"And miles to go" Bishop Nienstedt's Pastoral Letter (English and Español

Bishops call for alternative solution to death penalty

Fr. John N. Siebenand dies at age 92

O'Connor's 60th Jubilee

Diocesan Marriage Preparation Policy recently updated

Safe environment efforts continue

Second annual Bishop Lucker Lecture to feature Sr. Donna Markham, O.P.

Pope grateful for prayers & good wishes

Highlights - Diocesan Pastoral Council Meeting - December, 2003

St. Alphonsus Retreat House extends invitation to Lenten Reflection Days

St. Peter parish to host diocesan Renewal Day

Jumpstart Friday youth provide community service

Social Concerns

A journey to San Lucas, Guatemala

St. Mary's teens make a difference!

St. Raphael parish display brings attention to the negatiave effects of abortion

Seminarian of diocese installed into the ministry of Acolyte

Longing to be a bride of Christ

Vocation Fairs in the Diocese of New Ulm continue into the New Year!

Everyone has a vocation, a mission from God - what mission has God given you?

Single query nudged future priest toward God

Youth gather in Houston, Texas to celebrate their Catholic faith

Search is on for the 2004 "Woman of the Year"

Promoting a culture of life

Sanders elected National CCW President

Good News TV & Radio January

January Formation & Education Calendar

Bishop's January Calendar

Upcoming events

Renewing our Catholic commitment to defend human life and dignity

Each year, between the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15) and the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision (January 22), the U.S. Catholic bishops urge us to renew our commitment to defending human life against every form of violence, including racism and abortion. In their recently published Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, (www.usccb.org/statements.htm), the bishops call attention to issues they believe are important in the national debate during the election campaign and in the years to come. They organize the issues under four banners: protecting human life, promoting family life, pursuing social justice, and practicing global solidarity. Here is what they stress about protecting human life.

Human life is a gift from God, sacred and inviolable. Because every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, we have a duty to defend human life from conception until natural death and in every condition.

Our world does not lack for threats to human life. We watch with horror the deadly violence of terror, war, starvation, and children dying from disease. We face a new and insidious mentality that denies the dignity of some vulnerable human lives and treats killing as a personal choice and social good. As we wrote in Living the Gospel of Life, "abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human life and dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental good and the condition for all others." Abortion, the deliberate killing of a human being before birth, is never morally acceptable. The destruction of human embryos as objects of research is wrong. This wrong is compounded when human life is created by cloning or other means only to be destroyed. The purposeful taking of human life by assisted suicide and euthanasia is never an act of mercy. It is an unjustifiable assault on human life. For the same reasons, the intentional targeting of civilians in war or terrorist attacks is always wrong.

In protecting human life, "we must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of any innocent human life, no matter how broken, unformed, disabled or desperate that life may seem."

We urge Catholics and others to promote laws and social policies that protect human life and promote human dignity to the maximum degree possible. Laws that legitimize abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia are profoundly unjust arid immoral. We support constitutional protection for unborn human life, as well as legislative efforts to end abortion and euthanasia. We encourage the passage of laws and programs that promote childbirth and adoption over abortion and assist pregnant women and children. We support aid to those who are sick and dying by encouraging health care coverage for all as well as effective palliative care. We call on government and medical researchers to base their decisions regarding biotechnology and human experimentation on respect for the inherent dignity and inviolability of human life from its very beginning, regardless of the circumstances of its origin.

Catholic teaching calls on us to work to avoid war. Nations must protect the right to life by finding ever more effective ways to prevent conflicts from arising, to resolve them by peaceful means, and to promote post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. All nations have a right and duty to defend human life and the common good against terrorism, aggression, and similar threats. In the aftermath of September 11, we called for continuing outreach to those who had been harmed, clear resolve in responding to terror, moral restraint in the means used, respect for ethical limits on the use of force, greater focus on the roots of terror, and a serious effort to share fairly the burdens of this response. While military force as a last resort can sometimes be justified to defend against aggression and similar threats to the common good, we have raised serious moral concerns and questions about preemptive or preventive use of force.

Even when military force is justified, it must be discriminate and proportionate. Direct, intentional attacks on civilians in war are never morally acceptable. Nor is the use of weapons of mass destruction or other weapons that cause disproportionate harm or that cannot be deployed in ways that distinguish between civilians and soldiers. Therefore, we urge our nation to strengthen barriers against the use of nuclear weapons, to expand controls over existing nuclear materials and other weapons of mass destruction, and to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as a step toward much deeper cuts and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. We also urge our nation to join the treaty to ban anti-personnel landmines and to address the human consequences of cluster bombs. We further urge our nation to take immediate and serious steps to reduce its own disproportionate role in the scandalous global trade in arms, which contributes to violent conflicts around the world.

Society has a right and duty to defend itself against violent crime and a duty to reach out to victims of crime. Yet our nation’s increasing reliance on the death penalty cannot be justified. We do not teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill others. Pope John Paul II has said the penalty of death is "both cruel and unnecessary." The antidote to violence is not more violence. In light of the Holy Father’s insistence that this is part of our pro-life commitment, we encourage solutions to violent crime that reflect the dignity of the human person, urging our nation to abandon the use of capital punishment. We also urge passage of legislation that would address problems in the judicial system, and restrict and restrain the use of the death penalty through use of DNA evidence, a guarantee of effective counsel, and efforts to address issues of racial justice.