
Bishop Robert Barron by Diegobcardenas - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikipedia
CV NEWS FEED // Bishop Robert Barron said in his homily for the 2024 Respect Life Sunday on January 21 that Christians must no longer remain silent on crimes against human life, but that they must rather “shout [their] convictions from the rooftops.”
“We live in a time when the Christian faith is rather regularly denigrated by those in the upper echelons of elite society, in the universities, and in the media,” Barron said. “Moreover, armies of people, especially the young, are disaffiliating from the churches and ceasing to engage in religious ritual and practice.”
Citing British author Tom Holland’s 2019 book Dominion, which discusses how universally held human rights came from Christianity, Barron said that it is more important than ever to stand by Christian values.
Barron warned that if Christians disappear from today’s secularized culture, “the values that Christianity has inculcated in our culture” disappear as well.
“We delude ourselves if we think that the values instilled in us by Christianity will long survive the demise of Christianity itself,” he said.
Barron said that just as the ancient world persecuted Christians for their charity, today’s culture has a “neo-pagan” attitude that bullies Christians for publicly standing up for the protection of life.
“For too long, believers have been cowed into silence by the insinuation that religion is a ‘private’ matter,” he said, adding that taking a stand against abortion involves “claiming and publicly proclaiming the values” that come from Christianity.
“Christian values have informed our society from the beginning and have provided the coherent moral framework that most of us still take for granted,” Barron concluded. “Now is not the time for quietude. It is time for us to shout our convictions from the rooftops.”
