The Nov. 25, 2005 edition of The Pilot, weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, quotes then-Cardinal Ratzinger about the controversy surrounding the public positions of Catholic politicians and their sharing in the Eucharist: “…there may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.” The line has been repeated hundreds of times, often in pro-life websites and blogs, including official statements from US Catholic officials.

I consider myself well-informed about things Catholic, but somehow this one slipped by me; and I find it startling. At many Catholic liturgies, it is not uncommon to hear a prayer during the general intercessions when we pray for increased respect for the dignity of all human life, “from conception until natural death.” This phrase emphasizing the natural beginning and natural ending of each of our lives, drives home the point that God — not us — is the Author of human life. Authority over human life belongs not to us, but to God. It’s a phrase that continues the “seamless garment” approach to respect-for-life issues used by by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago in his 1984 address on A Consistent Ethic of Life.

BXVI, however, seems to have a different perpsective. Apparently he belongs to the all-life-is-sacred-but-some-life-is-more-sacred-than-others school of moral theology. Whereas Bernardin had argued for reasonableness and consistency in forming public policy about the myriad of pro-life issues (including abortion, war, poverty, healthcare and capital punishment), Benedict is willing to cede consistency and allow for greater “diversity” of thought on certain issues.

On its face, such diversity is a good thing. Human actions DO differ from each other, and different contexts present different moral waters to navigate, often leading to different destinations. The problem, however, is two-fold: first, Benedict is inconsistent when applying principles to moral issues, and second, in Benedict’s world, he’s the one who gets to decide what those issues are.

Pierre Seel. Unless you listen faithfully to NPR, you’ve probably never heard the name. I had no idea who he is until I heard that he died the last week of November (2005). He was, so NPR reported, the last survivor of Nazi concentration camps who was imprisoned as a suspected homosexual. Nazi enforcement of an exisiting German law known as Paragraph 175 allowed many thousands of homosexual men and women to be rounded up, imprisoned, and subjected to the litany of Nazi atrocities we are all too familiar with.

The NPR piece interviewed filmmaker Rob Epstein who recorded the story of Seel and others like him in a documentary named for the infamous law, Paragraph 175. In the interview, we hear an excerpt from the film in which Seel becomes upset at having to recall not only what was done to him (e.g. being brutally raped with a wooden board), but also to his friends (one of whom was attacked by Nazi guard dogs and essentially eaten alive).

I have always been moved and motivated in my life and work by the fundamental notion of Genesis that every human person is created “in the image and likeness of God.” The human dignity that comes from this belief is behind many, if not most, of the life choices I’ve made.

Hearing the story of Pierre Seel reminded me once again how often that dignity is assaulted. Perhaps the thoughts and ideas recorded here can speak an occasional word that enhances that dignity, echoing in our own day the ideas of that ancient text and the reality they espoused. Hence the blog… and the name of the blog.