A Thread for Weaving Joy

"A Thread for Weaving Joy" is the title of a talk given earlier this week by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput O.F.M. Cap. to some participants in the March for Life pro-life rally.

Imagine a bishop standing up and expounding Catholic teaching. Imagine a bishop talking about what is required to be a Catholic. The cheek of it!

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.  God will demand an accounting.  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.  God will demand an accounting.  And 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.  God will demand an accounting.

and then there is this:

Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak.  When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it.  So it always has been.  So it always will be.

While the speech is was delivered to an American audince, the points the Archbishop makes are equally valid on this side of the Atlantic.

Read the whole thing here.