The Worth of a Child
What does one child – more or less – really count for? With the billions of people in the world how can one child be significant? For many government planners and international bureaucrats that child is not at all significant, worthwhile or noteworthy. A child is a minuscule blip of a statistic or a stumbling block on the road to a claimed and spurious development of markets and even nations. Recently, the Economist magazine fired a volley at those Developing Nations that dared to see natural population increase as a positive and healthy aim for a country. Didn’t they realize that such benighted policies doomed their countries to poverty and backwardness? Far better, the editors pontificated, if such leaders followed the example of wealthy countries and radically cut population growth. Too many babies equals too little money.
But there is something wrong with that, isn’t there? As country after country has legalized and promoted contraception and abortion, and the world has slaughtered hundreds of millions of the New Innocents, these wealthy countries are dying, unable to reproduce enough to continue their way of life, stoke the fires of industry or even care for their elderly. Japan is losing a thousand of its population each day. Canada is kept afloat by importing people while killing its vulnerable at both ends of life.
A child is important. Each child is important. Each child is made in the image and likeness of God. When we get this wrong, we get it all wrong.
Two thousand years ago, a Child came to put it right. He was only one child, but He was that Incarnate Truth that was able to overpower the Great Lies, the formal deceptions, the menacing silences and the seemingly unstoppable empires. That truth is that God became Man, and therefore the powers of darkness cannot prevail, no more than can the Gates of Hell.
He calls us into His Work. How that work is done depends on each of us in our vocation. The Blessed Virgin’s work wasn’t Joseph’s mission nor was the shepherds’ response and action the Magi’s action. But they were called and they acted.
Priests For Life Canada has a duty as well. We have been called to contact the Catholic clergy of Canada so that they can become the leaders that we need them to be in the ongoing battle for Life and Truth. It takes steady and tireless effort to reach the parishes and pastors and associates. We have worked with our seminarian this summer to speak to as many as we could. With the Trudeau government’s pro-abortion obsession and his insistence on the betrayal of Catholic principles in applying for summer grants, we could only afford one, but thanks to your generosity, we did have him and Nathan worked hard!
Keeping the office going -even in the midst of change of staff and re-location- meant that your dollars were able to assist priests and seminarians with websites, material and travel dollars to get to events and become more aware.
Your donations allowed our executive members to get to speaking engagements in seminaries in British Columbia and to groups in southwestern and northern Ontario with airplane tickets and gas. Your support helped me be in contact with so many people who were seeking bioethics advice and medical-ethical direction by phone. These donations meant that bishops who were trying to establish policies to guide individuals and dioceses could consult us.
There is always more work ahead. Reaching new priests and immigrant priests; establishing contacts with permanent deacons; outreach to seminaries and religious orders; writing clergy notes; keeping a multi-media presence on so many media platforms; speaking to groups to encourage and support you as front line workers and fighters.
Thank you for all of that support.
The work doesn’t end but it is made possible by your generous support and I ask you to prayerfully consider continuing it and, if you can, increasing it. Kelly Bondy, our new Operations Manager, can tell you of a number of ways to make that happen when you contact her. We need your prayers, too, for strength and perseverance. Pray for us that we can continue to draw strength from Christ the Lord of Life – a simple Child who came so that all children will be known, loved and protected from conception to natural death. Pray that we will always follow the Christ Child regardless of the cost.