Being a catholic today is very difficult. But if all of us lived in the time of Christ when unemployment was high, slavery was prevalent, we would have found that being a Catholic at that time was equally hard. And in this climate in the life of Christ when human life was cheap, Christ gave a code of ethics to all His followers that has been handed down over the centuries. Christ went against the culture of His time with His code of ethics, the same obligations are ours. We have to be counter cultural.

Ever since January 22, 1973, our culture said abortion was legal and permissionable. Ever since God gave the commandments, especially the commandment thou shall not kill and Christ gave his precept to love one another, we as Catholics are expected to honor life at all stages. In our country we believe since that Supreme Court decision that we have the choice to kill. In Holland, where euthanasia is becoming a way of life, they also believe they have a right to terminate many of the lives of the elderly.

From birth to death, in the teachings of Jesus Christ, life is always sacred. No matter what our culture might dictate, no matter what our politicians might say, no matter how we justify the opinions of others, all life is sacred from the moment of conception.

Whatever is happening in or culture, we are losing the sense of the sacred. We hear language on television that your own families would never allow when you were growing up. We see all sorts of facts of violence in movies that are totally contrary to the ethics handed down by Jesus Christ. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, being a Catholic today is a hard assignment. Christ was ridiculed, Christ was criticized, Christ was put to death because of His convictions. He gave a code of ethics that bettered the life in His world at the time and improved the lives of each one of us. That code of ethics to love one another, that code of ethics that tell us that all life is sacred, that code of ethics that is contained in the beatitudes, is the code that has to be implemented if our Church is to survive, if our country is to survive.