The Value of Life

Last week I mentioned one reason for respecting life, even that of the sinner and criminal. This is the inherent and inborn goodness the Creator planted in human nature.

I also mentioned that if education and formation from infancy to adulthood is adequate in terms of process and educator, there is always the possibility of rehabilitation, reform, conversion, renewal and transformation, yes, even of sinners and criminals, because of that inner goodness.

But where do we find this adequate education and formation? Where do we find such catechesis in our parishes and schools? I’m sure we have excellent textbooks in our private schools especially those administered by religious congregations. But we don’t have them in our parishes which handle catechetical instruction in the public schools. Sadly, we don’t have them either in the Prison Ministry of our dioceses‎ or in the government’s prisoner rehabilitation programs.

But the adequacy and effectiveness of Catholic education, Formation, catechesis, prison rehabilitation or evangelization depends largely on the teacher, educator, formator or evangelizer as persons of deep faith and moral integrity not as intellectual experts in pedagogy and doctrine. To the terrible weak and/or absence of this faith life and experience the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger‎ attributes the “catastrophic failure of modern catechesis” (To Look On Christ, page 35, St. Paul Publications, Middlegreen, Slough SL3 6BT, United Kingdom).

Cardinal Ratzinger, now pope emeritus Benedict XVI, further adds: “The conversion of the ancient world to Christianity was not the result of any planned activity on the part of the Church but the fruit of the proof of the faith as it became visible in the life of Christians and of the community of the Church” (ibidem, page 36).