Cardinal Gregory: Beatitudes teach us to ‘respect and love’ all human life

Washington D.C., Jan 29, 2021 / 11:15 am (CNA).- The Beatitudes are the answer to legalized abortion, the Archbishop of Washington said on the morning of the annual March for Life.

“They are standards that say that there is no such thing as an inopportune life or a reason, no matter how grave, no matter how serious, no matter how convincing, that renders any life useless and deserving of hatred or destruction,” Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C. preached on Friday morning at a Mass for Life in Washington, D.C.

“The Word of God exhorts us that it is no longer fashionable to hate, and it never was,” he said.

The Mass and Rally for Life, held on the morning of the annual March for Life, is traditionally attended by thousands of youth. Due to restrictions on public gatherings during the pandemic, the rally was held virtually on Friday and Cardinal Gregory celebrated a live-streamed Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

The 48th annual March for Life is closed to the public due to pandemic precautions and security measures. On Friday afternoon, a group of pro-life leaders will march through Washington, D.C. while the event will be broadcast for a virtual audience.

After 48 years of legal abortion, Gregory said, people are making “deceptive excuses” for the “dreadful practice” of killing unborn children through abortion.

“Various people have called it merely a choice. Others claim it as a human right. Some have defended it as a personal decision,” he said. “Anything to keep from accepting God’s standard of respect and love for every human life, even that which is waiting to be born.”

 “God’s standard”—the Beatitudes—remains the ultimate standard for society, he said.

“The Beatitudes are the new standards that dare to suggest that we are to view life itself, and our opinions about other people, in different ways,” he said.

And many have excused injustice or brutality against other groups of people such as immigrants and prisoners, Gregory said. Physician-assisted suicide and the death penalty are other manifestations of this problematic mentality, he said.

“Let us pray for a widely-accepted way of viewing and valuing all human life, God’s way,” Cardinal Gregory said.