One of the greatest victories of the pro-abortion crowd, even Catholics in the pro-abortion crowd, is to divorce abortion from other social justice issues.
Abortion must be the social justice issue.
This is from CNS, with my emphases.
It goes without saying there are a lot of important causes that spur activism, but for Lila Rose, the abortion issue in the U.S. is paramount. Rose is the founder and president of the pro-life group Live Action, which currently focuses on investigating Planned Parenthood.
She was recently in the Diocese of Madison, Wis., [where H.E. Robert Morlino is bishop] for the annual dinner and auction of the Wisconsin Right to Life Education Fund. Coverage of Rose’s remarks is in the June 9 issue of the Catholic Herald, Madison’s diocesan newspaper.
“The purpose of laws is to protect people in this country. The purpose of laws is to protect the weak against the strong,” she said. “But what happens to a country, to a legal system when the law is turned against the weakest member of the society? That at the very heart of the system is injustice.”
In April Rose was in Washington to speak at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. She talked about becoming a Catholic recently, calling it the “best decision” she ever made.
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Lila Rose is a brave young lady. There can be no honest discussion of social justice without first acknowledging the situation of basic injustice that has now claimed many millions of innocent lives. Whether looking at scripture, or at tradition, or both together, or purely the good of a secular society, myriad sources and feminist voices are on the side of life. There can be no “both”. It has been a terrible deception and a destructive power which has equated, as if equally valid, the right to life with the ability to destroy life through supporting abortion’s insatiability. Either we are prolife or we support abortion even when we strenuously rationalize that we would ourselves never have one, or compartmentalize our acts of justice while condemning millions of created souls to supposed silence.
I agree, benedetta. Life itself is the issue. If there is no right to life, then nothing else matters. Folks talk about ‘social justice’, but when it comes to the weakest, most vulnerable members of society, the un-born child in the womb, where is the ‘social justice’ for them?
I know of a young religious who asked why the Peace and Justice organizing body for his order why it did not have abortion as part of its agenda for P&J. The answer? Basically, “We do not want to be associated with that kind,” meaning “pro-Lifers.” I guess they bought into that whole media misinformation campaign, but still, for shame, for shame.
Random Friar, During a certain very limited window of time, that was the sort of rationalization that wound up supporting the very undesired and not at all Christian result. When you still hear or witness that sort of thing over the past decade and continuing, you realize it is now all about feeling superior (more holy?) towards those who advocate for prolife when the unborn cannot advocate for themselves. From the fact that the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph went with life, to when in this day after Roe the “seamless garment” was advocated, to a disconnect from that where now you have people in the Church, consecrated people as well as politicians who profess to be Catholic who say without shame they are “prochoice”, you have a big problem on your hands. I often wonder when it comes to the social justice but not prolife contingent who say they still are in the Church nonetheless, whether it ever dawns on them that they have discriminated in their works of justice to favor in an arbitrary fashion some of the ones who have made it over. As always, as it always has been and more than ever, there are innumerable organizations for a group to go to that wants to minister to all in need regardless of whether the legalisms would slate them for death due to inadequate resources or failure to meet the consumerist standard of life. No one in a social justice group in parish or institution would ever dream of cutting the unborn out from their program of good works if they had spent a day at a clinic and comprehended the fact that every single day pressured women change their minds. Who will support them when they make that decision even if everyone in their life tells them otherwise and cuts them out? I guess these groups have never met a mother who gave birth anyway and couldn’t believe what they had contemplated, see a photo of a child who almost didn’t make it, never have heard even one recounting of the fact that a prayerful witness at a clinic turned someone around to have the confidence to do what they wanted to do in their heart of hearts anyway. I guess they simply want to pretend that none of this exists. Understandably, denial can be a comfortable place. I for one have really grown weary of the social justice except the right to life platform in the Church and it needs to stop. This group does Cardinal Bernardin, no honor whatsoever.
On February 21, Scott Richert, About.com’s guide to Catholicism, wrote an article called “Justified Deception or Lying? The Case of Live Action v. Planned Parenthood.” He wrote that while he didn’t think what Live Action did was morally justified, he also wasn’t that concerned about it either, since Planned Parenthood is the major provider of abortion. He only wrote the article because good people he knew were defending the lies Live Action perpetrated.
No one is bound to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it. That’s the last sentence in paragraph 2489 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Does that mean it’s OK to positively, knowingly deceive someone? Even if the lying is done for a Greater Cause? No, of course not. For one thing, the paragraph is specifically talking about the sin of detraction and causing scandal. It is not speaking of justifiable lying.
But is lying ever justified? No.The Catechism, in paragraphs 2482,2483, and 2485 absolutely prohibit lying. To wit:
May we all, including Lila Rose, repent of the lies we have told.
I agree completely with the above remarks of Random Friar and benedetta. It is a shame that Justice and Peace Commissions at all levels in the Church omit the abortion issue from their agendas. You’d have thought someone of them would have noticed this Message for the World Day of Prayer for Peace from Pope Paul VI, “If You Want Peace, Defend Life” (1 January 1977):
“Every crime against life is a blow to Peace, especially if it strikes at the moral conduct of the people, as often happens today, with horrible and often legal ease, as in the case of the suppression of incipient life, by abortion. Reasons such as the following are brought forward to justify abortion: abortion seeks to slow down the troublesome increase of the population, to eliminate beings condemned to malformation, social dishonour, proletarian misery, and so on; it seems rather to favour Peace than to harm it. But it is not so. The suppression of an incipient life, or one that is already born, violates above all the sacrosanct moral principle to which the concept of human existence must always have reference: human life is sacred from the first moment of its conception and until the last instant of its natural survival in time. It is sacred; what does this mean? It means that life must be exempt from any arbitrary power to suppress it; it must not be touched; it is worthy of all respect, all care, all dutiful sacrifice. For those who believe in God, it is spontaneous and instinctive and indeed a duty through the law of religion. And even for those who do not have this good fortune of admitting the protecting and vindicating hand of God upon all human beings, this same sense of the sacred – that is, the untouchable and inviolable element proper to a living human existence – is and must be something sensed by virtue of human dignity. Those who have had the misfortune, the implacable guilt, the ever renewed remorse at having deliberately suppressed a life know this and feel this. The voice of innocent blood cries out with heartrending insistence in the heart of the person who killed it. Inner Peace is not possible through selfish sophistries! (…) If we wish progressive social order to be based upon intangible principles, let us not offend against it in the heart of its essential system: respect for human life.”
My gracious. Having just read Lila Rose’s remarks to Wisconsin Right to Life, what strikes me is that she shares the same premise as the Social Justice crowd, which is that it is mandatory – mandatory, I tell you! – for us all to dedicate our lives to serving complete strangers.
Yeah, well, for most of us it’s all we can do to take care of people we really are responsible for. For Catholics who want to save the world from sweatshops, abortions, or whatever, please do keep in mind that that is actually Christ’s job, not yours.
Besides, aren’t there religious congregations Catholics can join if they have such a burning zeal for total strangers? In fact, isn’t there one group of sisters dedicated to pro-life work? How much better it would be for the young Miss Rose to join them and channel her energy under the obedience of a superior; thus there would be no more lying for Jesus.
… is to divorce abortion from other social justice issues.
Exactly. There can be no divorce. These issues are seamless (as someone once said).
Individuals, of course, have the freedom to do what they will and focus on where their talents might cause them to be most useful or effective. But I strongly believe that when the Catholic Church (parish or diocese) engages the lay faithful on public policy issues, it should present them with an opportunity to witness for the “full platter”, without any divorce. Those not willing to embrace the “full platter” might be happier elsewhere.