There’s been a great deal of talk lately about the world population hitting 7 Billion — a fake event, in a sense, since it’s impossible to know the exact time this will happen with any precision. Some news articles have given the mistaken impression that this represents the seven billionth person ever, but in fact the number is far, far higher. Our globe has never supported this many people at one time before, but throughout all of human history there have seem something approaching a hundred billion people, stretching from the babies born today to those born to wandering bands of hunter-gatherers over a hundred thousand years ago. A lot of people have lived and died. Just as we know only the tiniest fraction of people alive today, and the true number is not practically comprehensible to the human mind, even more so the number of people who have ever lived.

This pair of feast days, All Saints Day, yesterday, and All Souls Day, today, are not a bad time to think about this from a Christian perspective. In a sense, All Saints is a feast for every soul now enjoying the Beatific Vision, but it’s always seemed to me most especially apt for celebrating all those saints who are unknown to us. There are several thousand saints officially acknowledged by the Church, but this is by no means a comprehensive account of those who are with God in heaven, any more than the people we know of by name make up the full population of the world. We as Catholics believe that those people are definitely in heaven, but we certainly think there are many, many others who are there as well, including, we hope, our loved ones who have died. While the canonized saints provide us with a pantheon of those conspicuous for their holiness, All Saints is an ideal time to recall all those people who remain unknown to us who also enjoy God’s presence. And since few of us are likely to be considered so conspicuous in our holiness as to be recognized throughout the Church, it is in particular, perhaps, the feast of “people like us” now in heaven.

Of course, the difficulty, from a Catholic point of view in saying, “This is the feast of all our loved ones who are now in heaven,” is that even if destined for heaven our loved ones may not be in heaven yet. While as the Church Militant here on earth we look up to the Church Triumphant in heaven, we need also to offer up our prayers and sufferings for the Church Suffering — those cleansing themselves of lingering imperfection and attachment to sin in Purgatory. So it’s helpful that All Souls Day, when we remember in particular all those who may be in Purgatory and in need of our prayers, is paired directly with All Saints Day.

While I find myself hesitant to presume to name people I have known as those we celebrate on All Saints Day, All Souls Day is the day on which we pray for all those we know who have died. Praying that if they do not do so already, they may soon enjoy the Beatific Vision.

The folks at C-FAM have been doing a wonderful job and have provided a wonderful service by tracking issues concerning human life at the United Nations (UN).  Their “Friday Report” is a “must read” for anyone who is interested in a quick, weekly update concerning these issues.

 

 

One “beneath the radar” effort at the UN that C-FAM has been tracking is the long-term strategy on the part of UN officials and agencies to make abortion legal internationally.  For example, last summer—during the months when UN press coverage is minimal—the UN Secretariat released a report from the UN Human Rights Council calling on all nations to accept that “women and girls must be granted access to legal abortion” in order that they might “fully enjoy their human rights.”

UN Special Rapporteur, Anand Grover, wrote the report which links abortion on demand with the fundamental right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.  Grover noted:

Criminal laws penalizing and restricting induced abortion are the paradigmatic examples of impermissible barriers to the realization of women’s right to health and must be eliminated….States must take measures to ensure that legal and safe abortion services are available, accessible, and of good quality. Safe abortions, however, will not immediately be available upon decriminalization unless States create conditions under which they may be provided. These conditions include establishing available and accessible clinics; the provision of additional training for physicians and health-care workers; enacting licensing requirements and ensuring the availability of the latest and safest medicines and equipment.

How far the UN’s mission has “progressed” (or has it really wandered astray?) since the 1950s when its focus was primarily upon the noble goals of promoting world peace, feeding the world’s children, and improving world health!

Today, “world peace” seems to imply advocating the murder of unborn infants, thus decreasing hunger among the world’s children and making medicines—like artificial forms of birth control and abortofacients—-a “human right” for women.

Interestingly, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, introduces Grover’s report, stating that he “has the honour” of presenting the report to the UN General Assembly.  That’s hardly in keeping with the UN’s official stance of neutrality on abortion.  But, then, so also is Grover’s report.

 

 

To read the C-FAM report or to subscribe to it, click on the following link:

http://www.c-fam.org/fridayfax/volume-14/un-official-says-abortion-is-a-human-right,-secretary-general-endorses-report.html