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Liechtenstein is a microstate located in the heart of Europe bordered to the west by Switzerland and to the east by Austria. On Wikipedia you can read the most interesting facts about that small nation, which is better known for its status as a tax haven and for its soccer team, probably the best among the most modest in Europe, than for anything else. Of its 34,000 inhabitants, three quarters are Catholic . I don't know what percentage are practicing, but if Catholicism in Liechtenstein had the same characteristics as what exists today in Switzerland and Austria, one would not be very optimistic. Something leads me to think that is not the case. The fact that more than half of the population voted against abortion indicates that Catholic morality about the dignity of human life is accepted by the majority of those Catholics. If the internal secularization of the Church had advanced there as it has in its neighboring countries or even in Spain, the result would probably have been the opposite . What has happened in Liechtenstein regarding abortion has a positive and a negative aspect. The positive has two sides.
The first, that the majority has said no. The second, even better, is that Prince Alois warned that he had no intention of signing a law in favor of abortion . And that this will would not be broken by the result of a referendum. In other words, we are facing an authentically Catholic ruler - at least in this - who is not willing to let the dignity of human life depend on what the ballot box says. There will be those who say Job Function Email List that this is undemocratic. And it certainly is. But it would be equally undemocratic to reject the result of a referendum that decided that Alzheimer's patients must be killed with a lethal injection and another that approved that members of a certain ethnicity, religion or linguistic group had to wear a visible badge. If democracy is not subject to a series of pre-democratic values that cannot be suppressed by voting, then it is a perverse system, in which the dictatorship of a majority can cause the annihilation of minorities. That is preciselabout the referendum in Liechtenstein. The fact that a vote can be taken on whether it is legitimate to kill human life in the womb is in itself an aberration .
The result on this occasion has been positive, but what would have happened if the mere five points in favor of life had been against? The situation of Prince Alos would be very dignified but at the same time very complicated. Even the Liechtenstein parliament, which previously voted against, would have been overruled by a people dedicated to the cause of the culture of death. Catholics must learn to live their faith in any political circumstance . And he must give public testimony of his faith, both in a dictatorship and in a democratic regime. Democracy, when it is real and not a farce, has the characteristic that it gives each people the type of ruler they deserve. It is also the system by which leaders can be changed without the need for violence. Now, Christ has not called us Christians to establish democracy throughout the world , but to be witnesses and members of the Kingdom of God, confessing and proclaiming the absolute sovereignty of the Creator over men . That is to say, although we are children of our respective homelands, our ultimate and true identity is in heaven.
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