My only argument with this article would be these comments:
“Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said that no one is safe around a mother who would kill her own child. Anyone who makes a Faustian bargain knows that even Christ is not safe around such a mother: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Satan calls evil good. Christ calls it crucifixion.”
Dear Terry,
Thanks for your comment. It is a strong comment by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta but I do not agree with you that it is a cruel and unnecessary one. Mother knew well the infinite value of every soul, mother and child, involved in abortion. She dealt with the poor and knows how terribly women suffer who have had abortions. I believe she is speaking out of heart filled with love for God and for all His children.
I had remembered her comment as “no one is safe as long as any child is unsafe in the mother’s womb”. I had not remembered the quote exactly as Father quoted it: i.e. “no one is safe around a mother who would kill her own child.” I tried to research her exact words but found a few quotes similar but not exactly the same as Father’s version. For instance: At a commencement ceremony at Harvard in 1982 she lectured, “If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to do, be destroyed?” also these quotes: “The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between” - Mother Teresa. “And if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” – Mother Teresa
Perhaps Fr. Rutler heard her say those words to him. He is a Pastor in NYC and she visited there. The underlying fact is: if a baby is not safe in the womb created to nurture and and give life, who is safe?
I believe it is abortion that is cruel and unnecessary, when so many other options are available for a pregnant woman who is frightened or simply feels she cannot bear a child. I believe it is cruel for Planned Parenthood and others to tell women the best thing for any mother afraid to bear a child is to kill the child. It is absolutely cruel and unnecessary to me that any child needs to be unsafe in the womb of its mother, and to die by her decision.
How sad, horrible and true that one in three women have had an abortion! It is also sad, horrible and true that many in our culture have allowed and promoted this decision by women instead of urging them to carry the baby to term, and seek either an adoptive family or ways in which a mother may keep her child, finding the help she needs in Catholic Homes like “Good Counsel Homes”; see
HERE.
Mercy is the Heart of God and all of us need His Grace to know and to do, His Truth. To Love one another with His Heart, is our vocation. We need to be merciful as our Heavenly Father is Merciful. Father Rutler is speaking God’s Truth in his article. The Church needs to speak God’s Truth lovingly and clearly. Each of us can sit in the pew next to a woman who has had the grief of an abortion, and put our arms around her and love her with God’s Love. We all need to help her and other women to see that it is evil to abort a child, yet, there is mercy always mercy in God and in His Church. I do not think that Father Rutler or Bl. Mother Teresa ( if quoted correctly) is saying the mother herself but rather the culture which allows this tragedy is unsafe for all. Hope that helps a bit.
