Vortex: The Pro-Life Problem

Here’s the Vortex from Monday, November 26. Excellent points again – for instance:

Catholics need to go back to the drawing board and realize that our first duty is save souls, not bodies – even the bodies of children. If souls are in a state of grace, then there would be no abortion. Remember, Satan doesn’t care about killing children. He gains nothing from the direct taking of that life.

(Full script below).

In his evangelizing work, St. Paul said of Our Blessed Lord, “In him we live and move and have our being”. He was actually quoting a Greek poet from 500 years earlier, but was able to expand on that thought and bring home its reality in relation to Christ.

Today, the pro-life movement is at a crossroads – especially the Catholic pro-life movement. So much attention – all of it well-intentioned – has been focused on changing laws, that the REAL work of Catholics has been sidelined, sort of.

We have a kind of bumper sticker mentality now; you know, “God is Pro-Life”. Spoken more accurately, He isn’t so much “pro-life” as He IS life. What St. Paul said.

From a spiritual point of view, God IS life. He is also Love which means there is an equality and sameness to life and love – authentic Life and authentic Love, that is.

Being pro-life from a political point of view is nearly meaningless. For goodness sakes, even an atheist can be pro-life and many are. But while they are right politically, they miss the point entirely, and so, unfortunately, do some Catholics in the pro-life movement.

Politics should be the secondary goal. You can’t change a culture by passing laws. Laws are a reflection of what the culture wants. Laws follow after the fact; they almost never lead the way.

That’s why in a few years same-sex marriage will be the law of the land. Enough people have been de-sensitized to the evil and immorality of homosexual sex, through the media largely, that its legal enshrinement is already a foregone conclusion.

Catholics – leaders and laity – need to concentrate more on what the faith commands.

That’s what formed Christendom in the first place; THEN the laws followed.

Too many compromises happen in the political world because politicians’ first and last concerns are usually their careers. Abortion is still present in part because of all the compromises on such things as rape, incest, and life of the mother.

But mostly because of the third rail issue of contraception. Too many Catholics in the

movement laid aside their faith – key and non-negotiable issues about their faith – in order to accomplish a political end…a well-intended end, mind you…but one that was destined to fail.

Crowing about incremental advances here and there in the states, or some particular funding program in some federal cases in this court or that, in the end amounts to nothing.

At the end of the day, Roe will remain protected and enshrined, and that, as they say, will be that.

Catholics need to go back to the drawing board and realize that our first duty is save souls, not bodies – even the bodies of children. If souls are in a state of grace, then there would be no abortion. Remember, Satan doesn’t care about killing children. He gains nothing from the direct taking of that life.

And while we can’t be certain, it seems impossible to us to think or even consider that the souls of aborted children would be damned. So think about this: Satan is willing to

forego those souls – to remove them from his grasp for eternity – in exchange for what?

To create murderers out of mothers and doctors and fathers, and THAT he does gain considerably from. He creates a world that grows coarse to life and love, and therefore

GOD, Who is the source and end of each.

The souls of those little ones are kind of a loss leader for the diabolical – something in his calculus he might be willing to take a pass on if he can create a world indifferent to God…[one] that has grown cold to life and love.

And this shows forth a perfect example of how, when the Church fails, evil advances.

There is always a correlation between the world and the Church because Our Blessed Lord established an intimacy between the two.

The world is the theater of redemption. It is where the fruits of the redemption are applied.

God so loved he world that He sent His only begotten Son. So it is the Church’s solemn duty, grace, and privilege to CONVERT the world.

But it is a sure mark of failure when Church leaders begin efforts to educate politicians, and not the flock. What else does God mean by the psalm, “Do not put your trust in princes”?  And again, “Despite the power of the horse, it cannot save.”

Catholics in America have grown up in a spirit of compromise. This has translated into efforts even in the pro-life movement. Too many have looked at a political and cultural goal, and compromised on the faith.

As long as contraception is acceptable to people who say they follow Christ, there will never be a rule of peace on earth. The mindset which allows the perversion of truth in this regard, will inevitably spill over into a perversion of truth in other areas – like life, religion, a correct understanding of liberty, objective morality.

The Church in the West has simply looked for the easy way to accomplish the political goal of ending abortion. Abortion isn’t the problem – the acceptance of error is…and the lack of concern for total Catholic truth.

There should have been mass conversion to the Catholic faith by well-meaning Protestants within the pro-life movement for all these years, if Catholics were paying attention to the faith in its FULLEST sense.

Yet many splendid leaders in the movement remain unconverted to the faith. Have any

Catholics ever sat down and talked with them about their souls?

No ecumenical effort with a religion that accepts theological compromise will ever be successful in the long run. It might score a political coup here or there, but the forces of darkness will just regroup and come back stronger, and the movement will be ill-prepared to cope with the stronger assault because it will have not dealt with its own internal struggle.

The Church did not convert the emperor, it converted the empire by converting the citizens.