Bishop Richard Stika on "Evil Without Makeup"

"Decades ago, people on another continent shocked the world, saying, “We did not know,” regarding the atrocities they chose to ignore. And before that, our own country enshrined as the law of its land the slavery of those we deemed less than human.

Yet today, we encounter a similar troubling indifference, and worse: the suppression of the truth regarding the most vulnerable among us. Evil without its makeup that is the reality exposed in the unfolding series of videos revealing how the unborn life of a baby, deemed worthless by Planned Parenthood while in the womb, has value only in the sale of its dissected human parts.

What has become of our humanity when our conscience is not sickened by the callous talk of less “crunchy” methods to fetch a greater dollar value for the baby limbs and organs that will be separated in a petri dish for sale like a laboratory rat?

But if one is to believe Planned Parenthood, the real aggressor is the Center for Medical Progress, which shined a light into the arena of darkness and the Frankenstein-like business of trafficking in human parts, which is prohibited by federal law.If Planned Parenthood’s definition of an extremist is one who believes in the sanctity of the unborn and the protection that these vulnerable lives should be afforded, then I, too, am an extremist...

[Recently] , one story dominated the headlines in most reports: the poaching of Cecil the lion in Africa. Care for the environment and of all God’s good creation is important, but have we forgotten a far greater ecology that calls for our attention?

Pope Francis recently highlighted the “throwaway” mentality behind not only our failure to care for our earthly environment but also, and more importantly, our failure to respect a human ecology.

A true human ecology is one that recognizes the inestimable value of life from conception to natural death, be it the life of the unborn in the womb, the poor, the sick and elderly, and even those on death row who themselves may have brutally taken another life. This human ecology calls us to especially reach out with love, mercy and healing toward those who may be contemplating, or have chosen to have, an abortion."

                                                                 ~ Knoxville Bishop Richard F. Stika