Archbishop Cordileone: ‘The Solution to Building a Culture of Life is Being True Christians’

‘The new secular religion of our own time takes on this practice in an almost sacramental way: indeed, abortion has become, for them, their blessed sacrament, what they hold most sacred, the doctrine and practice upon which their whole belief system is built.’

By Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, EWTN News, January 24, 2022

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone is the archbishop of San Francisco and the founder and chairman of the board of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship.

Editor’s Note: Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco offered this homily during his Mass before the Walk for Life West Coast Jan. 22, 2022. It is reprinted here in its entirety with permission from the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

There is an old saying, a question really, that is a sort of a self-assessment of faith, a way of gauging where one is at in terms of walking with the Lord Jesus: “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

Just what is that evidence? The readings we just heard proclaimed in our Mass today give us the answer: the Beatitudes.  A simplistic way of looking at the Beatitudes might see them merely as a list of efforts with corresponding rewards.  But that’s not really the point.  It is better to see the Beatitudes as the hallmarks of the Christian life, very similar to what St. James tells us about true wisdom, and its opposite, false wisdom.  Let’s ponder that for a moment. …