This is Respect Life Weekend.     Please take a few seconds to come by our Respect Life Table after Mass.   

They have much material regarding the moral question concerning respecting human life from womb to tomb.    There are many such life issues facing our nation today.    Abortion is an important issue, but it is not the only life issue facing our nation, and facing each one personally.   As His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, reminds us.    Respecting Life means defending life against all that harms any life:  abortion, war, famine, capital punishment, murder, suicide, euthanasia, enslavement, domestic violence, etc.    His Holiness during this Jubilee Year is emphasizing the mass usage of capital punishment, and he invites us to join him in working to remove capital punishment from our nation and all nations.     Life is sacred from the moment of conception to the last breath.      As His Holiness notes, and as the Revised Catholic Catechism states, capital punishment should be used only in the most notorious of situations.     In fact, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, states that he is not aware of even one current situation anywhere in the world that calls-out for capital punishment.

His Holiness also asks us to work to prevent euthanasia.     No matter what our pain, no one may authorize his/her life be ended unnaturally.     No one has to undergo extra- ordinary measures to stay alive.     But no one can end his/her life either.      Nor should we warehouse dying people.     As His Holiness reminds us, each should care for those they love and who have loved them up to the day of death.      This is very draining, but then what cross is not?      So many people have become involved in our "Embracing the Dying" Ministry, helping families and the person dying to share their last thoughts, to prepare for the burial liturgy.       Being able to share final thoughts and feelings helps all deal with death.

Stop by our Respect Life Table and look over the material.     Remember there are cassettes and videos you can borrow and take home.

Remember our "Crib Project"!      We monthly gather items for newborn babies and small infants: cribs, high chairs, disposable diapers, blankets, toys, baby clothes, bottles and powdered formula, baby hygienic care items such as powders, soaps and other such things.