Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Thrown Back on Morality
An excellent look on Catholic thought about abortion, euthanasia, war, and death.
As I said above, I do not doubt the sincerity of many Catholics who are concerned about things like the death penalty. And by saying that issues like the death penalty are of less importance than abortion I'm not saying they are trivial. They are just less important. But I cannot help but wonder at the motivations of some of the advocates of the so-called "seamless garment" approach. Why is it that their seamless garment always seems to result in downplaying, or even dismissing, the protection of the unborn? Why is it that protection of the innocent always ends up on the fringes, the tattered edges, of their "seamless garment", if not trimmed off altogether? I cannot help but think that, at least sometimes, it's because they really think that issues such as the death penalty, poverty, saving the whales, etc., are more important than the lives of unborn children. I cannot help but suspect that, for such people, voting for the Democratic Party, and what it represents for them, weighs more in the balance than innocent human life. I hope that this is not the case, for those who do so are indeed selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.
What motivates this skewing of priorities? I'm not sure, but I can think of one possibility: We can see the faces and hear the names of those put to death for some terrible crime. We can see their families, broken by grief. We can have compassion for them and wish that they could be moved to atone for their crimes. We can see the pictures of Iraqi wounded, and those killed. We can see the funerals and the imprecations against America hurled by those hurt by the war. We can see the wreck and ruin in the cities and towns.
But the holocaust of abortion is largely invisible, because those who operate the machinery of death do their utmost to keep it that way. We do not see the small bodies torn limb from limb. We do not hear any screams from the victims of abortion. No news cameras report on their deaths. The media studiously avoids acknowledging the grief of the thousands of women who have come to lament their terrible "choice". There are no cemeteries marking the graves of the innocent unborn. They have no names, except those known to God alone.
As I said above, I do not doubt the sincerity of many Catholics who are concerned about things like the death penalty. And by saying that issues like the death penalty are of less importance than abortion I'm not saying they are trivial. They are just less important. But I cannot help but wonder at the motivations of some of the advocates of the so-called "seamless garment" approach. Why is it that their seamless garment always seems to result in downplaying, or even dismissing, the protection of the unborn? Why is it that protection of the innocent always ends up on the fringes, the tattered edges, of their "seamless garment", if not trimmed off altogether? I cannot help but think that, at least sometimes, it's because they really think that issues such as the death penalty, poverty, saving the whales, etc., are more important than the lives of unborn children. I cannot help but suspect that, for such people, voting for the Democratic Party, and what it represents for them, weighs more in the balance than innocent human life. I hope that this is not the case, for those who do so are indeed selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.
What motivates this skewing of priorities? I'm not sure, but I can think of one possibility: We can see the faces and hear the names of those put to death for some terrible crime. We can see their families, broken by grief. We can have compassion for them and wish that they could be moved to atone for their crimes. We can see the pictures of Iraqi wounded, and those killed. We can see the funerals and the imprecations against America hurled by those hurt by the war. We can see the wreck and ruin in the cities and towns.
But the holocaust of abortion is largely invisible, because those who operate the machinery of death do their utmost to keep it that way. We do not see the small bodies torn limb from limb. We do not hear any screams from the victims of abortion. No news cameras report on their deaths. The media studiously avoids acknowledging the grief of the thousands of women who have come to lament their terrible "choice". There are no cemeteries marking the graves of the innocent unborn. They have no names, except those known to God alone.
