I doubt if anyone of any tenderness or imagination can see the hand of a child and not be a little frightened of it. It is awful to think of the essential human energy moving so tiny a thing; it is like imagining that human nature could live in the wing of a butterfly or the leaf of a tree. When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that [God] might feel.

A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.

Human progress planned as alternatives (to God’s plan) introduce in justice, evil and violence rising against the divine plan of justice and salvation. And despite transitory and apparent successes, they are reduced to simple machinations destined to dissolution and failure.

The Church’s basic moral principle regarding reproductive technologies is this: if a given technology assists the marital embrace in achieving its natural end, it can be morally acceptable, even praiseworthy. However, if it replaces the marital embrace as the means by which the child is conceived, it’s not in keeping with God’s design.

The idea that ‘preaching the Gospel’ has nothing to do with sex and that ‘preaching about sex’ has nothing to do with the Gospel betrays layers and layers of seriously misguided thinking. When we divorce God’s love from sexual love, as Pope Benedict says, ‘the essence of Christianity’ becomes ‘decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life.’ (God is Love 7). The ‘gospel’ then becomes cold, aloof, inhuman. In other words, we’re no longer preaching the real Gospel.

Now, this is the most amazing thing when you think about it. Sperm, this little sperm, it does not have an immortal soul. And the ovum, you see, it does not have an immortal soul. And when the two come together, where does that immortal soul come from? The sperm doesn’t carry it. The egg doesn’t carry it. Where does it come from? It comes from a new act of creation by God. In each act of conception, there needs to be a new act of creation by God.

What is the purpose and meaning and nature of sexual intercourse? It seems to me to be quite clear. It’s for two things. It’s for babies and it’s for bonding. And that’s what happens when you have sexual intercourse – you have babies and you bond. My view is, if you don’t want to have babies and you don’t want to bond, then you shouldn’t be having sexual intercourse.

We live in a culture in which condoms can be handed out in schools and Bibles can’t. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about our society.

A woman who sets her rights, the supposed right to privacy or right over her own body, above the life of another human being is saying that a woman’s rights are superior to human rights. She has put herself above the human race, she has made herself the executor over life and death. Is that a woman’s right?

Abortion is a denial of one of those powers which make women women.

You may be surprised to learn that, in our law, although the fetus is currently without the right to life, it does have some rights. For instance, under civil law, the unborn child has the right to inherit part of his father’s estate should his father die before he is born, and he has the right to sue his mother, or a doctor, for injuiries sustained while in the womb.

We need to realize that a society in which contraceptives are widely used is going to have a very difficult time keeping free of abortions since the lifestyles and attitudes that contraception fosters create an alleged “need” for abortion.

For a stalk to grow or a flower to open there must be time that cannot be forced; nine months must go by for the birth of a human child; to write a book or compose music often years must be dedicated to patient research. To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence, waiting….

We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left for us to kill each other.

Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, for example, risk reducing the human person to a mere object: life and death to order, as it were!

There are many examples of this mistaken idea of freedom, such as the elimination of human life by legalized or generally accepted abortion.

Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.