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Today marks a most significant event in the life of the Knights of Columbus. Today we dedicate Villa Maria Guadalupe -- a spiritual home for the people of life and the people for life. In the days to come, Villa Maria Guadalupe will be a place of refuge and solace and consolation and a place for spiritual understanding, growth and strength.
As we look forward in the coming months to the 10th anniversary celebration of Evangelium Vitae --Pope John Paul II's great encyclical on the sanctity of human life -- we dedicate the work of Villa Maria Guadalupe to the spiritual work of building a culture of life.
Villa Maria Guadalupe is a place where the culture of life will be lived -- a culture based upon the "primacy of being over having, of the person over things." It is a place in which concern for others and acceptance of them will be paramount. It is a place for all those dedicated to the respect and service of life and for a greater dedication to the sanctity of life. (Evangelium Vitae, no. 98)
This is a center -- and in time it will be an international center -- for all those seeking to be inspired by the culture of life and love: of women facing crisis pregnancies and whose pregnancies have ended in tragedy, of couples contemplating marriage, of young adults seeking an authentic understanding of sexuality, chastity and love, of married couples, of priests and religious, and of all those seeking to deepen their commitment to the service of life and of its defense.
In this great effort we could think of no greater colleagues than the Sisters of Life who are exclusively devoted to the protection and enhancement of the sanctity of human life. The Sisters of Life are themselves a sign of hope in the effort to build a new culture of life.
And it is most fitting that this project begins under the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe, since it is Mary who -- as the pope reminds us -- helps us "realize that life is always at the centre of a great struggle between good and evil." (Evangelium Vitae, no. 104)
We celebrate this year the 150th anniversary of the promulgation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. We recall that the first apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe occurred on the Feast of the Holy Conception of Mary as celebrated at that time. We know that Mary appears at Guadalupe with the Aztec symbol of a woman with child.
As Pope John Paul II wrote in Ecclesia in America, we have "recognized in the mestiza face of Blessed Mary of Guadalupe an impressive example of a perfectly incultured evangelization" and of the unity of a new human family -- a family respecting the God-given sanctity and dignity of human life.
May the new humanity reflected in the face of the Virgin of Guadalupe build, through her intercession, a new culture of life -- a culture that respects every member of the human family.
Those who have been to the hill of Tepeyac have seen there the poor, the sick, the homeless, and the marginalized who have come to Our Lady of Guadalupe and have seen themselves reflected in her face. On the hill of Tepeyac we understand most clearly the truth of what Pope Leo XIII said of Our Lady of Guadalupe, "Never before has it been granted to us on earth to see so lovely an image; and its loving-kindness moves us to reflect: 'How beautiful must Mary herself be in heaven."
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