From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord shall be great among the nations.

Based on a sermon I preached on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul in January 2026.

It is not my desire to be political in the pulpit. I once worked in the California State Assembly, and I left for a reason. I did not believe the deepest problems of our civilization could be solved there. The church proclaims that Christ is King, but our solution is not statist. It is sacramental. It is ecclesial. It is civilizational.

Yet on the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, politics inevitably presses in. Ideas about life, law, authority, and the state intersect whether we wish them to or not. So before we speak of culture, we must speak clearly about what it means to be “pro-life.”

To be pro life as a Christian is not a slogan. It is a comprehensive view of human life.

It means we reject the killing of innocent human life. We oppose abortion. We oppose euthanasia. We reject embryo destruction in IVF and research. We reject assisted suicide. We affirm care for mothers in crisis. We uphold the dignity of the disabled. We defend natural death without intentional killing through medical starvation.

It also means we uphold God’s order for marriage and family. The family is God’s ordained sanctuary for life. Being pro life includes honoring marriage between one man and one woman, open to children who are a blessing and not a burden. It includes adoption, fostering, and Christian charity.

That “pro-life” vision alone could consume the entire mission of the church.

But today we also lament millions of children killed since 1973, especially here in California, where convenience and personal autonomy have been elevated above the image of God.

Yet this day also commemorates the conversion of St. Paul. And that pairing matters.

St. Paul’s conversion was not a private religious experience. It was a civilizational turning point. The persecutor became the apostle. The ravager of the church became its shepherd. The man who breathed threats became a father to nations. The world is different because Paul was changed.

And in the Gospel reading appointed for this feast, Christ promises something astonishing. When Peter asks, “What shall we have?” Jesus answers with language of thrones and judgment. In the regeneration, he says, you shall sit on twelve thrones.

Regeneration.

Not improvement. Not moral adjustment. New birth.

St.Paul did not become a slightly better man. He became a new man. His allegiance shifted from Adam to Christ. From the old world to the new.

St. Augustine reminds us that regeneration is not limited to individuals. The body will be renewed. The cosmos will be renewed. Christ does not abandon creation. He claims it. Every square inch belongs to him.

So when Christ speaks of thrones, he is not speaking in metaphor. After his resurrection he declares, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Not future authority. Not partial authority. All authority. The ascension was not Christ retreating from the world. It was his enthronement over it.

Modern Christianity often confines salvation to the private heart. But salvation in Scripture always has public consequence. Everywhere the apostles went, idols fell. Infanticide ended. Women were elevated. Slaves were dignified. Hospitals and schools were born. Culture was reshaped.

Christianity is embodied. It has sacraments, discipline, liturgy, hierarchy, catechesis, creeds, and apostolic succession because it governs something real. It forms a people who reign with Christ.

Paul later tells the Corinthians, “Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? Do you not know that we shall judge angels?”

The church is not a hobby. It is not a voluntary association for religious encouragement. It is the instrument through which Christ regenerates the world.

And that is why the sanctity of life cannot be separated from sacramental theology.

Every evil in our age functions as a counterfeit sacrament.

Where baptism gives identity in Christ, the world gives identity through race, sexuality, bureaucratic number, or political tribe. Where Eucharist feeds us with Christ, consumerism feeds us with endless consumption. Where confession cleanses the conscience, therapy and ideology attempt to redefine sin out of existence. Where marriage produces life, abortion destroys it.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once described abortion as the anti sacrament. He was right. It is the ritual rejection of a divine gift.

The strength of evil in any society is proportional to the weakness of the church and the family. When families weaken, the state expands. When fathers abdicate, bureaucracies replace them. When churches retreat, technocrats rule.

Culture is religion externalized. If you want to know what a society truly believes, examine its laws, its schools, its art, its architecture, its funerals, its celebrations. Look at what it honors and what it tolerates.

By that measure, America is not presently ordered by Christian culture.

And we must admit our own fault. We have confined our faith to sanctuaries and bedside devotions. We have internalized what was meant to be embodied. We ask when Washington will fix what only the church can rebuild.

The state cannot shrink unless the church and the family grow.

If the church does not form souls, the state will. If the family does not catechize children, the state will. If the pulpit does not teach virtue, legislatures will invent their own.

Statism fills vacuums.

So what must we do?

We return to the sacramental levers of regeneration.

We reclaim baptism as identity. We gather around the Eucharist as strength. We catechize our children in confirmation. We confess and receive absolution for our failures. We build marriages that form households. We raise sons and daughters who know they are royal heirs, not subjects of bureaucracies.

We pray for more priests. We plant more churches. We form Christian schools. We do not ask permission from the state to be the church.

This is not novelty. It is ancient.

The same Spirit who filled Paul fills the church today. The same sacraments that built Christendom remain. The same King reigns.

Christ who confronted Saul confronts us. Why do you hide me from your work, your family, your culture? Why do you confine me to Sunday?

He reigns now. The gates of hell will not prevail. Not in Rome. Not in Silicon Valley. Not in California.

The church will not merely survive. It will conquer. And in that conquest, human life will be honored because Christ himself entered a womb, assumed flesh, died bodily, rose bodily, and reigns bodily.

Sanctity of life begins in worship. Worship precedes transformation.

If Christ is enthroned in his church, his reign will extend into culture. And if his reign extends into culture, the anti sacraments will fall.

Not by politics first. By regeneration first.

Christ is King. He has all authority. And he shares his reign with his saints.

Let us build accordingly.