Spirit & Life is the weekly e-column of
Human Life International.
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Dear Friends,
This week I wanted to share with you an excellent article from our Truth and Charity Forum
written by HLI's UN liaison, Mary Langlois. Pointing out the
contradiction even in the name of "Catholics for Choice," she calls
attention to some true champions for life, including HLI's Dr. Ligaya
Acosta in the Philippines and Julia Regina de Cardinal in El Salvador,
who were attacked by CFC for, well, being Catholic...boldly...and in
public! Whether we are called to lead as Ligaya, Julia and Mary have
been, or whether our role is more on the side of material or prayerful
support, our faith must be authentic, which is why must defend life.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Father Shenan J. Boquet
President, Human Life InternationalP.S. You'll notice a new look when you visit our website at hli.org. We're still working out a few kinks, but believe this new site will help us better spread the Gospel of Life. All of our recent affiliate reports and commentaries are now located on our new site. I hope you will take a look around and send us your feedback.
Contradictions: Catholics for Choice
By Mary Langlois |
Mary Langlois
|
Imagine that.
What
is so strange about the article is that it "exposes" the
"fundamentalists" of HLI, along with some other exceptional voices for
life and family, for promoting a view that HLI advertises itself as
promoting - a view, by the way, that is entirely Catholic. In other
words, Catholic women are demonized for promoting Catholic teaching.
Forgive
a tautology, but people who call themselves pro-life strongly oppose
abortion. They see it as the ultimate form of child abuse, the taking of
an innocent human life. People who call themselves pro-choice don't
have a problem with abortion. Some of them promote it as a right, some
even as a good, and others as a necessary evil.
If
a pro-choice organization were to attack or discredit a pro-life
organization with an "exposé" of some kind, why would they base much of
what they produce on criticizing the pro-life organization for being
pro-life? That's not an exposé; it's a statement of the obvious.
Pro-lifers
draw their conclusions about abortion from scientific findings about
the beginning of life. These common sense deductions from these facts
about the humanity of the human being in the womb and his value, a sense
of justice - that no innocent human being should be intentionally
killed, are all confirmed by the normal instinct to protect children.
They know that abortion results from a break in some or all of these
connections between individuals and their innate, instinctive knowledge
of truth.
If they are religious people, then they believe that the knowledge
they have about abortion, and in fact all authentic knowledge, reflects
the mind of God. Consequently, they may defend their knowledge about
abortion also with religious arguments.
Atheists
should understand that although they might ridicule religious faith,
and even find religion offensive or threatening, they can't disprove
religious revelation. But Catholics for Choice, one suspects, are not
atheists; and thus claim a tradition that is unequivocally against that
which they say they think is a human right.
The
Catholic religion has always taught that abortion is gravely wrong. As
an essential and important teaching of the faith, it is non-negotiable.
So Catholics can draw from the teachings of their religion as well as
from logic and reason when they oppose abortion.
Catholics
can also decide to oppose the teachings of their religion and support
abortion. They would have to deny a morally binding teaching of their
faith, as well natural reason, but in a pluralistic, post-rational
society, they are free to do so.
To
say someone is Catholic reasonably implies, or at least used to imply,
that she is fully Catholic; i.e., that she supports the essential,
fundamental teachings of that faith. Indeed, the word 'Catholic' isn't
merely an adjective that modifies one's personal opinions. To be
Catholic is to partake in a sacramental reality, with logical claims to
authority that flow from the essence of the faith.
Authentic
religious identity requires assent to a body of belief. So to say "I'm
Catholic" entails not "I'm a perfect Catholic," but "I'm a real
Catholic, completely." Anything else is not an assent to religion, but a
kind of statement of emotion or preference, which when one looks at
what the Church is and what she teaches, makes no sense.
Those
on both sides of the abortion battle have the right to freedom of
belief and expression. But those who claim to be authentically Catholic;
that is, Catholic without a modifier such as "ex-," "lapsed," or
"dissident," while supporting abortion, are committing a semantic error.
Their freedom of speech enables them to make the claim, but the claim
is false. It is a contradiction.
So
we consider the name "Catholics for Choice," when "choice" clearly
refers to the choice to be able to kill one's pre-born child. People can
name their organizations anything they choose I suppose, but one should
not be led to think that the positions held by Catholics for Choice
represent the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church, since their
raison d'être is entirely un-Catholic. Indeed, the bishops have stated
more than once that CFC is not an organization that can truthfully be
called "Catholic."
It
is true that dissent does not automatically reverse the sacramental
baptism that makes a person Catholic, but it does in an important sense
undermine his ability to claim that his particular errorcomes from the
heart and mind of the Church. The only reason this group exists is to
drive a wedge into the Church, giving abortion-sympathetic media the
ability to claim that the Church is not as clear on the condemnation of
abortion as her hierarchy claim that she is.
Are
those in "Catholic for Choice" still Catholic? That's not for me to
judge. There are remedies to address the scandal that flows from these
nonsensical declarations of faith in service to the murder of innocent
human beings, but this cannot be enforced by a layperson like myself.
That this group has been denounced by Catholic bishops, and defended by
no bishops, is a fact that should be included whenever CFC is quoted in
media.
Nevertheless,
their "exposé" is a strange exercise in circular reasoning, fraught
with outrage that Catholic pro-life women would dare to promote the view
that comports with both faith and reason, in harmony with their
authentic faith.
Maybe
we're all guilty of that kind of thing from time to time, but the
better way to argue is to use logic and science to prove a point. Human
life begins at conception. From there we can talk about a society that
succeeds in protecting or fails to protect that innocent person.
