C
captainmike
Guest
Our Church teaches that when an abortion occurs, an innocent human life is destroyed. But do we really believe that?
Suppose that once every day, the names of all American adults and children were placed into a large hat. Then, 2000 names were drawn. The persons whose names were drawn were immediately killed. This happened every day, day after day. After a short while, every American who was still alive would have lost one or more family members or friends to the slaughter. And all Americans would live in constant fear that their name would be drawn the next day.
If this were the situation, what would we be willing to do to stop the killing? Would anything be more important than doing so? Would any other issue be more important? Would our work be more important?
This is how we should view abortion, if we really believe that it is the taking of innocent human life, as our Church teaches. Do we believe this? Our lack of action suggests we don’t.
“So what should we do?,” you might ask. Fair question.
I live in a diocese in which, according to the diocesan website, there are 89 parishes and over 700,000 Catholics. Now, obviously, the latter number is misleading because it includes many who are only nominally Catholic. Still, the number of parishes is probably accurate.
In the main city of my diocese, there is an abortion mill that is open for business most days. But it does most of its business on Saturdays, and that’s when Catholic pro-lifers gather to pray on the sidewalk. All 12 of us. Now, sometimes there are twenty, or even thirty, people praying. But the point is, it’s a miniscule number relative to the number of Catholics in our diocese. Public confession: My own attendance hasn’t been near what it should be; too often, I allow other things, like work, to interfere. Even so, there are only a handful of Catholics who routinely show up on that sidewalk.
Why?
To a large extent, it’s because people in our diocese don’t know about the abortion mill. If they did, I suspect we’d have more people praying there.
But their ignorance is somewhat understandable, given that abortion is rarely mentioned in our churches. In my seven years as a Catholic, I’ve heard maybe ten homilies in which abortion was a major theme. And in none of those homilies were we encouraged to do anything about it.
I’ve been urged to attend parish fund raisers and “fun festivals,” but I’ve never once been urged to pray at an abortion mill. Not one time.
Why not?
There can only be two possible explanations. Either we don’t really believe what our Church teaches about abortion–i.e., we don’t really believe it’s the taking of innocent human life–or we believe other things are more important. But what could be more important than stopping the killing of 2000-3000 innocent human beings once per day? Nothing.
So, again, what can we do?
If I were bishop of our diocese, here’s what I would do as minimum first steps:
“Then do it,” you might say. I should. And I will. I will do better with my own personal attendance.
But if you are going to be a leader of an organization, then you have an obligation to lead. We need for our bishops and priests, but especially our bishops, to give this issue the attention it deserves. And I’m not talking about writing an op-ed piece about whether pro-abortion politicians should receive communion. I’m talking about a sustained, relentless, do-whatever-it-takes effort to stop the killing.
Why aren’t we Catholics engaging in civil disobedience to stop the killings? Blacks in the 1960s engaged in civil disobedience to stop racial segregation–they had the courage to do so to stop a wrong. But as bad as segregation was, this is far, far worse, and we do very little to stop it. Very little indeed. Why don’t our bishops order Catholics to stay home from work, just one day, as a protest?
We need courageous leaders. Until the killing stops, what else matters? How can anything else matter until it stops?
Suppose that once every day, the names of all American adults and children were placed into a large hat. Then, 2000 names were drawn. The persons whose names were drawn were immediately killed. This happened every day, day after day. After a short while, every American who was still alive would have lost one or more family members or friends to the slaughter. And all Americans would live in constant fear that their name would be drawn the next day.
If this were the situation, what would we be willing to do to stop the killing? Would anything be more important than doing so? Would any other issue be more important? Would our work be more important?
This is how we should view abortion, if we really believe that it is the taking of innocent human life, as our Church teaches. Do we believe this? Our lack of action suggests we don’t.
“So what should we do?,” you might ask. Fair question.
I live in a diocese in which, according to the diocesan website, there are 89 parishes and over 700,000 Catholics. Now, obviously, the latter number is misleading because it includes many who are only nominally Catholic. Still, the number of parishes is probably accurate.
In the main city of my diocese, there is an abortion mill that is open for business most days. But it does most of its business on Saturdays, and that’s when Catholic pro-lifers gather to pray on the sidewalk. All 12 of us. Now, sometimes there are twenty, or even thirty, people praying. But the point is, it’s a miniscule number relative to the number of Catholics in our diocese. Public confession: My own attendance hasn’t been near what it should be; too often, I allow other things, like work, to interfere. Even so, there are only a handful of Catholics who routinely show up on that sidewalk.
Why?
To a large extent, it’s because people in our diocese don’t know about the abortion mill. If they did, I suspect we’d have more people praying there.
But their ignorance is somewhat understandable, given that abortion is rarely mentioned in our churches. In my seven years as a Catholic, I’ve heard maybe ten homilies in which abortion was a major theme. And in none of those homilies were we encouraged to do anything about it.
I’ve been urged to attend parish fund raisers and “fun festivals,” but I’ve never once been urged to pray at an abortion mill. Not one time.
Why not?
There can only be two possible explanations. Either we don’t really believe what our Church teaches about abortion–i.e., we don’t really believe it’s the taking of innocent human life–or we believe other things are more important. But what could be more important than stopping the killing of 2000-3000 innocent human beings once per day? Nothing.
So, again, what can we do?
If I were bishop of our diocese, here’s what I would do as minimum first steps:
- Ensure that every parish in our diocese has a pro-life leader (ours doesn’t); and
- charge the pro-life leader of each parish to have ten people from the parish pray at the local abortion mill each Saturday. This alone would increase the number of people praying from 20-30 to 890. That would have a positive impact for three reasons–first, more people praying would be a good thing in and of itself. Second, the abortion mill would have to spend money to hire more security to account for our presence (even though we would pose no security threat, the mill would have to ensure that there was no trouble). Third, the presence of so many people praying would have an impact on the mothers who were contemplating having an abortion.
“Then do it,” you might say. I should. And I will. I will do better with my own personal attendance.
But if you are going to be a leader of an organization, then you have an obligation to lead. We need for our bishops and priests, but especially our bishops, to give this issue the attention it deserves. And I’m not talking about writing an op-ed piece about whether pro-abortion politicians should receive communion. I’m talking about a sustained, relentless, do-whatever-it-takes effort to stop the killing.
Why aren’t we Catholics engaging in civil disobedience to stop the killings? Blacks in the 1960s engaged in civil disobedience to stop racial segregation–they had the courage to do so to stop a wrong. But as bad as segregation was, this is far, far worse, and we do very little to stop it. Very little indeed. Why don’t our bishops order Catholics to stay home from work, just one day, as a protest?
We need courageous leaders. Until the killing stops, what else matters? How can anything else matter until it stops?