Fr Stephen Wang on 'Three inseparable truths about life issues and abortion'
Fr Stephen Wang gave this homily yesterday at Newman House, London Catholic Chaplaincy
30th Sunday of Year A
In the Exodus reading today the Lord singles out three categories of person who need special protection in Jewish society: The stranger, the widow, and the orphan. Why these three in particular? Because they are the most vulnerable. The foreigner who comes to live among the Jews has no clan, no tribe, and therefore no legal belonging. The widow, in a patriarchal society, loses her status and security when she loses her husband. The orphan, with both parents gone, is utterly helpless. In a society where your very identity depends on ties of kinship, the orphan - with no identity - is often forgotten and abandoned.
The stranger, the widow, and the orphan. It's like a refrain running through the Old Testament. God's special care for the most vulnerable members of society, because they are the ones society is most likely to forget.
It's exactly fifty years since the 1967 Abortion Act was written into UK law. In that time nearly nine million unborn babies have lost their lives in this country, millions of women have been scarred by the hidden trauma of abortion, millions of fathers and grandparents and siblings have lost a relation without ever knowing them, and our whole culture has become complicit in denying the most fundamental right of every human being, on which every other human right depends - the right to life.
To read on, or listen to Fr Stephen's homily see: https://bridgesandtangents.wordpress.com/2017/10/29/three-inseparable-truths-about-life-issues-and-abortion/