As you no doubt know Amy Welborn asked her many readers to mention what was done in their parishes to commemorate Respect Life Sunday yesterday. Even before I read her site, I wanted to post about my parish.

I am gravely disappointed in my pastor. I’ve had differences with him before about things, but in all of them I’ve realized that the differences spring from our differences as people and that he generally loves the people of the parish.

Yesterday’s lessons, while not specifically chosen for the Life theme, certainly fit well into a Life theme. Instead, there was a rather predictable homily on pride. Now I understand that pride is a major issue in my life and I expect it is in the lives of many other people in the parish. I also remember roughly two homilies on pride every month this year. Another homily on pride isn’t going to challenge the people much, is it?

There was a brief mention in the intercessions that “we are to protect the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death”. That was it. The bulletin could have been from last week (or next). There was one announcement regarding a winter coat drive – certainly a worthy cause, but not one of quite the same gravity.

At this point, we really do have to concentrate on the “Respect” part of “Respect Life”. Too many priests (not just my own pastor) just ignore life issues. One otherwise respectable Catholic blogger (who shall remain nameless) last week made light of other Christians’ concern for life issues.

Just think, if it were 50 million openly homosexual men being killed each year, would these same folks deride efforts at stopping the carnage? For that matter, what if it were 50 million of any group of people that had already been born? (If someone were to call for the execution of 50 million Moslems in retaliation for the terrorism practiced by some Moslems, most Catholics would be rightly outraged. How, then, is it acceptable for 50 million unborn to be killed every year?)

Respecting life of the unborn means we have to have more respect for ourselves and our own sexuality. It means that we aren’t mastered by lust. It means that we have to love our neighbors – every one of them, especially the ones that inconvenience us.

On a related note, I noticed that Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood is seeking a new President/CEO. I ardently hope that the position has become available due to the previous one developing a conscience.