Witness to the End

From the pages of Times Against Humanity . . .

"In the twilight of his papacy, as age and illness ravage his body, Pope John Paul II's moral voice remains strong, warning the faithful and faithless alike of how evil in the world—abortion, homosexual marriage and other sins—threatens our eternal salvation," editor Mark Masferrer writes in the Lufkin Daily News.

"Memory and Identity is a 227-page volume, consisting of exchanges that the Pope had with two Polish friends, the philosophers Josef Tishner and Krystof Michalski, in conversations that took place more than 20 years ago at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo," Catholic World News reports.

Pope John Paul writes forcefully against same-sex marriage, which he says is part of an "ideology of evil."

It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if (same-sex marriage) is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.

And with the same vigor that he defends marriage, the Holy Father defends its fruit, drawing a parallel between abortion as "the legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born" and the earlier killing fields of the Holocaust.

We have to question the legal regulations that have been decided in the parliaments of present-day democracies. The most direct association which comes to mind is the abortion laws....Parliaments which create and promulgate such laws must be aware that they are transgressing their powers and remain in open conflict with the law of God and the law of nature.

In in his book, the Holy Father challenges us on the moral consequences of our choices. "That has been a hallmark of John Paul II's papacy," notes Masferrer, "speaking out against evil in all its forms, especially when it pertains to questions of life."

In a February 28 story on the spiritual significance of the Pope's physical sufferings, Newsweek writes that "his condition crystallizes his ferocious attachment to life—the most central, coherent and consistent teachings of his papacy—whether that life is threatened in the womb by abortion or in old age by euthanasia."

As Masferrer concludes:

That "ferocious attachment" to a core belief is what we should all strive for. As the Pope shows, it makes it so much easier to decide where you stand on the supposedly tough questions of the day.