Bishop's homily shows tie between civil rights, pro-life movements

Published: 2005-01-19

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CNS) -- Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Harrisburg drew upon the wisdom of two religious figures from the turbulent 1960s -- the pope and a Baptist clergyman -- for his homily at the diocese's annual African-American Catholic Mass Jan. 16. The Mass, celebrated at St. Patrick Cathedral in Harrisburg, is hosted each year by the diocesan African-American Catholic ministry. In April 1963, while confined to a prison cell in Birmingham, Ala., for his leadership role at a civil rights demonstration, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter explaining why he could not obey unjust laws. "And here this Southern Baptist preacher quoted two doctors of the Catholic Church," Bishop Rhoades noted. Rev. King wrote that he agreed with St. Augustine "that an unjust law is no law at all" and with St. Thomas Aquinas that "an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law." The same week the civil rights leader penned his now-famous letter from behind bars, Pope John XXIII commented on the "very same passage from St. Thomas" to make the same point, Bishop Rhoades said. In his encyclical, "Pacem in Terris" ("Peace on Earth"), Pope John XXIII wrote that "laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience." "Think of this," Bishop Rhoades urged the more than 800 worshippers who packed the cathedral. "The words of a pope from the Vatican and a Southern Baptist preacher from his jail cell remind us of important truths this week as we prepare for the Dr. Martin Luther King holiday and for the March for Life in Washington."

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