On New Year’s Day, the Sci-Fi channel had a "Twilight Zone Marathon." I happened to catch a few of the programs, one of which was entitled, "The Obsolete Man." It starred Burgess Meredith as a God-fearing librarian named Romney Wordsworth.

As the story begins, Mr. Wordsworth enters a large hall (which turns out to be a courtroom), and he comes before a man who is perched atop a huge podium. The man, who’s dressed in a Nazi-style uniform, is the "chancellor" of the state, who cold-heartedly judges Mr. Wordsworth to be "obsolete." You see, in this atheistic society of the future, all books and religions have been banned, and people like Mr. Wordsworth are disposed of because they serve no "useful purpose" to the state. They are considered "obsolete."

Throughout his brief "trial," Wordsworth keeps saying, "No, I’m not obsolete. I’m a person. I have dignity; I have value." The chancellor, of course, will hear none of it. But he does give the condemned man the opportunity to make a few requests concerning his forthcoming execution. Wordsworth asks that only his assassin know the method of his death, and that the event be televised to the whole country. The chancellor gladly promises to honor the requests, since this will show the rest of the nation what happens to obsolete fools who cling to outdated beliefs and subversive ideas.

Forty-five minutes before the execution is to take place, Wordsworth invites the chancellor to his room—the room where he will die, and which is now equipped with a TV camera. They have a brief conversation, during which he tells the chancellor that he has chosen to die by having a bomb explode inside the room. When their exchange is over, the chancellor gets up to leave, but he soon discovers that he can’t get out the door—Mr. Wordsworth has locked it! The condemned man then tells everyone who’s watching on television that they will now see whose will is stronger: his, or the state’s. He takes out his Bible and sits down to read it (which in itself was a crime punishable by death). At first the chancellor remains calm, but as the seconds tick by he begins to panic. He finally cries out, "In the name of God, let me out!" Wordsworth hands him the key, and the chancellor runs out of the room just as it explodes.

He then goes back to his court, ready to resume his duties, but when he walks in he suddenly discovers that someone else has taken his place. The new judge immediately condemns him for showing weakness and disgracing the state, and he judges the now former chancellor to be "obsolete." At that point loyal members of the state surround him and tear him to pieces.

Listen now to Rod Serling’s comment at the end of the show. So often those old Twilight Zone programs had a powerful moral message, and that was certainly the case here. Serling said, "The chancellor—the late chancellor—was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so was the state, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under "M" for mankind . . . in the Twilight Zone."

Rod Serling—God rest his soul—is no longer with us. But if he were, he could easily re-make this program with a slightly more contemporary flavor and a brand new title. Here are some possibilities: instead of "The Obsolete Man" it could be, "The Obsolete Unborn Baby" (starring, as the chancellor, a certain former president who’s looking for a new job); or "The Obsolete Nursing Home Resident," or "The Obsolete Terminally Ill Cancer Patient" (both starring Dr. Jack Kevorkian, of course!), or "The Obsolete Member of Any Race or Nation Which I Hate," (starring Slobodan Milosevic, or any other modern-day dictator or racist).

And the really sad thing is: these stars would have no trouble finding co-stars who support their causes. That’s because we are currently living in what the Holy Father has rightly called a "culture of death."

Which brings us to a man who wouldn’t be able to star or co-star in any of these productions (unless it were to play the part of Mr. Wordsworth)—St. Paul. Paul believed that no human person is obsolete—ever! And today’s second reading, taken from 1 Corinthians 12, proves the point! St. Paul says (and here I use the older translation of this verse), "You . . . are the body of Christ. Every one of you is a member of it." He makes no distinction in terms of age, or race, or nationality, or health, or talents. Everyone is a member (or at least a potential member) of the body of Christ from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. And no human declaration can change this fact! That’s something else we learn from Paul in this chapter. In other words, no document from any court, or government, or any other source can ever make a human person obsolete. Thus, the Supreme Court of the United States could not make unborn babies obsolete (although they tried to do that back in 1973); just as Adolf Hitler couldn’t make the Jews obsolete by any of his godless, anti-Semitic pronouncements in the 1930’s and 40’s.

You can’t even make yourself obsolete. God says you’re worth something, even if you feel like you’re worth nothing. Listen again to what St. Paul says here: "If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,’ would it then no longer belong to the body? If the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,’ would it then no longer belong to the body?" Those are two rhetorical questions, and the answer to both of them is, "No!" The foot and the ear belong to the body whether they think they do or not (presuming they had consciousness)! Let me modernize those questions for you now with two others: "If the Supreme Court says, ‘Unborn babies do not belong to the body and can be killed by abortion,’ do they no longer belong to the body of Christ?" "If Jack Kevorkian says, ‘The terminally ill in nursing homes do not belong to the body,’ do they no longer belong to the body of Christ?" Once again, the answer to both questions is, "No!" People in both groups will always belong to the body, because they are human beings created in the image and likeness of God! Nothing anyone says or puts in print can ever change that.

This means that we can choose to treat one another as obsolete, but we can never make anyone obsolete—even ourselves. And when we do choose to treat another human being in this way, we put ourselves on a very dangerous path: the path to self-destruction—as did the chancellor in the Twilight Zone program. He chose to treat Mr. Wordsworth as if he were obsolete, and pretty soon he was treated like he was obsolete, and torn to pieces!

On this weekend, when we commemorate the sad anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, we are reminded of the 1.5 million babies each year who have been treated as if they were "obsolete" by our nation. We’ve done this because we’ve bought the lie that this will somehow make life better for the rest of us. But, in reality, what’s happened? In reality, we’ve killed scientists who would have offered the world cures for horrible diseases; we’ve killed men and women who would have helped solve many of our social problems; we’ve killed priests and nuns; we’ve killed millions of people who would have been paying into the Social Security System right now to help save it; we may even have killed the person whom God intended your son or daughter to marry. Imagine that! The person chosen from all eternity to marry your son or daughter may never have made it out of the womb because of legalized abortion. Since 1973, we have done to ourselves what the chancellor did to himself.

This is why St. Paul says, "If one member of the body suffers, all the members suffer with it." In other words, everyone is affected negatively, whether they realize it or not!

Please remember this, my friends, the next time election day rolls around! Because Rod Serling was absolutely right: Any state or nation that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man—that state or nation eventually becomes obsolete. Like the evil chancellor, it self-destructs.