Bishop Strickland : The cost of life
I also took part in serious conversations about our nation’s border – conversations that were not about slogans or talking points, but about law, responsibility, order, and above all, about human beings. Lives caught in chaos. Lives exploited. Lives endangered by confusion, deception, and disorder.
At first glance, these may seem like different issues. Different events. Different controversies. But as I stood there, and as I prayed over these days, it became very clear to me that they are bound together by a single question that our age desperately avoids: What is a human life worth?
Not in theory. Not in campaign language. Not in carefully edited statements. But in reality – when life becomes inconvenient, demanding, costly, or disruptive.
Every society answers that question. And the answer is never neutral.
We live in a culture that speaks constantly about rights, but very little about cost. We want freedom without sacrifice. Compassion without responsibility. Mercy without truth. And life – always life – without having to pay the price of protecting it when it asks something of us.
But life always costs something.
It costs a mother her body, her plans, her comfort. It costs a father his surrender to responsibility. It costs families time, money, patience, and perseverance. It costs nations moral clarity. It costs leaders courage. It costs all of us the willingness to suffer rather than destroy.
And when a society decides that the cost is too high, it does not eliminate the cost. It simply transfers it – from the strong to the weak, from the protected to the defenseless, from those with power to those without a voice.
That is why abortion is never only about the child in the womb – though the child is always at the center. It is also about what happens to a people who become comfortable saying, openly or silently, that some lives are expendable.
The unborn child is not aborted because life has no value. The child is aborted because life has a value that someone decides they are unwilling to pay. And that decision does not pass through the soul untouched.
Our Lord tells us not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Those words are often misunderstood, even misused, as if Christ were telling us that bodily life does not matter. But nothing could be further from the truth.
The Son of God did not save us FROM the body. He saved us by taking one. He entered the womb of the Virgin. He grew in silence and obscurity. He hungered, He tired, He wept. He allowed His body to be broken – not because bodies are unimportant, but because they are sacred. Because the body is the dwelling place of the soul. Because what is done to the body echoes into eternity.
Christ is not telling us that the body does not matter. He is warning us that the greatest danger is not death – but becoming the kind of person who is willing to destroy life. Because when human life is treated as disposable, something in the human soul is damaged. It is hardened. It is trained to look away. It is taught a lie – that some lives matter less.
And once that lie is accepted, it does not remain confined to one issue. It spreads.
It spreads into how we speak about the elderly, the disabled, the sick, and the poor. It spreads into how we speak about migrants and strangers. It spreads into how we excuse disorder, violence, and exploitation as unfortunate but necessary. It spreads into how we teach our children what compassion really means.
This is why the defense of life is not only about saving lives – though it must always be that. It is also about protecting the soul of a nation.
Because every time a society grows comfortable with death, it pays a spiritual price.
I saw this clearly in Washington. At the March for Life, I saw young people willing to stand in the cold, willing to be mocked, willing to be dismissed – because they know that love requires sacrifice. That life is worth defending even when it costs something.
And in conversations about the border, I was reminded that disorder always costs lives. Chaos is not compassionate. Confusion is not mercy. A lack of truth does not protect the vulnerable – it exposes them.
When law collapses, the poor suffer first. When order disappears, criminals thrive and the innocent are exploited. When truth is abandoned, human beings become tools – used, trafficked, discarded.
This is not about lacking compassion. It is about refusing to lie. True compassion does not deny reality. It confronts it with courage. A nation that refuses moral clarity eventually creates human casualties – at the border, in the womb, in the streets, and in the soul.
And here is the hard truth we must face: the true cost of a life is paid not only by the one who dies. It is also paid by the one who decides that life is expendable. When we accept the destruction of life as normal, we are changed. When we excuse it as necessary, we are formed by that excuse. When we remain silent in the face of it, we are shaped by that silence.
This is why Christ warns us about the soul. Not because the body is unimportant – but because the soul is formed by our choices toward life and death.
A people who protect life are formed differently than a people who justify its destruction. A people who tell the truth, even when it is costly, are different than a people who live by slogans. A people willing to suffer for love are different than a people who demand comfort at any price.
And if we are honest, we must admit that this question of life does not stop at the womb, or at the border. Once a society accepts the idea that human worth is conditional – measured by usefulness, independence, productivity, or comfort – it does not remain contained. It always moves outward.
We are now watching the return of something the world once promised it would never repeat: a quiet, clinical, carefully disguised form of eugenics. Not the cruel brutality of the past, but something far more subtle – and far more dangerous.
We speak now of “quality of life,” as if life itself must earn the right to continue. We speak of “dignified death,” as if dignity can be found in eliminating the one who suffers rather than loving them through suffering. We speak of “choice” and “autonomy,” while quietly deciding that the dependent, the disabled, the chronically ill, and the elderly are burdens rather than gifts.
In more and more places, we are told that compassion means helping someone die. That mercy means hastening death. That love means agreeing that a life marked by limitation is no longer worth living.
But this is not compassion. It is abandonment. And it is a lie.
A civilization reveals its soul in how it treats those who can give nothing back. The child who cannot speak. The disabled person who cannot produce. The elderly who can no longer contribute. The sick whose care requires time, money, patience, and love.
When we begin to ask whether their lives are “worth it,” we have already crossed a moral line. Because the moment life must justify itself, no one is safe.
History teaches us this lesson again and again. First, we permit death for the suffering. Then for the dependent. Then for the inconvenient. And finally, for anyone who stands in the way of comfort, efficiency, or progress.
And all the while, we tell ourselves we are being kind. But kindness that kills is not kindness. Mercy that destroys is not mercy. Dignity that depends on independence is not dignity at all. The truth is far more demanding – and far more beautiful.
Human dignity is not granted by strength, intellect, health, or autonomy. It is given by God. And it does not diminish when the body weakens, when the mind slows, or when suffering enters the picture.
In fact, it is precisely there – where life is fragile and dependent – that love is tested, and the soul is formed. This is why the way we treat the vulnerable is never only about them. It is about who we are becoming.
A society that chooses convenience over care does not remain morally neutral. A people who eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferer are changed by that choice. A culture that teaches death as a solution trains the soul to fear weakness rather than to love. And this is where all these issues converge.
The unborn child. The migrant caught in disorder. The disabled person whose life is deemed too costly. The elderly person encouraged to disappear quietly.
Different faces. The same lie. That some lives are worth less. And once a society accepts that lie, it does not remain spiritually intact.
In the end, the measure of a civilization is not how loudly it speaks about rights, but what it is willing to sacrifice for the sake of the innocent.
Christ shows us the true cost of life on the Cross. Life is redeemed only when someone is willing to lay down his life. Not to destroy. Not to discard. But to save.
As a bishop, as a shepherd, I did not go to Washington as a politician. I went to Washington as a witness. To say that every human life – born and unborn, citizen and stranger – has dignity, and that dignity demands truth, order, responsibility, and sacrifice.
The cost of a life is high. But the cost of refusing to pay it is higher still.
May God give us the courage to choose life – not only with our words, but with our souls.
May Almighty God open our eyes to the dignity of every human life, from the first moment of conception to natural death. May He soften hearts that have grown weary or afraid of sacrifice, and strengthen those who are called to defend the innocent in a culture that often turns away.
May the Lord heal the wounds inflicted on souls – our own and those of others – by a world that has learned to justify death rather than suffer for love. May He restore reverence for the human body, courage for the truth, and compassion rooted not in sentiment, but in charity.
May He bless mothers and fathers, the unborn and the forgotten, the sick and the disabled, the elderly and the stranger. May He give wisdom to leaders, courage to witnesses, and perseverance to all who labor quietly for life.
And may Christ, who took flesh for our salvation, who bore the full cost of love upon the Cross, teach us how to choose life – not only with our words, but with our souls.
And may Almighty God bless you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop Emeritus
The Cost of a Life - Pillars of Faith