By John Connolly
HUNTINGTON, Indiana, January 9, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the anniversary of Roe v. Wade approaches, Americans can remember Mother Teresa's strong condemnation of the ruling that legalized abortion in the United States through a new book by a priest who worked closely with her for twenty-five years.
Mother Teresa was invited to the White House Prayer Breakfast in 1997 by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. Mother Teresa laid out her case clearly. "What is taking place in America is a war against the child," she said. "And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another."
Three years earlier Mother Teresa was quoted in The Wall Street Journal saying, "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts - a child - as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters."
And in response to critics who asked who would care for an unwanted child, Mother Teresa said, "Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy!"
Fr. Joseph Langford, who worked closely with Mother Teresa for twenty-five years and with her founded the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, has written a book recently entitled "Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady." He believes that "God fashioned Mother Teresa into an instrument that would light up our night at its darkest."
See the book website at
http://www.maximusnewspub.com/newsroom/new/campaigns/OSV/def...
