Sanctity of Life.

Sanctity of Life. 
“Sanctitas” from my Latin dictionary of 1660:

“1st. ‘inviolability, sacredness, sanctity’,

2nd. ‘moral purity, holiness, sanctity, virtue, piety, honour, purity, chastity’” 

   The great debate which is finally coming to Ireland is the great debate on Abortion, a fierce battle to be played out on both the Religious and Political battlefield, a debate that was debased throughout Irish History, by Religion, but the real question here is “What does it mean to believe in the Sanctity of Life?” According to the Roman Catholic Church, “Sanctity of Life” reflects the belief that, “we are made in God’s image, this according to their Holy Scripture, the Bible, Genesis 1:26-27.  All human life has an inherently sacred attribute that should be protected and respected at all times. While God gave humanity the authority to kill and eat other forms of life Genesis 9:3, the killing or murdering of other human beings is expressly forbidden, with the penalty being death Genesis 9:6. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. says the Bible. “Humanity was created in God’s image and likeness”. If we love God, we will value our own lives as part of God’s plan, to do His will until it comes about that His will is better served by our deaths.  And we will love and care for His people, Galatians 6:10; Colossians 3:12-15. We will see to the needs of the elderly and sick. We will protect others from harm—whether from abortion, euthanasia, human trafficking, or other abuses. So as I understand the Bible, it would appear that murder is the unlawful taking of a life, while killing may be lawful or unlawful. The Bible provides many circumstances under which the taking of a life is legally allowed by Holy Scripture.

   While the sanctity of life can be the foundation, love must be the motivation. Christianity has never ceased to emphasise the sanctity of human life and the value of the individual, even the humblest and lowliest, including the afflicted in mind and body. The truth is the phrase “Sanctity of Life’ as an ancient principle of the Judeo-Christian and Hippocratic traditions”, is a complete lie, there is no literature anywhere on the subject, and really only appeared in use in the early 20th.century literature. 

   Sanctity-of-life” is a mysterious concept in the bioethical debate, the ethics of medical and biological research. From its beginnings, Christianity has displayed an interest in questions of health and healing that has verged on preoccupation. The Gospels tell the story of one, Jesus who went about doing good, often in the form of miraculous interventions in the form of healing, and, in certain cases, resurrections, this incredulous feat, as in Lazarus.
    This essentially religious concept has its basis in the notion that life is a gift from God. An additional factor within Christianity is the belief that humans are created in the image of God. In non-religious circles the term is used to indicate the utmost respect with which human life should be treated.  The problem is that the concept of “Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity,” was invented in the late 20th.century. Even more shocking and surprising is the fact that we do not seem to know where the term came from, what its roots are, and why it has been appropriated elsewhere. Worse, this lack of knowledge becomes a particular asset for those who oppose the values that the concept purports to protect.” Nowhere is the phrase ‘Sanctity of Life’ appearing, in either the Hebrew Bible or in the Christian Bible.

   The Roman Catholic Church has tried to counter those critical positions with a reconstruction of “sanctity as absolute inviolability” of physical human life based on the Catholic natural law tradition. The meaning of sanctity as inviolability of physical human life is used especially in the writings of Pope John Paul II, and is also generally accepted by most of its theological and philosophical defenders. The term “Sanctity-of-Life” does not appear even “in the four most important modern documents from the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings on matters dealing with killing.”

   So my other question is this, where was The 'Sanctity of Life' Ethic or Religious Ethos when the Roman Catholic Religious Orders were running Orphanages, and other Religious Run Institutions, and raping, murdering and disposing of tens of thousands of vulnerable babies and children, and women, world wide. As the Roman Catholic Church, talk and scream daily, “there is dignity in every human life”. The Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy an embryo, blastocyst, zygote or fetus, since it holds that "Human Life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. 

    Yet by their practice of two thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church never respected the Sanctity of Life. Christianity has a long run as the world's most violent religion, lets take it from the beginning. Killings for Christianity includes, the Crusades were a series of religious wars, sanctioned by the Catholic Church, killed millions, the Inquisition, where hundreds of thousands of people were executed, normally burnt at the stake. Medieval witch hunts in which over 100,000 women and men died, again, burnt at the stake. The Protestant and Catholic Wars of Religion, in which tens of millions have died. Democide or Religious Genocide in the Americas, Africa and Australia, in which again tens of millions were slaughtered, before been baptised. The papal bull “Romanus Pontifex”, of 1455. In this, Pope Nicholas V, supports the killing, and forcible conversion and enslaving of unbelievers found in the New Lands, the Americas, as a result, over 14 million indigenous People were slaughtered as a direct result, and millions more of Aboriginal People were enslaved in mines, digging for gold that built the Cathedrals in Europe and the Vatican. The 1994 Rwandan Genocide and many more atrocities committed in the name of Christianity in many countries in Africa, which now runs into tens of millions more. I could go on but the blog post would be endless with the millions and millions of more senseless murders and deaths at the hands of Christianity. Religion is not real, the soul and baptism are not real, but a Mother's love is real, a Mother's pain is real. 

    In Religion and ethics, inviolability or sanctity of life is a principle of implied protection regarding aspects of sentient life which are said to be holy, sacred, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated. Sentience is also the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. This can be applied to both animals and humans, for instance in religions that practice Ahimsa, as both are seen as holy and worthy of life. Ahimsa is the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jainist tradition, respect for all living things and avoidance of violence towards others.The concept of inviolability is an important tie between the ethics of religion and the ethics of law, as each seeks justification for its principles as based on both purity and natural concept, as well as in universality of application.  The concept is central to the philosophy of say, Animal Rights and also the anti-abortion movement because Sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, and thus is held to confer certain rights. Empirical evidence suggests that sentience about stimuli (life) is closely related to the process of extracting the meaning of the stimuli. How one understands the stimuli determines how one experiences them. The sanctity of life principle, which is often contrasted with the “Quality of Life” to some extent, is the basis of all Roman Catholic teaching about the Fifth Commandment in the Ten Commandments, of the Bible, but sanctity of life is usually applied solely to the human species according to the Roman Catholic Church and not Animal Life.  

    Again, my questions is really very simple, where were the Irish Catholic Church when such murderous atrocities were been committed against vulnerable women and children in their pastoral care in the Religious Run Institutions, in Ireland, and where please, was the Irish Catholic Church when 796 babies were been flushed down a sluice toilet in a Convent in the West of Ireland. And the tens of thousands of women and their children dumped into the 1,250 secret mass graves up and down this green land of Ireland. When please is the tipping point, another thousands babies in another Septic Tank in some god forsaken rural Convent ??…or another few hundred defensible women, burnt in Convent Ovens in rural Ireland?? or the 5 or 7 thousand women and children soon to be discovered in another Septic Tank, in the biggest Mother and Baby Home in Ireland, St. Patrick’s on the Navan Road, Dublin??. And my friends, this will be happening in a few months time. Brace yourselves, its going to get shockingly sickening, will that be the final tipping point?. Where was the “Sanctity of Life” they love to talk about??.

  An intriguing answer to the question of the “Sanctity of Life” is to determine or to figure out when the collective set of initiatives we now call the Irish Catholic Church policy toward unwed mothers and their vulnerable children was carried out by the Religious Orders in the Religious Run Institutions in Ireland. The Irish Catholic Church’s policy of  murder, medical experiments, rape, hunger, and beatings to assist the death machine, that was and ran the Religious run Institutions in Ireland. Much of the planning of the Irish hierarchy’s policy, was in great secrecy, but a decision was made by the Irish Bishops to implement and carry out the Irish Catholic Church’s horrendous policies, in the many scrumptious Palaces of the Catholic Bishop’s of Ireland at the time, many with over 30 rooms, all filled with opulent furnishings and heirlooms, while thousands of babies and children under its pastoral care, died, simply from malnutrition. The authoritarian power of the Irish Catholic Church was the real Government at the time, the weakness of Irish Governments in challenging the authority of the Catholic Church was a scandal. We know this because there are a few hand written records of the secret meetings held at the various Catholic Palaces at the time in the mid-40s. as told to me, by a retired elderly Priest, very recently. 

 Most politicians that worked in the Irish Government at the time were staunch, fervent Catholics, most were against anything which would undermine the Irish Catholic Church’s moral authority. Nearly all professed to be Catholic first, and Irish citizens second. A former Taoiseach John A Costello told the Dáil.  “I, as a Catholic, obey my Church Authorities (first) and will continue to do so,”  “The Irish bishop stands on ceremony and sits on everybody,” Seán O” Faoláin wrote. “Our politicians were kissing the bishops on all four cheeks”. So our continual Silence is the Catholic Church’s best friend, those who know and knew must speak out, and speak out now.  The Bible is not the infallible word of God, or is it? “Sanctity of Life” is that an infallible word of God or again, man made word of God?. Using the word, “Sanctity", does it make the debate holy? moral purity,? no, sorry, it’s made up, like the Latin Bible itself, “the Bible is a book of lies dressed up in Latin”. Owen Felix O'Neill