As far as I’m concerned, Catholics “abort” each other spiritually all the time. Any time one Catholic says to another, “we don’t have room at our school for your children,” when the children are innocent, we have severed a child from our community.
This is why I’m not as impressed as I used to be with the focus on abortion so greatly that we try to fix this problem with guns – that is, with the force of law. This is a worldly solution to a problem which has spiritual and worldly ramifications.
To me, we do not do nearly enough at guiding Catholics in transforming their hearts and minds to Christ. We are no different, substantially, than any other group who goes to lobby.
At one pro-life demonstration, the demonstrators were so anti-Catholic and vitriolic that one could see satan had just as much of a hand in the demonstration as God.
I simply do not believe that as long as we are dead set against abortion that in itself is going to do us any spiritual good. To me the problem won’t be solved unless we start honestly converting our OWN YOUTH for example. Many Catholics are openly silent on the issue but vote for pro-choice candidates – and some because they are pro-choice. Why? Because so many Catholics have “opted out” of pregnancy in this way they do not wish to upset the apple cart.
Abortion would not be a problem if promiscuity wasn’t. Once it’s gotten to the point of abortion there are serious things wrong with the mind of the “parents” and IMO this is what we need to focus.
How? The Catholic Church has great resources and is the world’s expert at mysticism, but this information has been hidden. Now that we have the Internet and other ways to communicate much more freely, people can actually share real-time stories of mysticism and what has been hidden can now come out. Faith is our most powerful weapon against abortion, and personally I think too much focus on the legal aspects and in prevention of abortion has detracted us from the goal of raising our children right so they don’t need abortions.
Tiller the Killer lives about three miles from my house. He has federal, state, and local laws on his side now – in the solidly “red” state of Kansas. He is not afraid of any march, prayer vigil, protest, Lambs of Christ during the summer of mercy, etc. Even Rich Mullins got himself arrested and thrown into jail here, and he has been shot at. What would scare him? What about if we refocused some of our effort to chastity and Catholic girls started having 50% fewer abortions? That would scare him because he can buy his way into performing abortions on those who want them, but he is powerless over chastity.
For those who tell me I’m off my rocker saying we should promote chastity because the abortion is such a big problem we are just spitting into the wind as it were, then I say the same argument is used in every aspect the Church is in, as satan’s message to give up. We might just as well hang up the entire illusion that we care about behavior we can’t directly control and prevent with guns.
Let me see if I can word it another way for the main purpose of trying to strike so depth into what I’m saying. This may not be theologically correct, but consider this… trying to stop abortion without addressing chastity is the same mentality as those who give away condoms as “safety” because kids are going to do it. If abortion is latent birth control, then the sin we have to address is birth control and promiscuity, not killing. I doubt anybody hops into bed saying, “let’s make a baby so we can kill it.” So even though they are killilng the baby, if in their hearts it is just latent birth control, then that is the spiritual obstacle we must overcome before we get any improvement.
Let me assure you from my involvement in Kansas politics, legal solutions are not forthcoming any time soon, so IMO the Catholics have a chance to take the lead.
Moreover, at that last anti-Catholic pro-life demonstration I saw at Wichita State University, I realized pro-life has brought people together to protest, supposedly united against abortion, and the protesters themselves despise each others’ religious beliefs. How do I know that the Holy SPirit isn’t working through this to promote Christian unity? I don’t know, but somehow I doubt this was all His idea and His best way to go about it. It is very true that many pro-life demonstrators are very hateful in their heart, and that’s one of the biggest stings – we feed the weed that is “pro-lifers don’t care about living children.” It may be false, but we’re feeding it. When Christians stand above non-Christians at the way they treat other people in day-to-day life, then the world will stand up and take notice of the City on the Hill.
Alan