Rabbi Yehuda Levin’s key idea

Homily on Oct. 25, Monday of the XXX week in OT

Yesterday I had the pleasure of accompanying several of our parishioners to the Orange County Right to Life annual banquet. It was the first time I have attended this event, and it was great to see the dining hall jam-packed with people. The speaker was Rabbi Yehuda Levin. He is a long-time pro-life advocate who has worked with the Catholic Church and other Christians on numerous occasions to defend pro-life and pro-family causes and truthfulness in the media.

He defines himself as a New York “street fighter” for family and religious values, and as such, he certainly did not avoid controversial topics. At times he used harsher language than I would. However, I found his presentation very interesting and, at times, entertaining. Among the many things he said, he made a point which I think is very important: the issue of abortion is inseparable from the issues surrounding the family and sexuality.

God’s design for human sexuality, inherent in nature, discoverable by reason, and taught by the Christian faith, is that sexual union should be between a man and a woman in the context of marriage for the mutual good of the spouses and open to generating new life. Going against this divine plan is what creates the majority of the occasions for abortion. Denial of these truths is also the error that underlies support for gay marriage, and saturates the ideology behind the secular approach to sex education and the promotion of contraception.

If we want to save our culture from the same “immorality”, “obscenity” and “impurity” that St Paul condemns in the first reading today, we each have to do what we can to promote true family values through our prayer, our example, and (when appropriate) our participation in the processes of our government and civil society. We are not all called to be involved in the same way and to the same degree, but we cannot sit idly by while values of our youth and our beloved nation deteriorate. As St Paul points out in the reading, these things will have eternal consequences. Let us ask the Lord today to help us to know what He wants us to do to help save the lives of the unborn and the future of our families, our nation, and our world.

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