Event to broaden 'respect life' scope

By ROB HERBST
The Catholic Week
While abortion is the life issue that gets the most attention from Catholics, the Archdiocese of Mobile Office for Evangelization and Family Life is aiming to broaden the scope of what it means to respect life.
The office is holding its inaugural Respect Life Dinner on Thursday, Sept. 15 at Corpus Christi Parish in Mobile. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the program starts at 6 p.m. Tickets are $25 and the event is open to the public.
“There are a lot of instances where we don’t respect human life,” said Pat Arensberg, director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. “From my perspective, if you say ‘respect life’ to a Catholic, they immediately think it’s all about abortion. Look at our culture — it’s not just abortion that we have to worry about.”
Make no mistake, Arensberg said “Abortion is a grave evil. It’s tragic and it’s right to be focused on that some.”
But there is also the U.S. southern border situation — “It’s horrible and we need to address that better as a culture. There are people being abused and are vulnerable because of their situation,” he said. Arensberg also  mentioned capital punishment and added concern needs to go out to those who are financially poor, those needing mental health services and seafarers working in challenging conditions. 
“We can’t list everything. That’s the point of the whole thing,” he said. “Anybody who is in need, if we really respect their life, we need to respond to that need in some way or another.”
The dinner has been in the works for about a year, Arensberg said, but organizers waited on the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade. 
Had the High Court not overturned Roe v. Wade, the dinner would’ve taken a different tone, he said.
“Now I feel like we’ve been unshackled and can broaden the horizons a little bit - to respect life in every facet, every situation,” Arensberg said.
Several ministries will be in attendance with materials to help people understand what their ministry entails. Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi will be in attendance and provide a few words, while Vagabond Missions’ Lauren Alley will be the keynote speaker.
Alley, a former McGill-Toolen Catholic High School teacher, is the team leader for Vagabond Missions’ Mobile branch. Vagabond Missions serves inner city and urban teens and invites them “into a relationship with Jesus through contact work, discipleship and solidarity with the poor.”
“She works in a ministry that deals with people who are probably pretty disrespected most of their lives. They are teens who just have a lot of disadvantages and Vagabond Missions reaches out to those kids,” Arensberg said. “If we really believe they have the same dignity and value as you and I have, we need to be trying to help them. That’s precisely what Vagabond Missions does.”
Arensberg said he’s seen that younger Catholics are especially eager “to see an expanded response to a lack of respect for human life. And I think they’re right.”
And if the model for respecting life can be broadened, it will inevitably impact other aspects to build a culture of life.
“If we can affect the way people respect immigrants, the poor, people who are needy, if we can respect all those folks, I think that naturally bleeds into all human life,” he said.