FFM Parishes: O'Donaghue on being Catholic, 12

Another of our extracts from 'Fit for Mission? - Parishes' by Bishop O'Donaghue of Lancaster. Click on the 'label' FFM Parishes to see others. See the 'Fit for Mission?' website and download the full document. The previous title in the series, 'Fit for Mission? - Schools' is downloadable here (pdf). This generated a Facebook support group.

From section 10.6.2, p69:
These statistics reveal the shocking depth and extent of the suffering and impoverishment of so many families and children due to the separation of the unitive and procreative nature of sexual love, and the wide-spread practice of pre-marital sexual behaviour. I am convinced that there must be profoundly damaging consequences for the family in a country were contraception and abortion are so wide-spread. No wonder so many children are suffering depression and mental illness in a country that is such a hostile environment for human life. No wonder divorce is so prevalent when family life is so often characterised by a lack of generosity or self-giving love.

From 10.7.3, p71:
What do we mean when we use the phrase ‘Culture of Death’? There is the legalised, state-sponsored culture of death, facilitated by some medical professionals, scientists, politicians and journalists. And there is the illegal, criminally facilitated culture of death that, for example, pushes drugs, trafficking in women and children for the sex industry, and facilitates degrading activities. Both the legal and illegal cultures of death reinforce and sustain each other through spreading the general darkening of conscience in society.

From 10.7.3, p72
As Bishop of Lancaster I have recently spoken out against a crime against life that the UK Government is enacting in the most degrading way – experimentation on embryonic human beings and the creation of human-animal hybrid. As I said in my Easter Vigil homily (2008):
‘The Prime Minister has made it clear that he wants Britain to be the world’s number one centre for genetic and stem cell research. He sees it as building up the hi-tech sector of British industry and contributing to economic growth. It is good to develop British industry and foster economic growth, but not through exploiting and destroying embryonic human persons’.
‘A society that seeks medical cures and economic development at the cost of human rights, human dignity and human life is ‘monstrous’. It is not the defenceless, human-animal embryo, that is ‘monstrous’; it is we ourselves who have become ‘monsters’ for allowing the exploitation of the unborn for our economic and medical gain’.