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Answers to possible
objections, which may be raised against the Catholic Church ‘claiming all
children killed before birth (by abortion and embryo experiments) as Companion
Martyrs of the first Holy Innocents.’
Taken from an MA thesis based on the
inspiration of Divine Innocence,
Includes references
to a dossier by Father Philippe Jobert, OSB., Monk and Theologian of St.
Peter’s Abbey,
Objection. 1.
‘The Church teaches that man through the fall of his first
parents has the stain of original sin. No sin can enter heaven. These children
are not baptised by water baptism at the font. How then are they washed of
original sin so that they can enter heaven?’
The
Church professes three forms of baptism; by water, blood and by desire. If it
is not possible for an individual to receive baptism by the normal means i.e.
by water, the same benefits can be supplied by “baptism of blood (whereby
martyrdom is suffered for Christ, the Catholic Faith or for some virtue) or by
“baptism of desire” (whereby a person has perfect contrition and at least the
implicit intention of fulfilling God’s will for man’s salvation.)[1]
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: ‘The Church has always held the
firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without
having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ.’ (
The
source of all forms of baptism flow from God’s love and the purpose of
universal salvation. Jesus is the manifestation of God’s love[2]
that love is shown particularly in his Passion and Death where He died for love
of all mankind. Jesus speaks of his suffering as a baptism. Baptism for us is a
share in fruits of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. Father Jobert OSB,
working from the content of the charism, shows the link between God’s love and
a baptism of blood with regard to the children:
Above all, they receive the baptism of
love through a baptism of blood, which unites them to Christ Crucified. They
are killed for the divine Truth about life, which is printed in every human
soul, and revealed in the Decalogue: “Thou shalt not kill”. They are martyrs to
the Gospel of life; for human life is the necessary receptacle of the
gratuitous gift of eternal life, according to the divine purpose of Love for
mankind.[3]
The
children’s baptism therefore is a ‘Baptism of Love through a baptism of blood.’
John
1:33 reveals that Jesus is the one who is said to baptize with the Holy Spirit.
“I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said
to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who
baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' In the
Acts of the Apostles Jesus tells the Apostles “you will be baptized with the
Holy Spirit not many days from now." (Acts 1:4-5) The New Testament does
not tell us that the Apostles received water Baptism but Jesus does tell us
that they were baptised by the Holy Spirit. In John’s Gospel Jesus refers to
those born of the Holy Spirit saying
‘The wind blows where it wills,’[6] The aborted children while unable to receive
water baptism, are not outside the Spirit’s reach; “For in the one Spirit we
were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and we were all
made to drink of one Spirit...” (1 Cor 12:13)
We
are told that ‘St Thomas Aquinas observes, importantly, that babies in their
mothers’ wombs ‘can nevertheless be subjected to the action of God, in whose
presence they are living, in such wise that they achieve sanctification by some
privilege of grace, as is evident regarding those who have been sanctified in
the womb.’[7]
‘The cases of Jeremiah (Jer: 1:5) and of St John the Baptist (Lk: 1:15) show
that God can freely sanctify by grace a child in the womb of His mother. The
similar case of Mary is a dogma of faith: viz. the Immaculate Conception.’[8]
To summarise, the Church teaches the
necessity of baptism which supplies God’s grace so as to overcome original
sin. Baptism flows from God’s love for
us, manifested in Jesus Christ principally through his passion, death and
resurrection and is the work of the Holy Spirit. Revelation testifies to God’s gift of
gratuitous grace so that all men come to the knowledge of the truth and are
saved, the will of unborn child presents no obstacle to this grace for its free
will is not yet operative it is however ordered to natural good.[9] They are deprived of the normal sacramental
means of baptism yet the manner of their death is a baptism of blood. For like the Holy Innocents they die as
innocence victims for the truth, witnesses to Christ, the Truth[10]
Second
Objection.
‘Children cannot be considered
martyrs because they do not knowingly and willingly embraced death rather than
deny Christ.’
The Church’s traditional understanding
of martyrdom is that the martyr is conformed to Christ and witnesses to Him and
the faith; ‘Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith.
The martyr…bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine.’[11] This not only encompasses supernaturally
revealed truth but truths of the natural moral law. This was the case with
saints such as Maria Goretti and John the Baptist who are both martyrs: they
were not killed in odium Christi, but
as witnesses to moral principles.[12] ‘The Church’s proclamation of aborted
children as martyrs despite their incapacity to willingly offer their lives is
of course, not without precedent. Is this not evident in claiming them as
companions of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem?[13]
What is important here is that the martyrdom in the understanding of the Church
has itself developed and we see that a precedent exists within the
tradition.
We
find that the question concerning the children’s martyrdom centres on our
understanding of subjectivity and objectivity in the theology of martyrdom;
We cannot use only the subjective
likeness to Christ of these children as innocent persons as proof of martyrdom,
to be objective we must also look for this proof elsewhere.
The
children witness to the word of God, to the truth of the Commandments; ‘Thou
shalt not kill’. Many of these children are conceived in adulterous situations;
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The
fatherhood and motherhood of those involved in abortion has been dishonoured by
themselves and by society (through legislation etc.); ‘Honour your father and
mother,’ The lives of these children have been stolen from them by unjust laws
and by others who have killed them; ‘Thou shalt not steal’. In all these areas
the children are witnesses to the word of God that has been broken in their
regard. Because of what the mystery of the Incarnation means for every member
of humanity, the children witness to Christ the Word made flesh, to Christ the
Sacrament: “What you do to the least of my brethren you do to me.”(Mt 25:40)
At a more fundamental level the active
participation of the martyr is a grace from God acting in the martyr to conform
them to Christ the proto martyr. It is not
only the martyrs choice for Christ but Christ’s choice of the martyr through
His grace to witness to a particular truth.. This is shown in Jesus’ words in
John Gospel, “You did not choose me I chose you.” (John 15:16) We know that
God’s power is shown forth in human weakness. He chooses the weak and makes
them strong in bearing witness to Him. (cf. 1Cor 1:27,28). These children could
be considered the weakest members of society. Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae n. 58 says: ‘No one
more absolutely innocent could be imagined. […] He or she is weak, defenceless,
even to the point of lacking that minimal form of defence consisting in the
poignant power of a newborn baby’s cries and tears.’
In death these children are conformed
to the death of Christ as witnesses to divine truth. Christ indeed gives
testimony in them and
dies in them. ‘By their martyrs’ deaths
they become members of the Mystical Body of the Christ who hallows them. They
are sanctified not out side but within the Church. She is their Mother, not by
the sacrament of Baptism, [of water] but by proclaiming that they are her
glorious children through the Baptism of blood. She gives their blood a voice
to proclaim the truth of God about life, the glory of the mercy of God and the
power of the Blood of Christ.’ [15]
Those who end the life of the unborn
break the divine law written in their hearts, and so objectively these unborn
are rendered victims, although they do not have any opportunity of choosing to
die for the truth about life. ‘This objectively confers on their death the
formal notion (ratio formalis) of
martyrdom.’[16]
The Holy Innocents were killed by Herod, who wanted to kill Christ:
formally Christ was martyred in each of them. They were witnesses to Christ as
Messiah by their blood, without any possibility of willing it. The new holy
innocents ie. all children killed before birth, are martyr victims in the
similar way.
Third
Objection.
‘The children could exercise
their free will against God and reject Him.’
The children are too young to have the
use of their free will, since they have no way of exercising it, it is
potential. They have not the use of this
freewill anymore that they have the use of their lungs. In any case the
Church teaches that children below the age of reason are not considered
responsible. Christ said that he who is not against him is with him. (Mk 9:40)
When a child is brought to the fount for Baptism in the ordinary way, there is
no suggestion, that the child might be harbouring resistance toward Christ in
its will and rejecting the sacrament. All children have been created by a
loving God and are orientated to the good, their supreme good is God. God does
not create evil or human persons with any evil intent; ‘Since God is perfectly
good, He cannot be the direct cause of any evil.’ [17] St.
Thomas Aquinas in his Summa said that ‘Children before the use of reason do not
have an inordinate act of the will, neither will they have one after death’[18]
The children are put to death through
the sins of those who break the divine and natural law. The very fact that the children cannot
exercise their will shows that their martyrdom is unique.
[N]ot yet
having the use of their freewill, they are under God’s direct motion in their
natural will for happiness. Thus Christ takes them into His Crucifixion when
they are killed. Living in them through grace, He offers them in His own
offering to the Father and they share in His Sacrifice for all sinners. They
are perfect instruments of Christ’s charity: this complete instrumentality is
completely identified with Christ’s martyrdom and witness: this is the highest
level of martyrdom because it is a glory only for Christ through them [the
children] and with them as human persons.[19]
Fourth
Objection.
‘By claiming these children, it could encourage abortions if
people thought that their child would become a saint. It may be argued that it
would be better to kill the child rather than bring it into the world where it
might suffer such things as poverty and sickness.’
Catholic moral theology teaches that it
is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of
it.
To
kill an innocent child so as to make heaven available to that child or to save
it from coming into this world where it might suffer, is an evil act regardless
of any good motive. Many reasons are
given in society for the killing of the children and most are presented as
having good motives. This does not change the fact that it is an intrinsically
evil act. To say that claiming the children will encourage abortions seems
unreasonable when one sees the sheer scale of abortions and methods of
murdering the children, little encouragement seems to be needed. It will be
seen later in the chapter on the positive case that on the contrary the
claiming will produce very positive effects that will curb abortion.
In Veritatis Splendor n.80, Pope John Paul
II states:
Reason attests that there are objects
of the human act which are by their nature “incapable of being ordered” to God,
because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image.
These are the acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed
“intrinsically evil” (intrinsece malum):
they are always and per se, on account of their very object, and quite apart
from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances [. …]
seriously wrong…[21]
The
Second Vatican Council confirming the respect due to the human person, gives
explicit examples of such acts: “Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as
any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide;…”
(GS n. 27)
Fifth Objection
‘There are too many children to claim. The Church could
instead claim one child of whom it could be proved that it died in “odium
fidei” to represent all the other children killed before birth. [An example of
this would be that the baby was killed because it was a Catholic.]’
All
humanity was not too many for Christ to die for and save so why would the children
be too many for the Church to claim if Christ has justified them? If one child can be claimed surely all can be
claimed. Claiming all the children preserves privacy, no individual mother,
child, or family need be made known. Without excluding any children it also
does not exclude anyone who has been involved in the deaths of these children.
The claiming would therefore touch all those involved in this corporate sin
with the light of truth because the Commandments are written upon the heart.
The Church by claiming these children and raising them to the Altar,
universally proclaims the truth that Jesus is Saviour of all mankind and the
Church is the one place where the saving Sacraments are available for those
involved in abortion and experiments on children can be completely reconciled
Jesus
in the Gospel rebuked those who would stop little children coming to Him.
“Suffer the little children to come unto me, forbid them not for of such is the
Martyrdom
is exclusively a gratuitous gift of Christ, the giving of Himself as the King
of martyrs, to continue His witness to divine Truth, in and through all unborn
children. There is no place for an
exception, either on the part of Christ, or on the part of the children, who
themselves are conformed to His likeness in death and bear witness to the truth
about life. This martyrdom is universal
in itself, for it is a participation of all children in Christ’s martyrdom.
This universality of salvation and martyrdom in the case of unborn children is
so essential, that to look for an individual case of martyrdom in one child who is killed in abortion “in odium fidei”, would completely miss the point. In such a singular case, the universal
salvific Will of God and Christ’s martyrdom are not taken into account. The charism of martyrdom is reduced to the
human level and to the exceptional human conditions of the violent death of one
person only: and the glory of martyrdom would be received by this person, not
by God’s Mercy and Christ Crucified alone.[22]
Sixth
Objection.
‘You are asking the Church to claim children who would be
killed in the future.’
Scripture
effectively answers this objection in Revelation 6:9-11:
‘When he opened the fifth seal, I saw
under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and
for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, "O
Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our
blood on those who dwell upon the earth?"
Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer,
until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves
had been.’ [our emphasis.]
This
passage speaks of those who have been slain for the word of God and of their
witness to the word. It also speaks of those who would in the future be killed
as they themselves had been. These children who can be said to wear the white
robe of innocence have been washed in the blood of the Lamb and they witness to
the word of God that has been broken in their regard.
When
the children’s martyrdom is publicly proclaimed those who kill these children
will come to realise that the children are martyred because of disobedience to
the divine and natural law. It will have
the effect of discouraging further abortions because all will know without
doubt that those who kill the unborn child create a martyr and that their
actions (for which they are answerable before God) are the cause of this
martyrdom.
These
children as a category of martyr do not require the same canonical process for
there is no life to investigate so to speak, only the theological and doctrinal
criteria for them to be numbered among the white robed army. If we have ascertained the objective criteria
for these children as a body to be considered within the embrace of salvation
so as to be claimed for Christ and His Church as martyrs to the truth, what
obstacle is there for future children in the same category to be considered as
such?
Seventh
Objection.
‘You cannot prove a child in the womb receives grace.’
The
creation of these children is a grace from God. God does not create the child
and then abandon it.[23]
There is evidence in Scripture that grace can reach the child in the womb. The
Prophet Jeremiah was consecrated in his mother’s womb. (Jer 1:4-5)
‘Since Christ died for all, and since
all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we
must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made
partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.’ It seems that the
Church is being shown how these children are partakers in that mystery.
Eight
Objection.
‘We do not know when the soul is present therefore the Church cannot
claim all children killed before birth’.
The
question of ensoulment is important because there are those who feel that if
the soul is not present at conception it is acceptable to experiment on living
human beings in the early stages of their development, although we see that
children are killed at every stage of development. There are many who argue that
the child in the womb is not a person but a cluster of cell tissue and
therefore children before birth can be killed or used for scientific
experiments, they deny the presence of the spiritual soul of the child.
The Church teaches that human life must
be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception, that is
from the first moment of his or her existence, and to be recognized as having
the rights of a person, among which is the inviolable right of every innocent
being to life.[24]
From the early centuries the Church has upheld the unity of man’s body and soul
stating that ‘it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a
spiritual soul’. (
St. Thomas Aquinas understood that
since matter and form are so complementary, it is not possible for the soul to
be present in matter that was insufficiently organised i.e. in matter that is
not already human. For this reason based on the scientific knowledge of his
day,
The Church may need to make a more
definite pronouncement regarding the soul being present at conception. God’s
relationship with the human person is a person to person relationship of love,
a relationship with the whole person in a
unity of body and soul.[26]
It is the whole person, body and soul who is saved by Christ, according to the
Will of the Father in the Unity of the Holy Spirit. For this Trinitarian relationship of love
with the human person made in God’s image, the soul must be present at
conception? In his Theological
Clarifications Father Jobert sheds some light on this issue:
Modern science has shown that
from the first moment of conception, from the union of both male and female
elements, the program of development of the organs, and the beginnings of these
organs are present. Thus, at the same
moment the perfection of the creating Cause, Divine Love, and the complete
dispositions of the subject, shows that the spiritual soul is present as a
formal cause of the body from the first moment of conception. The purpose of
the efficient Cause, Divine Love, is the communication of its image, as
spiritual, at the same level as this image is in the procreating cause of the
person……
The doubt of Aristotle in this
matter comes from his theory of the form springing from the potentiality of the
matter. In this way, it is not possible
to reach in generation a form, which transcends the potentiality of the matter,
i.e. a spiritual soul, with immaterial potentiality of intellectual and
voluntary operations. St. Thomas Aquinas
follows [Aristotle] but the philosophical demonstration of a First Cause, a
Prime Mover who is a Prime Lover dissipates the Aristotolean doubt: the Prime
Mover can produce a spiritual soul at the moment of conception, and the Prime
Lover will produce it as the proper effect of His Love: the communication of
His likeness.[27]
If
the Magisterium were to claim these children killed before birth, the wording
of such a pronouncement would be important and overcome the above objection. It
would have to identify as martyrs all those created by God, in His image and
likeness and killed before birth. If
this was done it would not be necessary to define the exact moment of each
individual conception. It must also be
remembered that these children would be raised to the altar as a body such as
the Holy Innocents and the First Martyrs of the See of Rome where particular
individuals were not known but their witness was still acknowledged.
Ninth Objection.
‘What of children who die naturally such as children who die
through miscarriages?’
In
this study we are not dealing here with all children who have died before
baptism. We are dealing specifically
with a particular group of children deliberately put to death before birth. If
the martyrdom of these children is accepted, as an authentic witnesses to the
truth and the dignity of human life, a doctrinal way is then established to
show that they enjoy the fruits of salvation through a ‘baptism of love’ and
blood. It is the purpose of this work to demonstrate that these children can be
considered martyrs and from this the pastoral issue of reaching those who have
been responsible for the children’s deaths. This development however may in the
future help to shed light on the theological question of miscarried children.
While it is an important question for those who have been affected by miscarriage,
it does not present the same pastoral urgency towards those involved in the
serious sin of the killing of children.
Miscarried
children have not died at the hands of others contrary to God’s law. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church states: ‘Indeed, the great mercy of God who
desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children
which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them’ (Mk
10:14; cf. 1 Tim 2:4), allows us to hope that there is a way of salvation for
children who have died without Baptism. (
Tenth
Objection.
‘What about other innocent children who have been killed
after birth such as street children in South America
who have been murdered as a means of dealing with a social problem, can one
differentiate?’
A
court deals with each case individually, the Church likewise does not mix up
causes going forward for beatification, each having their own individual
context and circumstances. Each case
needs to be looked at on its own merits.
In regard to the children killed before birth, there are certainties in
their regard, they cannot receive sacramental baptism, they are innocent of
actual sin but have the stain of original sin.
This cannot be said with certainty of children who have been killed
after birth. The freewill of the
children killed before birth is only potential and having no merit of their
own, in their helplessness they are utterly dependent on Christ’s merits, on
His saving Blood to cleanse them from original sin and to sanctify them by His
Spirit. With other cases differing circumstances have to be considered, such as
determining the age of reason, innocence and the subjective cause of death.[28] It may be so that many of these children are
candidates for beatification but this is for the Church to decide separately
from this cause.
On
this issue and included in her paper in Abortion
and Martyrdom, Michele M. Schumacher states:
[T]he Church’s
intervention would, it must be admitted open the same possibility to other
truly innocent victims of violent crimes – children who have not reached the
age of reason and the mentally handicapped, for instance – victims whose blood,
when offered by the Church with that of Christ, might truly ‘speak more
graciously than the blood of Abel’ (cf. Heb. 12:24) to convict the consciences
of those responsible for the violent taking of their lives thereby allowing for
the penetration of the graces of conversion for all those involved in the
horrendous crime of abortion. On the other hand, given the magnitude of the
crime of abortion and the obscuring of public’ conscience in its regard, there
is, it seems to me, a certain urgency which would advocate their cause at this
moment in history even before that of other truly innocent victims.’[29]
Eleventh
Objection.
‘The children go to Limbo therefore there is no need for the
Church to claim them, they enjoy a natural happiness.’
Although
it was never defined as a dogma of faith the existence of limbo was posed as a
possible answer by some theologians wrestling with the question of children who
die without Baptism.[30]
The fate of children who die without baptism has been looked at within the
Church by many theologians over the centuries, some of whom put forward the
theory of ‘Limbo of the infants.’ ‘Limbo
was suggested as an intermediary place between heaven and hell, which spared
the innocent who died without baptism from the punishments of hell.’[31] The theory states that the children who die
without baptism do not enjoy the beatific vision of God but only a natural
happiness.
Christ
came to bring us supernatural happiness and show us the way to the Father. ‘The
Church [has] treated the doctrine of limbo and the denial of limbo simply as
“opinions” of theologians; she has been content with her decision to the
present day.’ [32]
Also, it seems significant that the New Catechism of the Catholic Church does
not mention the existence of Limbo.
Instead it tells us that, ‘Jesus’ tenderness toward children which
caused him to say: ‘Let the little children come to me, do not hinder them’,
allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died
without Baptism.’ (
If
we are to accept the theory of Limbo, this invariably means, that those who
have killed the children, if they repented and were reconciled to God and his
Church, would have the opportunity to reach heaven and enjoy the Beatific
Vision of God, while their victims, the innocent children, are denied the
beatific vision for all eternity. This does not seem to be compatible with
God’s justice, mercy and love.
When
the children die and come before God for their particular judgement, they have
no actual sin to expiate so Purgatory is not applicable for them. They have not
committed any sin and do not reject God, so they cannot be sent to Hell. If we accept that limbo would not be a just
solution the Church teaches definitively only one other destination, heaven.
This
theory is theologically inadequate to answer the fate of unbaptised infants
within the context of the Father’s saving Will:
‘The theory of limbo ‘limps’ because it relies upon divine Justice only,
and not upon Justice and Mercy together. God is at the same time Justice and
Mercy: so there is never divine Justice without Mercy’ (Ps 88:15) [S de M2][33] Fr. Jobert
believes that for children who are killed in abortion, there is a previous
action of Christ’s Mercy for them: ‘He
united them to His own Martyrdom, as witnesses for the Gospel of Life. They are
martyrs in Him and are consequently glorified in Him.’[34] ‘The children killed before birth are martyrs
in Christ, because Christ exercises his own martyrdom in them, out of his Mercy
and Justice, all objections are destroyed; because they are formulated as
though Christ is not living any more, as through his sacrifice is not
eternalised by his Divine Act of Being and present to the children, as though
his Mercy forgets these children and is not powerful enough to save them.’ [35]
Father
Jobert makes an important point regarding the Covenant and Limbo: ‘God is the Prime Lover in the Covenant, the first
effect of the Covenant is prevenient grace: In our first parents, [i]n the
Immaculate Conception [and] [i]n the martyrdom of unborn children. ‘The theory of
limbo forgets and neglects the Covenant. Through abortion the devil tries to undermine
the Covenant.’[36]
In
this section we have looked at various objections which may be raised against
this development and put forward answers to them. This already begins to build
a positive case for the Catholic Church to claim the children put to death
before birth and to raise them to the Altar as companion martyrs of the first
Holy Innocents. It was John Henry Newman who pointed out the importance of the
‘antecedent argument’ in the process of the development of doctrine[37]
and we can see how each of these doctrinal points like strands of a rope helps
to build a case for the claiming. We will now look in more detail at the
positive case in favour of claiming the children, and at other implications and
effects that will lead us on to the missionary and catechetical role of the
Church in relation to the claiming.
Twelfth
Objection.
‘God’s Love and Mercy seems to be so abundant and free for
the children in this development that the proclamation of so many saints in one
action could be considered akin to the error of universalism.’
Universalism
is a liberal Protestant belief in the final salvation of all souls. It believes that Holy Scripture of Old and
New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God and of the duty,
interest, and final destination of mankind.
It believes that there is one God whose nature is Love, revealed in one
Lord, Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of grace, who will finally restore the
whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness.[38]
While this erroneous belief accepts Divine Mercy it denies Divine Justice in
regard to man.
The
claiming of the children killed in abortion is the just solution for victim and
perpetrator alike by pointing to the Saviour and the Church’s sacramental
system. Through Christ’s perfect
Sacrifice on Calvary and perpetuated in the Mass, God’s Love is shown for both
victim and perpetrator, justice is met for the children and mercy is offered to
those responsible for their deaths. The claiming acknowledges God’s Justice,
Love and Mercy. In this liturgical
action the Church proclaims the universal plan of salvation as given in
revelation and taught by the Church.
This is the only universal aspect in the claiming of these children – a
proclamation of universal truth! Those
who have killed the children have the invitation and opportunity through the
Church to be reconciled to God, but they also have the free will to reject
it. There is no suggestion with the
claiming that those who have harmed the children are automatically saved in the
universal love of God; repentance and reparation is required for this spilling
of innocent blood and through free will we can choose between justice and
mercy.
Thirteenth Objection.
When someone suggested that the
accusation of idealism could be raised against the claiming of the children
killed before birth, “that it is too good to be true”, Our Lord said to
Patricia in the inspiration:
Jesus. It is so good that it is true! Goodness and
right go together – the right of the children to salvation, the right of the
parents to hear of this merciful message, the right of the Church to proclaim
it and defend it, and in God, right is might not as your saying goes “might is
right!” My mighty hand goes out to these children and rescues them and My
mighty Love flows forth for the salvation of all. Claim and proclaim! Right, truth and Love reigns supreme in this
answer!