January 22, 2025 of the Year of Our Lord
Every year our Catholic Church publishes a prayer calendar that lists the different feasts and seasons we mark throughout the year. This week, the entry for January 22, 2025 states the following:
On this anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Roe vs. Wade (1973), all dioceses of the United States shall observe a “day of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life and [a day of penance] for violations committed through acts of abortion.”
You might think, “Why do we still need this day of prayer and penance? Wasn’t Roe vs. Wade overturned?” First, let’s review what actually happened just a couple years ago. On June 24, 2022, our Supreme Court in its Dobbs v. Jackson decision said, “The [United States] Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe …[is] overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” Since the Dobbs decision, we’ve seen different states handle abortion in different ways. But let’s jump from our state and nation and take a look at the worldwide picture. To me, it shows why we need this day of prayer more than ever.
As 2024 ended, 45 million innocent children had their lives deliberately ended in their mother’s womb (data provided by Worldometer). This marked abortion as the leading cause of death throughout the whole world. Compare that to some of the other major causes of death: 8.2 million people died from cancer, 5 million from smoking, 1.7 million from HIV/AIDS, 1.35 million from traffic fatalities, and 1.1 million from suicide. In fact, if we add up deaths from all other causes besides abortions, we get 62 million deaths. That means that abortions were over 40 percent of all deaths in our world last year.
Moving back to the US, the abortions statistics also show a horrifying racial breakdown. Almost 40 percent of US abortions were performed on black babies last year, even though our black population is only about 12.4 percent of the nation. Black babies are aborted at four times the rate of white babies. (from an article by Thomas B. Williams, PhD, Jan 1, 2025).
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Hopefully, these numbers make it clear for all of us why we still have a day of prayer on January 22. As our Declaration of Independence states,
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.
I encourage us all to join in prayer on January 22. We have two morning Masses at 6:15am and 8:00am. The church is open throughout the day. Or take up your Rosary at home. Maybe you could offer an extra Rosary, or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. It would be an excellent day to hold back from the food and entertainment we usually enjoy, offering these sacrifices united to the cross of Jesus. Given the statistics I’ve shared, there is so much healing that needs to take place. Maybe our Lord will place you next to a person who needs that healing and you will help direct them to his sacraments or other counseling that is also needed.
May the unalienable right to life of each human person be protected in our laws. May we be instruments of the healing power of Christ in the lives of others. Yes, for that we can prayer together.
Fr. Jerome
maintenance person at Diocese of Joliet
1 个月WOW! At sporting events, end of wars, 4th of July's and even the winning of soccer games people throw confetti, March around and in general cause a big raucous! Now against all odds as you have so amply stated new short stops will be born, prima ballerinas, men with no arms that play the guitar better than anybody and a host of other important people will MARCH into HEAVEN. It would make Padre Pio proud. NOW that the ball is firmly in our hands let's NOT DROP IT!