Phoenix, Ariz., Oct 16, 2009 / 19:20 pm
God will “demand an accounting” from Catholics and from societies who fail to welcome the poor, the weak and the unwanted unborn, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput told a Catholic doctors’ group in Phoenix on Friday. Each of these people is “an icon of God’s face and a vessel of his love,” he said.
The Archbishop of Denver urged the Phoenix Catholic Physicians’ Guild not to be among those who refuse to defend the sanctity of life or those who abuse the freedoms given to them by God and their forerunners.
He illustrated his concerns with a lengthy discussion about American society’s treatment of the physically disabled, especially those with Down syndrome.
“Currently about 5,000 children with Down syndrome are born in the United States each year,” the archbishop said. “They join a national Down syndrome population of roughly 400,000 persons. But that population may soon dwindle.”
He lamented the use of prenatal testing to encourage women to abort children whose tests show an increased likelihood of genetic disorders. He quoted a British medical school professor who noted the risk of false positives in such tests and blamed them for “causing the death of normal babies.”