THE COURIER
November 2012
Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona
Thankful to be Catholic Americans Ask Father Vogel: Should being Catholic affect my vote? By Rev. Andrew Vogel It seems as if politics and ideologies have become ever more contentious in our nation. As Catholics, though, what should be our end goal? How do we build a civilization where every citizen has the opportunity to thrive and not just survive? What is most important to remember? Descartes began modern philosophy when he said, “I think, therefore I am.” Those that followed him took this as a separation of mind and body. They thought if this was true, then a person’s worth is found in the mind, in how well they think. This would mean that older people, mentally handicapped, the unborn, and others not as intelligent would have less value. In fact, some deemed their worth so low, that their life is thought to be unworthy to be lived that they would indeed be “better off dead.” This is not what we believe as Christians. Our worth comes from God. He not only created us in His image, but humbled Himself and actually took on our human nature. Jesus Christ becoming man gave the human person tremendous dignity! This is true no matter how well we think, no matter how much we “contribute” to society. Every human person is made in His image and likeness; we reflect His divine nature: where there
is a constant giving of self to another. “This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself,” the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope) reminds us (24).
God has given us not only an ability to know but also an ability to love. That love begins with those closest to us. We make a gift of ourselves to our spouse and then, in turn, to our children. Our ultimate vocation is love of God and others, and we first (should) learn this love in the context of a family. Because of this, the ultimate fate of society and the human race lies in the family; and the fate of the family is found in the intimate life of husband and wife.
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Volume 103, No. 11
INSIDE Meet our Catholic Schools!
The family is the building block of society and the foundation of the “civilization of love” and should be reinforced by supporting marriage between one man and one woman. However, if we, as Catholics, are going to transform the world into a civilization of love, changes need to be made outside the home as well. Blessed John Paul II said that the dignity of a human person demands that they be loved and never used merely as a means to an end. This needs to be true in relationships at home, but it also needs to be true in our relationships at work. The moment a business loses sight of the fact that its employees, the people, are its most important asset is the moment the moral foundation and ability for long-term success of the company begin to crumble. True economic success and development can only have long term capability when it is founded on moral values. Our public policies must protect the dignity of every single person. This includes the unborn, poor, marginalized and aged. The “freedom” to have an abortion (which is presented as “essen-
tial” to the freedom of the mother), becomes instead the means by which the rights of too many unborn persons are trampled. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America states that “all men [human beings] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Nowhere does it say that someone has the legal right to destroy the child in a woman’s womb. But we do have public government documents stating that God has given every person the inalienable right to life. How can we build a civilization of love when a segment of our society is being killed by the thousands every day? There are 3,300 abortions performed everyday in the United States alone (that’s approximately one child aborted every 26 seconds). Blessed John Paul II has three fundamental principles to the Culture of Life which every society must acknowledge: 1. The incomparable value and dignity of every human being regardless of age, condition, or race. 2. That it is always a violation of human dignity to treat anyone as an instrument or means to an end. Instead, every person must be seen Voting, cont. on pg. 4
were overjoyed when they chose us to parent their child, fulfilling a dream that we had moments of believing might never come true. We were called when Ean’s birth mother was going into the hospital to be induced, and we waited at the hospital, along with her family, as she prepared to give birth. We were able to see Ean immediately when he was born and will never ever forget the emotions felt by all involved as he was placed in our arms by his birth parents. Today, we
maintain a semi-open adop- life story. After being high tion with Ean’s birth parents, school sweethearts and marsending pictures and letters rying after graduating from in the mail a few times a year college, we assumed that havand corresponding through ing a baby would come just as email with pictures and notes easily as everything else in many other times. Not a day our relationship had. Little goes by that we don’t think of did we know at that time that them and the unselfish deci- we would face years of infersion they made to give Ean tility treatments before we life and bless us with a fam- would ultimately make the ily! decision to follow the path of As we enjoy every minute adoption, a path that had a we have with Ean, our diffi- rocky start to it. A year after cult path to parenthood seems we were approved by Catholic to fall into the shadows; nev- The Beauty of Adoption, ertheless, it is a part of our cont. on pg. 10
More on page 7
Remembering the importance of Vatican II
More on YOF page 1
Join our diocese's March for Life group in January!
More on page 8
The Beauty of Adoption By Andy and Ann A little over five years ago our dream of becoming parents became a reality when our son, Ean, was born. About three months prior to his birth, we received a call from our Catholic Charities social worker that there was a birth mother and father that had viewed our profiles and were interested in meeting us. We met with Ean’s birth mother and father, their parents, and our social workers and felt a connection right away. We