RICHARD A. SOKERKA
In these final days of October, the month which the Church in the United States celebrates as Respect Life Month, it is our hope that Catholics took the opportunity to reflect more deeply on why every human life is valuable, and at the same time rededicated themselves to building a culture that protects life from conception to natural death.
We all believe that every human life should be protected and cherished from conception. However, many in our nation, including the Biden Administration and the Democrat Party, do not. These elected officials, both in Washington, D.C., and here in New Jersey continue in their efforts to expand abortion using our taxpayer dollars at every turn to ensure abortion is readily available up to and including at the time to the birth of a child.
When human life is threatened, we need to say “yes” to life, just as Emilia Wojtyla, the mother of St. Pope John Paul II, did more than 100 years ago.
In the book, Emilia and Karol Wojtyla, parents of St. John Paul II, author Milena Kindziuk describes how St. John Paul II’s mother was advised to get an abortion.
“She had to choose between her own life and that of the baby she was carrying, but her deep faith did not allow Emilia to choose abortion (as he doctor recommended). Deep in her heart, she had to be ready to make this sacrifice (of her life) for the baby she was carrying,” Kindziuk said.
On May 18, 1920, Emilia Wojtyla gave birth to her second son, Karol, after a difficult and life-threatening pregnancy.
We all know that the child would grow up to be St. John Paul II, whose feast day we celebrated Oct. 22.
What if Emilia Wojtyla did not have such a strong Catholic faith and listened to her doctor?
The world as we know it now would certainly have been different in so many terrible ways without St. John Paul II in it.
How many other potential saints have we lost to the insane slaughter of human life in the womb?
Remember the words of St. John Paul II: “A nation that kills its own children has no future.”
The future of our great nation stands on the precipice. Will we continue to elect leaders who embrace the “culture of death,” as St. John Paul II called it, or will we act to vote for elected officials who will turn our nation’s future to the light of affirming life from conception to natural death?
The choice is in our hands.