Prolife Laity and the Local Church

[commenter]

In my area, another prochoice Catholic politician was just sworn in. Prochoice Catholics are promoted faster than other prochoice candidates; there are no prolifers. Our Diocese has a prolife Office, but it is mainly providing supports to moms, and offering information to anyone who happens to be interested in prolife. The Diocese approves of prolifers, in the same way they approve of charismatics, but clearly the diocese, and the prolifers, are two different groups. The Diocesan paper has articles aimed just at the 2 percent of Catholics actively prolife, but the editors themselves are promoting the Peace and Justice movement, for everybody. The Diocese has programs just for the 2 percent, to respond to the feelings of the prolifers (“You people keep up the good work”). There are no programs to respond to the “needs” of the vast majority of Catholics who are passive on abortion, or actively prochoice, like those in politics and the media. Prolifers seem to be the only ones who are identified as having a “need”.
How can prolifers, respectful of local Church authority, respond to a local situation? The Diocese keeps applauding us, as an honored sub group, with no effect on the Diocese as a whole. What if we agree with the Pope more than the local Diocese?

 

[DihydrogenOxide]

Pray for them. This happens sometimes. Certain diocese groups, even certain bishops have a fairly pro abortion stance and they need prayers badly. If you have a rosary group before or after Mass, get in the habit of praying for priests and the bishop(s) of your diocese. Pray for vocations. Pray for prolife and a prolife attitude.

What can you do? See how far you can get with your parish. Is there an abortuary nearby?

Try to network. See if you can get a group together to pray. See if you can get pamphlets or people who would donate for pamphlets. Find a crisis pregnancy center that may be nearby or a catholic pregnancy center(even better).

Get information together. Gather baby clothes, food vouchers, and anything else that you could donate to your parish that they could give out to women in need.

See if you can get the Face the Truth tour to come to your town.

A word of caution to you. I have been dealing with sidewalk counseling and pro-life for a while. Keep in the state of grace and wear your sacramentals. You may be attacked but don’t ever lose hope. It’s well worth it to start a group.

 

[commenter]

The leaders of my Diocese aren’t proabortion. They favor prolife, but it seems to be one priority equal to 24 other priorities. Prolifers are the only group who are told “don’t focus only on one issue”. The attitude seems to be “if you people have strong feelings on abortion, the Diocese will reach out to you”. It almost seems as if all the prolifers lost interest in prolife, and got interested in Something Else, the Diocese would reach out to whatever our new interest is. We are encouraged to write letters to Washington, but not to try to impact on parish councils or local Catholic institutions. As long as we stand in front of the abortion clinic, the Diocese is ok with that, but if we protest in front of a Catholic college with a proabortion speaker, we are labelled negative. In my diocese the Catholic college with the proabortion commencement speaker was, a few months later, granted the “Bishop’s Award” for Catholic education. Prolife letters to politicians are worthless if the politician can see that prolife is only a fringe group concern, not a concern of the Catholic Church itself.
So what should prolifers, who respect their bishop and pastors, do? How do we support the Magisterium?

 

[DihydrogenOxide]

The leaders of my Diocese aren’t proabortion. They favor prolife, but it seems to be one priority equal to 24 other priorities. Prolifers are the only group who are told “don’t focus only on one issue”. The attitude seems to be “if you people have strong feelings on abortion, the Diocese will reach out to you”
So what should prolifers, who respect their bishop and pastors, do? How do we support the Magisterium?

Just because they label you as negative and they want you to not focus on it, doesn’t mean you’re out of place by focusing and doing these things. Sounds like a pretty pathetic stance on pro-life if they do promote pro-life. Regardless of the politics of the diocese, you are allowed to protest evil.

I don’t know how you’re not supporting the teachings of the Church. You’re pro life. Promote pro-life! Don’t be afraid of people saying you’re negative! Who cares about whether they think you’re negative. If you love these people, you will fight for them. The Church is pro-life, regardless of whether your priest is or your bishop.

There is nothing wrong with starting a pro-life network locally. Nothing. Don’t be afraid of it. If the priest and bishop want to cater to the popular politics of it, then so be it, but pro-life is important and should be the number one issue.

Without life, they have no diocese. You are not going against anyone. Let me repeat, you are not going against anyone, your bishop, priest, the Magisterium by trying to promote pro-life activity. If they are uncomfortable with it, then they are uncomfortable, but they really cannot do anything about it, since it is a teaching of the Church itself.

The bishop should not be giving an award to someone like that anyway. What kind of bologna is that? That’s not good policy for him. May God bless him.

 

[commenter]

We did not reach this point overnight. In the early 70’s Catholics were outspoken in opposition to abortion, when no prochoice politician could get elected in a Catholic area. Then in the late 70’s there was a push for “peace and justice”, where parishes and the diocesan paper said, “abortion isn’t the only issue”, as if prolifers were the only group who focused on one issue. The Diocese began requiring preachers to talk about abortion on one Sunday in October, so that became the ONLY time it was mentioned. My pastor mentioned abortion as something to be “concerned” about, as if “being concerned” were a virtue. He talked about peace and justice, as action, not just concern. Catholics began repeating stereotypes from the secular media, prolifers as fanatics about one issue, indifferent towards social needs. It seemed that if prolifers are allowed, even rarely, to present their “opinions” against abortion, then any person had equal time to promote political opinions on any other topic at Church.
Catholic politicians began being silent about abortion, as a personal not political issue. Later, Catholic politicians cautiously supported legal abortion, and waited for any pushback from the Church, There was none. The diocesan newspaper began taking most of the platform of the liberal prochoice politicians and pushing that. The diocesan paper applauds the (prochoice) liberals as right on 90 percent of the issues, thus Catholics vote prochoice politicians into office. Now, ONLY prochoice politicians are elected, in my mostly Catholic area, and they are quite explicit about it.