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WNYC File - Bishop Edward U. Kmiec joins others at the Rosary Novena for Life.
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While abortion is a major issue for Catholics, respect life committees at parishes throughout the diocese look to inform people on many important life issues. Respecting life means treasuring every day of life from conception to natural death.
Michele Staskiewicz, coordinator of the Respect Life Committee of Our Lady of Pompeii Parish in Lancaster, strongly encourages Catholics to be informed and look at all aspects of respect life issues.
Staskiewicz and the rest of the committee have invited a speaker to educate people on end of life issues. Jann Armantrout, the Life Issues coordinator for the Diocese of Rochester and pro-life speaker, will speak on Monday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. at Our Lady of Pompeii.
Armantrout has been one of the people who was charged to develop the program, Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment for the New York State Department of Health. The talk will focus on the importance of health care proxies and educate people about their medical rights.
“We have to be vigilant as lay Catholics right now,” Staskiewicz said. “Family rights are being stripped. The Church teaches one thing and the law says another. The Church teaches that a person has the right to live from conception to natural death. The law is starting to play with the words ‘natural death.’ That’s one of the reasons getting a health care proxy who knows the Church’s teaching and your wishes is so important.”
Staskiewicz explained how she got involved with her parish’s Respect Life Committee.
“I’ve always been a Catholic, and I’ve really reverted to Catholicism in the last 10 years,” she said. “I have a developmentally disabled 17-year-old daughter who also has a serious seizure disorder. After the Terri Schiavo case, I got involved. I thought, ‘Wow, I have a responsibility to get the word out that all life is sacred no matter what.’”
Staskiewicz got even more heavily involved after participating in last year’s March for Life.
“Last year I went to the March for Life, and I was totally blown away, and I told myself that I have got to step up to the plate in my parish,” she said. “I realized you have to meet people where they are at. The most important thing is to help them realize that God is life and stopping life at any level is saying no to God.”
Staskiewicz, who is also a nurse, said that there are so many other Respect life issues that need to be addressed in society today, including abortion, cloning and the death penalty.
To learn more about End of Life issues, the Catholic Church has compiled information which is titled, “Now and at the Hour of our Death.” It can be found online at www.nyscatholic.org/.