, the germinal moment of the Encyclical, the Pope wants an annual workshop for Life to be held, in which everyone should participate.
Such a workshop is a challenge for all of us. Everyone, each in his or her own way, must be prepared to take an active part in this workshop, to contribute to the recognition of the meaning and value of human life, in all its moments and conditions, in the family, ecclesial and civil spheres. The Pope invites us to focus our attention in a particular way on revealing the seriousness of abortion and euthanasia. But one thing is clear in the Pope's message: after Evangelium vitae, pro-life activism cannot cease to be affirmative and revealing of its evangelical richness. It can never again fall into the sad game of playing the counter, of accepting the challenge of competing in hatred or haughtiness, as its enemies want it to do.
III. Celebrating the value of life, an ongoing task
I believe that the celebration of the Gospel of life must be based on two fundamental supports. The first, very easy to express and, with God's financial aid , to put on internship, consists in a joyful and faithful acceptance of the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church. The second must be the firm conviction that this is a work for a long time, a fixed point in the diary of work of all of us. It is up to us to cooperate for life, each one with his or her own charism and vocation, in the knowledge dissemination, celebration and service of this gospel. We are to be tireless workers in an absorbing and almost endless work .
This means that, for the rest of our lives, each of us will have to devote a substantial part of our time and effort to this task which is as hard as it is promising. We cannot allow the impact of the Encyclical to fade away and die out in a few months.
Each to the best of his or her knowledge and belief. I am trying to look for what I call bricks to build the culture of life.
Bricks to build the culture of life
In recent times, more and more attention is being paid on the teaching of medical ethics to the presentation of cases as a didactic resource to develop the skills and abilities of ethical analysis and reasoned decision-making. But detailed accounts of clinical episodes, of dilemmatic situations, are also being used as a means of deeper human understanding, as narratives full of meaning, sharpening the perception of the ethically significant or uncovering hitherto opaque insights into the patient's inner self.
I believe that, in the construction of the culture of life, these stories can play an educational and celebratory role of the first magnitude. They can help us to discover the human beauty of moral rectitude, the virginal sincerity of love for precarious life, the authenticity and nobility of service to life. And this without sad drama, but with the simple naturalness of those who have a fair vision of the greatness and precariousness of life.
For some time now, I have been eagerly collecting stories that I call "building blocks for the culture of life". I include them in the circular letter I send every two months to the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Since many of them write to thank me for sending them this small collection of cases in which the Gospel of life is incarnated, I will end my intervention with one of these stories, which presents in a very eloquent, almost dramatic way, the human values inherent in the acceptance of the precarious life of a malformed child.
It is a true story in which a woman, a psychiatrist, tells us very simply how respect for the disabled is lived in the context of the civilisation of love. There is not a milligram of sentimentality in the story. It is told with the objectivity that comes from the official document of medicine and with the sensitivity of a psychiatrist.
The author tells of her joy at becoming pregnant shortly before Christmas 1992. She tells of the joy with which the news was received by her and her husband, also a doctor, and by the future proud grandparents; and how the following weeks were full of expectation and hope. She tells us of her joy at 18 weeks when she noticed the first foetal movements. But little by little a concern arose: her belly was not bulging as much as expected. She went to an obstetrician who performed an ultrasound and gave her the terrible news that there was oligohydramnios and that the foetus had multiple malformations, so serious that it was very likely that the pregnancy would not be able to reach full term.
Naturally, the news was devastating: Karen felt for a few days as if she had lost her son and cried a lot for him, as if he had died. She says: "The lifeline my husband and I clung to was this: that this tiny, damaged life we had been given was precious and we could not abandon it. In those early days of anxiety, as if aware of the need to remind us of its importance, the child moved inside me much more than it had before. We came to the conclusion that we were not going to do anything that was not in the child's best interest. We told the doctor so, and he understood.
The months that followed were very hard. We learned to love this special and unexpected son, and to fear the moment when he might die. We were helped a lot by our family, friends and colleagues. They gave us a lot of encouragement, and we really needed it all. An ultrasound scan at week 25 showed that there was very little lung tissue, so the prognosis became even more bleak. It was tremendous to feel him full of life and to know that he would never be able to live outside of me. People congratulated me when they saw me on the street or in the hospital, and asked me how things were going. Thank goodness that, little by little, everyone knew what was happening.
There were doubts about how to prepare for the birth: whether a caesarean section might be necessary, as presentation was breech; whether it would be good to monitor the birth or an emergency intervention in case the umbilical cord was compressed. My head was spinning. At times I wanted it to be over soon, and at other times I wished I could carry him inside me forever, alive and moving. But one thing was always clear: we were not going to abandon him.
On 3 August 1993 the obstetrician performed a caesarean section. He took Jennifer Grace - that's what we christened her - out of my womb, a rosy, beautiful baby girl, a bit small, to be honest. I held her in my hands for a moment, but immediately the paediatricians took her away. My husband and I experienced real joy. He went with her to paediatrics and there he introduced her to the grandparents as a 'very brave fighter'. I saw her again when she was three hours and average old. An ultrasound had confirmed that she had no kidneys and could not possibly survive. She also had pulmonary hypoplasia, but we did nothing, as assisted ventilation would not have helped. For the last five minutes of her life we cradled her in our arms and said goodbye. My mother helped me dress her and took some photographs.
Why am I telling this story? Simply to let people know what happened. Perhaps it will make some people seriously consider whether abortion is the best thing to do, both for the parents of a severely malformed foetus and for the child itself. After Jennifer's death we have thought a lot about those months of my pregnancy. It was a very special time, precisely because she was with us. Now, we can give thanks for her and mourn her as a member of our family whom we loved dearly and whom we have lost.
We had a funeral to celebrate his short life and pay tribute to him for the immense good he did for us. We can visit her grave and bring her flowers. We can talk about her. And if we have other children, we can tell them about their big sister. We can do all that. And that will financial aid ease the pain of losing her. If we had aborted her, all that would be forbidden to us.
This is the end of Karen Palmer's story. I believe her story is a test of the immense human richness, of the ennobling moral potential in respect for life, so tragically absent in the culture of death.
Let us go around the world sowing with joy this very human and true doctrine, giving thanks to God who allows us to bring love out of hate and life out of death. The culture of life has to be built and thought with the financial aid of the reflection of the theologian, the abstraction of the thinker and the research of the sociologist. But also with personal stories, with poetry and songs that tell the beauty of real life, of the firmness of love. And that they do so with force, not to leave a fleeting impression, a slight stirring of the spirit, but a wound that hurts every day. We have to burden the strong confrontation between pro-lifers and pro-choicers with understanding, not in the sense of giving in on the non-negotiable principles of sacred respect for human life, but by praying more for the conversion of those who are wrong, by feeling towards them a love that hurts because of their mistakes. We cannot forget that the celebration of the Gospel of life is linked to the priestly official document of the followers of Christ, which must be informed by much mercy and intercession. We must all, under the influence of grace, make an effort to understand the erring and to attract them with infinite love. The Pope gives us an example when he calls women who have resorted to abortion to conversion to the Gospel of life. The Church," says John Paul II, "knows how many conditioning factors may have influenced their decision and has no doubt that in many cases it was a painful, even dramatic decision. It is true that what happened was and remains profoundly unjust. However, we must not give in to discouragement or give up hope. What happened must be lucidly understood and interpreted in its truth. But there is still the great hope of repentance, of forgiveness from the Father of all mercy. We must build, hand in hand with the Pope, this new sociology of forgiveness, of the truth of repentance, one of the highest human acts, which is the synthesis of man's fallibility with God's merciful love.
These personal stories of failure and return to the Father's house have all the force of real life. They are stories, it seems to me, that need to be told to people to draw them to the Gospel of life.
Thank you very much.