October is Respect Life month and it is a concern, and should be a concern, not only of Catholics but of every person.

We see in the world around us, not only a kind of approval but a “baptism” of violence. Some areas of the world lately have become a kind of a maelstrom of one riot after another or what some call “demonstrations.” However, in these demonstrations people are injured and people die — even an ambassador of the United States died. Sovereign property of countries is attacked.

Respecting life is necessary if we are to avoid the violence that is its opposite, but something that necessarily occurs when we become equivocal about life and its meaning. One of our political parties defends the right to kill human life. If this “right” is carried to its logical conclusion, would it not also mean that in some sense, we also have a right to be vigilantes? If the political system does not do our will, would this attitude of disrespect of life then not allow us to take up weapons and vindicate our own beliefs?

So when we talk about respecting life it is not just a matter of saying, “abortion is a Catholic thing.” It is much more than that.

Abortion is the foot in the door, the wedge that attacks the fifth commandment which is given to us by God. “You shall not murder” means you shall not do it in a demonstration, in a riot or in a womb. Murder is not a right. Once we give that up, once we say we can take a human life with impunity, we have put all human life on the chopping block, so to speak.

And so in the month of October we should give ourselves over to a certain amount of care and concern about respecting every human life from conception to natural death. In a sense, abortion is no worse than warehousing old people to homes where we forget about them until they die.

It also means that we have to do a better job of respecting the life of children by giving them an adequate education, even at the public expense. We owe to children to give them enough of an ethical and moral background to live through difficult situations and to respect the lives of those with whom they come in contact.

When we talk about respect life, we are talking about a value that is highest on the list of values. Our founding fathers said, in listing our unalienable rights, that the first is the right to life.

 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Those who wrote these words were not Catholics; many of them were not Christians, but deists. Nonetheless, they saw life as a value to be preserved in the United States. Even though there are — or were — judges in the federal courts who do not respect those words, it is important that all of us respect them.

So in this, and every month, let us see to it that we follow the example of Christ who did not call anyone, even Judas, useless. Let us see to it that we remember that the respect for life is not just a slogan but an important part of our equipment as human beings, not exclusively, but especially for Catholics.