Thursday, October 23, 2008
Looking the other way on abortion
Here are some profound words from Archbishop Charles Chaput:
“Little Murders”
As adults, each of us needs to form a strong Catholic conscience. Then we need to follow that conscience when we vote. And then we need to take responsibility for the consequences of the vote we cast. Nobody can do that for us. That’s why really knowing and living our Catholic faith is so important. It’s the only reliable guide we have for acting in the public square as disciples of Jesus Christ.
All of the [arguments advanced in favor of pro-abortion politicians] seek to “get beyond” abortion, or economically reduce the number of abortions, or create a better society where abortion won’t be necessary. All of them involve a misuse of the seamless garment imagery in Catholic social teaching. And all of them, in practice, seek to contextualize, demote and then counterbalance the evil of abortion with other important but less foundational social issues.
This is a great sadness. As Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George said recently, too many Americans have “no recognition of the fact that [a million] children [per year] continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can’t be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.”
The truth is that for some Catholics, the abortion issue has never been a comfortable cause. It’s embarrassing. It’s not the kind of social justice they like to talk about. It interferes with their natural political alliances. And because the homicides involved in abortion are “little murders”—the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives—it’s easy to look the other way.
For 35 years I’ve watched thousands of good Catholic laypeople, clergy and religious struggle to recover some form of legal protection for the unborn child. The abortion lobby has fought every compromise and every legal restriction on abortion, every step of the way. Apparently they believe in their convictions more than some of us Catholics believe in ours. And I think that’s an indictment of an entire generation of American Catholic leadership.
…the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching is protecting human life from conception to natural death…every other human right depends on the right to life.
So I think that people who claim that…supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion is somehow “pro-life,” are not just wrong; they’re betraying the witness of every person who continues the work of defending the unborn child. And I hope they know how to explain that, because someday they’ll be required to.
Condensed and adapted from a speech by Archbishop Charles Chaput delivered October 17, 2008
“Little Murders”
As adults, each of us needs to form a strong Catholic conscience. Then we need to follow that conscience when we vote. And then we need to take responsibility for the consequences of the vote we cast. Nobody can do that for us. That’s why really knowing and living our Catholic faith is so important. It’s the only reliable guide we have for acting in the public square as disciples of Jesus Christ.
All of the [arguments advanced in favor of pro-abortion politicians] seek to “get beyond” abortion, or economically reduce the number of abortions, or create a better society where abortion won’t be necessary. All of them involve a misuse of the seamless garment imagery in Catholic social teaching. And all of them, in practice, seek to contextualize, demote and then counterbalance the evil of abortion with other important but less foundational social issues.
This is a great sadness. As Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George said recently, too many Americans have “no recognition of the fact that [a million] children [per year] continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can’t be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.”
The truth is that for some Catholics, the abortion issue has never been a comfortable cause. It’s embarrassing. It’s not the kind of social justice they like to talk about. It interferes with their natural political alliances. And because the homicides involved in abortion are “little murders”—the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives—it’s easy to look the other way.
For 35 years I’ve watched thousands of good Catholic laypeople, clergy and religious struggle to recover some form of legal protection for the unborn child. The abortion lobby has fought every compromise and every legal restriction on abortion, every step of the way. Apparently they believe in their convictions more than some of us Catholics believe in ours. And I think that’s an indictment of an entire generation of American Catholic leadership.
…the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching is protecting human life from conception to natural death…every other human right depends on the right to life.
So I think that people who claim that…supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion is somehow “pro-life,” are not just wrong; they’re betraying the witness of every person who continues the work of defending the unborn child. And I hope they know how to explain that, because someday they’ll be required to.
Condensed and adapted from a speech by Archbishop Charles Chaput delivered October 17, 2008
# posted by Mike Fichter @ 6:15 AM 
