Catholic Medical Association – Phoenix Guild

October 17^th, 2015

Keynote Address

Bishop James Conley

“Burning lights of peace”

Bishop Olmsted, esteemed members of the Catholic Medical Association, dear friends in Christ,

Some of you may recall that 36 years ago today, in 1979, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.  Since the Nobel Peace Prize was first inaugurated in 1901, the award had always been given to diplomats, academics, UN leaders, and to NGOs dedicated to policy change around the world.  It had been given to non-proliferation activists, to economic theorists, and to politicians.  Mother Teresa was none of these.  She was neither an activist nor an academic.  She was certainly not a politician.  She was an Albanian woman dressed in a blue and white sari, who spent her life living among the poor and dying people in India’s slums.  She was a simple woman who responded to the extraordinary call of Jesus Christ.

But when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa spoke more compellingly about peace than anyone who had come before her or since, I might add.  She explained that peace is not a concept or an ideal.  She explained that peace is a person, Jesus Christ, who’d come into the world to save us.  And Mother Teresa explained that the price of peace is sacrifice—that if we wish for others to know peace, we must give to men and women “until it hurts,” and then give a little more.

36 years ago, Mother Teresa stood in Oslo, before royalty, before the wealthy and powerful of the world.  And she told them that, “the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion.”  She told them that abortion “is a direct war, a direct killing.”

“If a mother can kill her own child,” Mother Teresa asked the world,  “what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me – there is nothing between.”

It has been 36 years since Mother Teresa’s prophetic words.  And the greatest destroyer of peace in our world remains abortion.  Dear brothers and sisters, when we really think about it, there is nothing more tragic than the destruction of unborn children in the wombs of their mothers.

In fact, since Mother Teresa spoke, abortion has become even more accessible than ever before.  Chemical abortion makes it possible to kill unborn children in the very first few days of their lives, when they are the most vulnerable.  And advances in technology make ever more barbaric practices commonplace—36 years ago, we would have been shocked by “telemedical abortions”—killings overseen by doctors hundreds of miles away.  And 36 years ago, we would have been shocked by “gender selective abortions,” and the abortions chosen because of pre-natal diagnosis, which have become so commonplace today.

Dear brothers and sisters, Blessed Mother Teresa was right. Abortion is the single greatest destroyer of peace in our world, and its practice is becoming ever more ubiquitous, and ever more heinous.

This evening, I’d like to talk about what you, as physicians, nurses, and medical practitioners can do about it.  Mother Teresa said that each one of us is called to be a “burning light of peace.”  This evening, I’d like to talk about how you medical professionals can fulfill that noble calling, and be a “burning light of peace.”

Like a lot of you, I’ve been saddened and disturbed by the Planned Parenthood videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress.  Most of you, I’m sure, have seen at least parts of these videos.  They’re harrowing, really.  Once seen, they cannot be forgotten.  The later videos contain images of unborn children, aborted, and dissected in laboratory dishes.  They demonstrate, in living color, the humanity of the unborn child, and the barbarism of dismantling him.

(By the way, I offered a special Mass of healing and reparation last evening at the Lincoln Cathedral for all those who have been impacted by the tragedy of abortion. The Sisters of Life from New York were in attendance. We also offered extended Eucharistic Adoration and the opportunity for the Sacrament of Penance well into the evening.)

Since I’ve seen the videos, I’ve prayed that they might inspire men and women to abandon their support for the legal protection of abortion.  Like a lot of people, I’ve hoped that incontrovertible evidence testifying to the fact that unborn children are human beings might be enough to stem the tide of abortion.  I’ve prayed that undoing the myth that the unborn child is a “clump of cells” would begin to undo the legal protection of homicide.

But it seems these videos, on their own, may not be enough to accomplish that goal.  To be sure, they have awakened in many people a deeper conviction about the need to end abortion, and especially about the inhuman practices of Planned Parenthood. I do, however, find it heartening that this whole project of undercover research was initiated and carried out by young people all in their 20’s.

But it is a source of wonderment to me, that there are men and women who can view the destruction of nascent life, without becoming convinced of the need to end this tragedy.  And for a moment I would like to ask why is this?  How can people of good will view the destruction of innocent human life without responding?  You doctors and physicians have probably asked that question very often—you’ve probably wondered how anyone who knows the complex and beautiful mystery of the human body can conclude that all lives are not worthy of our protection.

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that for many people, “the gift of life is not meaningful, because we can no longer see God’s gift of meaning.”

Meaning is precisely what is lacking in contemporary American culture.  We live in a world of technocratic moral reasoning.  This is certainly true in the realm of ethics.  We believe too often that because we can do something, then we ought to do it.  Planned Parenthood, for example, argues that because we can gain medical knowledge by hacking up and studying unborn children, we ought to do it.  In the face of ever-more capable technology, says philosopher Steve Talbott, we need “the self-possession that enables us to resist our own impulses.” That’s a frightening statement.

But self-possession comes, in part, from knowing who we are and why we exist.  Self-possession comes from a metaphysical understanding of the universe.  And technocratic reasoning today means that, for many people, the limits of metaphysical possibilities are determined by the limits of physical observations.

Instead of believing that science can tell us “something” about the world, we have come to believe that science, and science alone, can tell us “everything” about the world.  We have become convinced that we are only the sum total of what we can observe; and the only meaning to our lives is the meaning we choose to assign.

Francis Crick, who helped the world to understand genetic coding, confused his work in the physical world with the work of metaphysical reflection.  Crick could see in the beautiful complexity of our humanity, the human person is nothing more than a genetic identity.  In 1994, he famously wrote that “your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules…. You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.”

Jacques Monod, the evolutionary biologist who won the Nobel Prize a few years before Mother Teresa, wrote that “Man has to understand that he is a mere accident.”

Culture is formed in part by our intellectual and spiritual leaders.  TS Eliot wrote that culture is the incarnation of a community’s religion.  I think that’s true.  But culture is also the incarnation of a community’s philosophy, and in our case, its science.  The reductive technocracy of scientific research informs the social mores of our culture.  The nihilism of scientific materialism impacts our public policy—every day, and in every state of our nation.

If man is a mere accident, and his life is nothing more than neurological activity, the humanity of the unborn child means nothing.  If life is not inherently valuable, if it does not possess an inherent dignity and worth, regardless its dependency or disability, then it is without meaning and it is unworthy of protection — and abortion has no moral significance.  If life is an accident, assisted suicide is a reasonable medical practice.  If we are only “a pack of neurons,” then religious liberty has no claim on the conscience, and no right to protection.  Technocratic reductionism, dear brothers and sisters, leads to the abandonment of peace, of joy, and of charity.  Technocratic reductionism only leads to radical individualism and the triumph of the strong over the weak.  Our laws—like the assisted suicide law passed in California just a little over a week ago—reflect the danger of our technocratic metaphysics.

And so my friends, your vocation as medical professionals is to become “burning lights of peace.”  You are charged with combatting the materialism of your colleagues and the “throwaway culture” that we are creating.

I realize that this is not an easy task.

But tonight I would like to suggest three ways in which your medical practice can combat the culture of relativism, and bring the peace that passes understanding to our nation.

1)        The first is that your medical practice must flow from your own life of prayer and Christian discipleship.

Christ is the Divine Physician, who is capable of healing all wounds, all brokenness, and all ailments.  Christ, and Christ alone, is the great and eternal healer.  If your practice is to be more than the practical application of medical science and technology, it will be because you are a conduit of the mercy of Christ the Healer.  And to be a conduit of the mercy of Christ the healer, you must receive the grace of God in prayer and in the sacramental life.  Your baptism gives you the capacity to love as God loves.  Your training gives you the ability to heal.  Your healing must become a kind of love—a kind of Christian charity, by which you reveal the person of Jesus Christ to your patients.  And for that to take place, you must know and follow Christ intimately, in a daily way, in your own lives.

Nothing will be more transformative to your medical practice than a deeper awareness of the presence of God in your medical ministry.  Nothing will be more healing than an awareness of the Holy Spirit, the Providence of God guiding your work.  But to hear the promptings of the Holy Spirit, you must know the voice of the Lord.  And to know God’s voice, you must be men and women who seek to hear him every day—in Sacred Scripture, in private devotion, and especially in the sacramental life.  Regular confession, and daily Mass, whenever possible, will be more powerful aids to your avocation as medical professionals than any other tool or training.

Pope Paul VI wrote famously that; “modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers.”  If we wish to demonstrate that all life has sacred meaning, we must witness to the sacred meaning of our own lives.

Holiness, attained from the starting point of deep friendship with God, is a palpable reality—and the sense of that palpable reality discredits the lie that man is a biological machine, “a pack of neurons,” operating in a system in which there is nothing more than mechanics and genetics.

If we wish to combat the culture of death—“the throwaway culture,” as Pope Francis likes to call it, each one of us must begin on our knees, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, the source of all healing, and all truth.

2)        My second suggestion is that you carefully attend to the spiritual dimension of your own patient’s lives, and to the lives of your colleagues, your fellow physicians.

Your patients need more than clinical diagnoses and pharmaceutical resolutions.  You know already that your patients are more that “packs of neurons.”  And in truth, each one of your patients knows that too.  But modern materialism engenders hopelessness about our spiritual needs, and brazenly suggests that we quiet our yearning for divine communion, with numbness, with possessions, or pornography, or alcohol, or, in some cases, with overmedication.

Anxiety about suffering, for example, is a natural human reality, rooted in our natural aversion to death—the great consequence of sin.  Too often, medicine seems intent on obviating the pain of illness, or numbing the anxiety, without recognizing our spiritual need to understand our eternal lives, and the spiritual good that can come from suffering.

Your patients are in need of some counsel, some wisdom and understanding about the spiritual realities of their own lives.  Their bodies—and the illnesses and ailments which you treat—are the means by which they might grow in holiness—but only if they have the opportunity to understand that sacred reality of their own flesh.

So too are your colleagues in the medical profession.  Your colleagues are those most likely to be tempted to reduce the person to a meaningless biological system.  And that reduction has consequences.

The physician, who obviates pain without considering the meaning of that pain, really does an injustice to his patients.

A physician who helps to “accommodate” gender confusion without attending to deep spiritual confusion about the purpose of our genders, does the same.

A physician, who helps to dampen the fecundity of his patients, without revealing the sacredness of our procreativity, does nothing to help his patients encounter the active and procreative love of our God.

Your colleagues themselves are in need of access to the meaning of human life in relationship to the Most Holy Trinity.  And their patients are in need of physicians who understand their humanity.  A bishop, or a priest, or a religious sister is far less likely to encounter the underlying materialist presuppositions of modern medicine, and modern physicians, than you are.  You are called to be agents of the Gospel, for the sake of justice, of peace, and of salvation, in your medical practice, among your patients, and your colleagues.

3)        My third and final suggestion is that your medical practice be a source of public witness to the profound and sacred dignity of human life.

Speaking to physicians in 2013, Pope Francis said that you must “be witnesses and propagators of the ‘culture of life.’ Your being Catholic entails a greater responsibility: first of all, toward yourselves, for the commitment of coherence with the Christian vocation; and then towards contemporary culture, to contribute to recognize in human life the transcendent dimension, the imprint of the creative work of God, from the first instance of its conception. This is a commitment of the New Evangelization, which requires often going against the current, paying as person. The Lord also counts on you to spread the ‘gospel of life.’”

The Lord counts on you to spread the Gospel of Life.  Not only among your patients and colleagues, but among a world hungry to know the sacred meaning of their own lives.

The opportunity to spread the Gospel of Life is manifested most especially in the witness of charity.  Physicians who treat the elderly and terminally ill with charity and joy, themselves witness to the meaning of a holy and sacred death.  Physicians who treat the disabled with care and love, witness to the fact that “unproductive” lives can be lives of great joy and happiness, for entire communities.  Physicians who treat the mentally ill with dignity can witness to the ineffable mystery of personhood beyond the immediate malfunction of neurons and chemistry.  And physicians who joyfully and generously help to receive the gift of new life witness to the intuitive human sense that life is always a gift to be lived well, and to be lived with gratitude.

Men and women of our culture grudgingly accept abortion when they do not believe that any life has particular meaning.  But medical professionals do not invest their lives in abstract concepts—they invest their lives in individual human beings, often suffering and broken, but no less important.  The public witness of that investment—the investment in other people—gives witness to the meaning of life found in profound acts of love.

Conclusion

Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize because she witnessed to the unrepeatable dignity of every single human life.  She captivated the world because she found meaning and joy in charitable relationships with the suffering poor around her.  The meaning of her life confirmed the meaning, and dignity, and rights, of every human life.

You, dear medical professionals, must be witnesses as she was.  This is not easy. “Love comes,” said Blessed Mother Teresa, “when it is demanding, and yet we can give it to Him with joy.”  Love is demanding.  Becoming “burning lights of peace” is demanding.  And yet, in love, we find the meaning of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ.  And we witness to the meaning of every single human life, created and beloved in the image of the Most Holy Trinity.

…………………………………………..

Episcopal Advisor
Most Rev. James D. Conley, DD
Diocese of Lincoln, NE

In his 28 years as a priest, Bishop James D. Conley has served the Catholic Church in a wide variety of ways—as pastor, college campus chaplain, director of Respect Life ministries, theology instructor, Vatican official and bishop. In all of these tasks, he has seen his life as a priest as a call to service and complete surrender to “God’s providential hand.”

For his episcopal motto, Bishop Conley, a convert to the Catholic faith, chose the same motto as the great 19th-century English convert, John Henry Cardinal Newman, “cor ad cor loquitur,” which means “heart speaks to heart.” Bishop Conley became the Episcopal Advisor to the CMA- USA in January 2014.

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