Where are the Unborn on Your Justice Scale?
we haven't figured out a way to stop slaughtering 5,000 babies a day in our alleged civilization
If President Obama is re-elected his pent up rage from having been resisted by so many, and from having had to comply with annoying perfunctory American campaigns and elections that prevented him from ruling full-bore and unconstrained, will express itself in an immediate catharsis of anger against the Church, the unborn, and those who fight for them.
PrintEDMOND, OKLAHOMA (Catholic Online) - Respect Life Sunday, sandwiched in between the many weekend appeals for the poor, for Catholic Charities, for the missions and for Catholic University, we now get to concentrate, for one Sunday at least, all of a sudden and almost startlingly, on the whole question of how we will ever get back to being a civilization again, at least one worthy of the word.
But don't worry; it only lasts for a day.
Get back to being a civilization?
But aren't we civilized already?
Aren't we the greatest civilization, in fact, that has ever existed? Well, in a word, no, no we're not. Because we haven't figured out a way to stop slaughtering 5,000 babies a day in our alleged "civilization."
We really show no signs of getting even close to figuring out how to do this. You would think, given how defenseless and innocent unborn human beings are - how very pitiable really -- that there would be just an enormous outpouring of human empathy and support for their cause.
But there isn't, and instead of finding the cause of the unborn an easy sell we find it to be the hardest sell of all really, a kind of "mission impossible" were it not for the hope that flows from God's grace, and the insistent idea that the Lord of Life does indeed hear the cry of the poor - the real poor that is, those slaughtered before they ever saw the light of day.
But hear this cry He does, and then He carefully notes who closes his ears to that cry.
Today those are the inconsistent ones crying out for "social justice," all the while finding dozens of ways to rationalize their despise of the unborn, and these are the most barbaric of all in this post-civilization. For they have made fetuses of all different kinds of causes, whether it be illness, material poverty, and all those pseudo-justice causes that altogether psychologically serve to mitigate guilt, and to compensate them for the reprehensible crime of having abandoned the most pitiable and defenseless among us, so that they don't have to think about them.
They have displayed the most impervious capacity for looking away from atrocities, and just as they looked the other way, so Our Lord will look the other way when they, confronted with eternal Justice, seek an advocate before the Father (cf. Mt. 10: 32-33).
There are really two very important reasons we still have the abortion scourge among us like some Macbethian residue defying effort after effort, legislative or otherwise.
The first is that one cannot eradicate threats one isn't prepared to fully face, and is well illustrated by a movie I once saw entitled "Memories of the Camps."
It depicts the allied soldiers discovering the death camps at the end of WWII, and the soldiers' anger at the horrors they saw there.
But angry as they were, their anger was nothing next to that of the "civilized," well-dressed inconsistent ones from the surrounding German villages, brought in by the soldiers so as to be forced to witness what their "looking the other way" had long enabled, and so as to be forced -- as a punishment -- to help clean up the bodies and the devastation for which they were, in large part, responsible.
Screaming at the top of their lungs and gesticulating wildly, they were really angry not so much at the Nazi atrocities committed, but rather at the fact that they were being forced to acknowledge those atrocities and this, rather than the Nazi atrocities themselves, was the unpardonable sin earning the soldiers their wrath.
Some noteworthy German citizens had resisted Hitler, but unfortunately far too few. Many explained away the troubling signs of the genocide saying things like "but Hitler is dong so much for the economy," and "he's building our infrastructure and our highway system so we can recover from our national shame."
Don't these reasons - rationalization really more than reasons - sound terribly familiar today?
How can we rationalize voting for candidates who support abortion, when in reality it is quite the same thing depicted by the movie?
Would it have been permissible to vote for Hitler, perhaps justifying the vote by alleging that all the new highways and better infrastructure would make holocausts rarer, because a booming economy would obviate the need for social and economic scapegoats?
The second reason we cannot exorcize abortion from our post-civilization is lust.
Our society has in the contraceptive era separated sex from babies, and sent us relentlessly down the road of ceaselessly objectifying women.
The power behind this revolution really is the contraception.
We no longer look at women as our trusted helpmates (if we are married), or as our beloved sisters (if we are single).
This "pornographication" of women, seducing as it is the great majority of men in our ...
But don't worry; it only lasts for a day.
Get back to being a civilization?
But aren't we civilized already?
Aren't we the greatest civilization, in fact, that has ever existed? Well, in a word, no, no we're not. Because we haven't figured out a way to stop slaughtering 5,000 babies a day in our alleged "civilization."
We really show no signs of getting even close to figuring out how to do this. You would think, given how defenseless and innocent unborn human beings are - how very pitiable really -- that there would be just an enormous outpouring of human empathy and support for their cause.
But there isn't, and instead of finding the cause of the unborn an easy sell we find it to be the hardest sell of all really, a kind of "mission impossible" were it not for the hope that flows from God's grace, and the insistent idea that the Lord of Life does indeed hear the cry of the poor - the real poor that is, those slaughtered before they ever saw the light of day.
But hear this cry He does, and then He carefully notes who closes his ears to that cry.
Today those are the inconsistent ones crying out for "social justice," all the while finding dozens of ways to rationalize their despise of the unborn, and these are the most barbaric of all in this post-civilization. For they have made fetuses of all different kinds of causes, whether it be illness, material poverty, and all those pseudo-justice causes that altogether psychologically serve to mitigate guilt, and to compensate them for the reprehensible crime of having abandoned the most pitiable and defenseless among us, so that they don't have to think about them.
They have displayed the most impervious capacity for looking away from atrocities, and just as they looked the other way, so Our Lord will look the other way when they, confronted with eternal Justice, seek an advocate before the Father (cf. Mt. 10: 32-33).
There are really two very important reasons we still have the abortion scourge among us like some Macbethian residue defying effort after effort, legislative or otherwise.
The first is that one cannot eradicate threats one isn't prepared to fully face, and is well illustrated by a movie I once saw entitled "Memories of the Camps."
It depicts the allied soldiers discovering the death camps at the end of WWII, and the soldiers' anger at the horrors they saw there.
But angry as they were, their anger was nothing next to that of the "civilized," well-dressed inconsistent ones from the surrounding German villages, brought in by the soldiers so as to be forced to witness what their "looking the other way" had long enabled, and so as to be forced -- as a punishment -- to help clean up the bodies and the devastation for which they were, in large part, responsible.
Screaming at the top of their lungs and gesticulating wildly, they were really angry not so much at the Nazi atrocities committed, but rather at the fact that they were being forced to acknowledge those atrocities and this, rather than the Nazi atrocities themselves, was the unpardonable sin earning the soldiers their wrath.
Some noteworthy German citizens had resisted Hitler, but unfortunately far too few. Many explained away the troubling signs of the genocide saying things like "but Hitler is dong so much for the economy," and "he's building our infrastructure and our highway system so we can recover from our national shame."
Don't these reasons - rationalization really more than reasons - sound terribly familiar today?
How can we rationalize voting for candidates who support abortion, when in reality it is quite the same thing depicted by the movie?
Would it have been permissible to vote for Hitler, perhaps justifying the vote by alleging that all the new highways and better infrastructure would make holocausts rarer, because a booming economy would obviate the need for social and economic scapegoats?
The second reason we cannot exorcize abortion from our post-civilization is lust.
Our society has in the contraceptive era separated sex from babies, and sent us relentlessly down the road of ceaselessly objectifying women.
The power behind this revolution really is the contraception.
We no longer look at women as our trusted helpmates (if we are married), or as our beloved sisters (if we are single).
This "pornographication" of women, seducing as it is the great majority of men in our ...
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Rob, Pro-Life=advocating full protection of embryos and fetuses. (Especially, opposing the legalization of induced abortions).
Abortion is a debate centered on American social policy, religion and culture. Anymore? Google, my friend. Blessings
Yes, let's continue to vote prolife. I sure wish these guys would become PRO Action on this issue. Oddly, not pursing any legislation in this area is at least one policy area Romney has actually provided detail on. It's pretty darn telling.
Maybe I'm confused. What exactly does it mean to be prolife?
Dr. Dominic Pedulla, MD.: Thought provoking article. I especially liked your message on the "German villagers who looked the other way". Comparing them with citizens of Today, who dismissively turn their head (eyes, nose, ears, mouth, mind, intellect or reason) away. Using "Memories of the Camps", is perfect for our time!
The second reason that you gave that was quite meaningful was: "Depersonalization is a crime worse than death". Oh, if persons could only apply these words to the Unborn. If they Contemplated long and hard, along with knocking at the door of understanding, they might be able to See.
And Rob, just as the good doctor tried to explain, with the very best of examples, as far as politics are concerned, one must vote for the One who Supports Life, no matter what the status quo may be. One party supports Life. One party supports Death. How Simple is that?
Right now we are fortunate to HAVE a candidate who Supports Life. Let us Rejoice! Let us Thank God!
We must respond to Catholic Reason. We must Persevere in Prayer. We must not let our feelings and emotions dictate to us, but allow the Spirit to Guide us. We will continue to lean on the Faith of the Church, and know that God does and will answer our prayers in His Time. (though, it is funny is it not, that as soon as our answer might come to fruition, how haphazardly our prayers seem to become... or fade away altogether.) Blessings...
Just as I suspected and out of Romney's own mouth....no abortion legislation save the Mexico City policy. It is precisely this reason that the most we can hope to get out of these guys is the status quo. What's worse is the pundits are saying Romney will get a pass on this from social conservatives because they don't want to harm his chances of winning now that it might be trending that way. Message to prolifers, don't call him out because he has a shot of winning so you be quiet.
And we wonder why so many Catholics have stopped considering abortion as part of their voting decision process.
With all due respect to Dr Padulla, this article fails to show understanding of women, their sexuality and child-bearing as a whole. To say that separating sex from babies results in women being objectified is rather ignorant, as refusing to acknowledge women's own sexual desires does little else but objectify them as baby-making machines.
No matter what Obama does (pent up anger...that's hillarious), abortion is legal because the people want it to be. Our government is in the shape it's in because we've allowed it to be. The name of the game is rampant capitalism and everything else just does not matter. Sure, a lot of what the good doctor said is true, pornography and the like has destroyed our sense of ourselves and sexuality, but at it's core, it's money. Lot's of it. About the only thing that surpasses what appears to be our never ending obsession with the material things of this world, is our desire for comfort and the elimination of anything that gets in the way of that. We have lost the ability to lay our lives down for eachother and babies are paying for it every day. We have one foot in the world and one foot in the church and it's rendered us lukewarm. It's the main reason nothing really changes. The status quo remains with a tweak here and there, but I suspect that until the church militant actually decide to take their feet out of the world, nothing can change, we are too compromised.
I'm reading a book called "Crazy Love." Take a look at it. It's a pretty convicting book.
I always love reading great logic and reason. And this is one of the best I have read. I would like to add, this is not enough. Great writers and thinkers are not enough. We need to get out of our chairs and "show up" in force, to protest these evils. We don't have to fight, this is not that type of war. All we have to do is show up. I believe when God sees we are serious of ridding our country of this evil he will help. Getting on our knees and asking Jesus to carry the load again ain't working. He showed the way, it isn't always pleasant to teach much less change laws and people's hearts. Read Dolans message this week and let it sink in. We have to act. We have to show up and vote. I pray Dolan will lead this great undertaking.
Jasmine,
From a Catholic perspective, voting for Romney is the vote that promotes the greater good, or as some put it, choosing the lesser of two evils. Abortion, along with gay "marriage" and the attack on religious liberty, is so bad that it outweighs in moral gravity the harm that could be done from cutting social programs. Abortion and gay "marriage" are intrinsic evils and Catholics cannot vote for politicians who endorse these evils when there is another candidate who does not promote those evils. In able to vote for a candidate who is for an intrinsic evil there must be what is called a proportionate reason. But in this election, there is no issue or set of issues that are weighty enough to offset the evil of abortion, etc.
“What are “proportionate reasons”? To consider that question, we must first repeat the teaching of the Church: The direct killing of innocent human beings at any stage of development, including the embryonic and fetal, is homicidal, gravely sinful and always profoundly wrong . . . .What evil could be so grave and widespread as to constitute a “proportionate reason” to support candidates who would preserve and protect the abortion license and even extend it to publicly funded embryo-killing in our nation’s labs? Certainly policies on welfare, national security, the war in Iraq, Social Security or taxes, taken singly or in any combination, do not provide a proportionate reason to vote for a pro-abortion candidate.” -Archbishop John J. Myers
It is never justifiable to take innocent lives- 5,0000 babies per DAY are being killed in America!
No moral equivalency to choose between killing the innocents vs "feeding the hungry"
by government handouts.
We, the people of God are to have mercy on the poor- not the government!!!!!!
Vote the Bible +
Thanks for all the kind comments friends. Jasmine, you are 100% right to highlight the responsibility to help the poor. And also to remind us that the Republican Party has a long way to go before it is the authentic party of life we need it to be. But having said all that, the Pope and the bishops united with him have been very clear that this is the monumental moment for the electorate in the U.S. The Church in America is being divided along the lines of fundamental moral questions that we simply cannot afford any longer to fudge or compromise on.
If we now -- right now -- draw on a line in the sand for all Americans and for all parties that would pretend to represent us, we would see both parties sending us the kind of candidates we could be proud of, and both parties would actually send us candidates we could in good conscience vote for. Right now there is simply no way to justify a vote for a pro-abortion candidate. No matter how attractive the other part of his platform, or that of the party, he is betraying the unborn, you, me, and the entire Catholic Church to do what he/they are doing. Notice: he/they have no fear drawing their own line in the sand, They don't give a rip what you say about the unborn because they know they have succeeded in dividing the American electorate, and they don't care what you think.
Make no mistake -- this is the freedom issue of the day. You all who defend the unborn are freedom fighters, but none of us can expect our reward here below. Later on it will be glorious beyond measure, but only to the extent we bear the hardship, ridicule, the being-made-to-appear-foolish, and all manner of other tricks, traps, and difficulties.
But of all of these traps, the social justice vs. pro-life divide is the biggest trick used against us currently. We are being made to think that "helping the poor" justifies a pro-abortion stance on the part of a politician or party. It does not! How could it! The foolishness they want you to believe Jasmine is that we can abandon those dying in the death camps i f we only build better roads or better schools, because in so doing we will actually be doing something that makes the death camps unnecessary. So let me see: we need to kill the really poor if only we do something about the lesser poor?
Let's stand together! If we do as Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus says, as working, socially active Catholics, and simply insist that all parties and all candidates top supporting intrinsically evil things, then though we might have to disqualify a certain party right now, in the future that party will respect us and take us seriously and in the future no party or candidate will be disqualified. Right now I don't see only one real choice Jasmine. If yo ufo that route, let no one disturb your peace, and pray that your choice will cause a future change for the better.