Two Christian leaders have delivered commentaries recently which defend magnificently children with Down's syndrome against today's pro-abortion culture of death. Those leaders are Charles Chaput, Catholic archbishop of Denver, and Revd Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, London.In a speech to Catholic doctors, Archbishop Chaput said:
Dr Fraser, in an article in The Church Times, wrote:
- "Currently about 5,000 children with Down syndrome are born in the United States each year. They join a national Down syndrome population of roughly 400,000 persons. But that population may soon dwindle. And the reason why it may decline illustrates, in a vivid way, a struggle within the American soul. That struggle will shape the character of our society in the decades to come."
- "The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear," he said. That's the choice we face when it happens in our personal experience. And that's the choice we face as a society in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not."
- "How we treat these persons - whether we revere them and welcome them, or throw them away in distaste - shows what we really believe about human dignity, both as individuals and as a nation."
- "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."
"[Choice] is the single most over-used, and misused, get-out-of-jail-free card in contemporary moral jargon ... [W]hat most of us want to see is an end to our culture’s damaging obsession with physical perfection, something driven by our own fear of inadequacy. The false logic of choice which blocks any challenge to this cult of perfection is profoundly harmful to us all."It is truly refreshing when Christian leaders are united in strong, eloquent and loving defence of the most vulnerable. I strongly recommend reading both men's commentaries in full and sharing them widely.
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