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<p>Archbishop Sample’s harsh rebuke came two days after Kotek, a Democrat, signed a proclamation on March 10 establishing the new honor.</p>
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<p>Portland Archbishop Alexander Sample condemned what he described as a “celebration of death” after Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed a proclamation to make March 10 an “appreciation day” for abortionists.</p>
<p>“There are moments when words fail,” Sample <a href="https://archdpdx.org/pastoral-teaching-sanctity-of-life" target="null">wrote in a March 13 letter</a> that also offered a pastoral teaching about the sanctity of human life.</p>
<p>Those moments, he wrote, include “when the mind stares into the abyss and finds no bottom. When all that’s left is a kind of stunned silence — the kind you feel when you realize just how far a culture can drift from reality.”</p>
<p>Archbishop Sample wrote that Kotek’s creation of an “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day” is “one of those moments.”</p>
<p>“Not just the act of abortion itself, but the celebration of it,” he added. “The idea that those who make a living ending innocent, unborn life should be publicly honored. Thanked. Applauded.” </p>
<p>“This isn’t just moral confusion. It’s something deeper. A kind of spiritual blindness so thick that what should be self-evident — the sheer wonder and worth of a human life — is obscured entirely.”</p>
<p>Archbishop Sample’s harsh rebuke came two days after Kotek, a Democrat, <a href="https://apps.oregon.gov/oregon-newsroom/OR/GOV/Posts/Post/governor-kotek-declares-march-10-abortion-provider-appreciation-day#:~:text=Post%20%2D%20Newsroom&;text=Salem%2C%20OR%20%E2%80%93%20Today%2C%20abortion,10%20Abortion%20Provider%20Appreciation%20Day." target="null">signed a proclamation</a> on March 10 establishing the new honor. </p>
<p>The governor said she “appreciated” the work of abortionists. She cited the rising number of abortions in Oregon performed on women from other states. In a statement she told abortionists and women seeking abortion: “I continue to have your back.”</p>
<p>The increased number of out-of-state abortions in Oregon comes as some states, including neighboring Idaho, pass laws to adopt pro-life protections for unborn children that restrict abortions.</p>
<p>‘Deep down, we know’</p>
<p>Sample wrote that pro-abortionist ideology constantly relies on “euphemism.” </p>
<p>Instead of saying “killing,” he wrote that advocates hail “choice.” Rather than acknowledging that abortionists are “ending a life,” they invoke the phrase “reproductive freedom.” The archbishop said the language is “carefully chosen … not to tell the truth, but to make the truth more palatable.”</p>
<p>“Because deep down, we know,” the archbishop stated. “We know what abortion is. We know what it does. And we know that no amount of slogans or legal jargon can make a wrong thing right. And yet, modern culture insists on turning tragedy into triumph. It demands not just tolerance for abortion, not just legal protection, but celebration. It must be honored, enshrined.”</p>
<p>Within this ideological framework, Archbishop Sample said human life is treated as “an obstacle, a burden, a problem to be solved,” rather than “a gift.”</p>
<p>“This is what happens when a culture loses its sense of the sacred,” the archbishop warned. “When it stops seeing existence as a miracle, as something given, something to be received with gratitude. Instead, life is reduced to a transaction. A commodity to be managed. And, when necessary, discarded.”</p>
<p>The promotion and celebration of abortion, according to Sample, is “a spiritual issue” and “is not just about politics or law or even ethics.” Rather, the debate around abortion, he said, “is about how we see reality itself” and whether life is “a gift” or “an accident” and whether “a baby is something to be received with awe” or “something to be discarded at will.”</p>
<p>“Is love the foundation of the universe? Or is it simply power?” the archbishop wrote. “Modernity has chosen the latter. It has built an entire system — legal, medical, ideological — on the premise that some lives matter more than others. That some are expendable. That the strong can dictate the terms of existence.”</p>
<p>In spite of the persistence of abortion proponents, Archbishop Sample said “something feels off” and that “the need to frame it as a social good, as a moral necessity, reveals the guilt just beneath the surface.” </p>
<p>On a more hopeful note, the archbishop reminded the faithful that darkness “doesn’t get the final word” and that the Gospel “is not about condemnation” but is rather an invitation “even for those who have celebrated abortion [and] even for those who have profited from it.” </p>
<p>The prelate said that “grace is still available” and “forgiveness is still possible” for all people.</p>
<p>“The truth lingers,” Archbishop Sample said. “It cannot be fully erased. The unborn child is not just tissue. Not just an inconvenience. But a presence. A reality. A life.”</p>
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<br /><a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/archbishop-sample-rebukes-celebration-of-death-as-oregon-governor-honors-abortionists">Source link </a></p>
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Archbishop Sample Rebukes ‘Celebration of Death’ As Oregon Governor Honors Abortionists| National Catholic Register
