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SMOY News & Events
Dear Parishioners,
I know you may find this hard to believe but it’s always been difficult for me to be a person who has always tried to respect other people’s opinions and to assume their goodwill and to be faced with the so-called pro-choice movement. I have had friends with whom I have dialogued and sometimes disagreed on theology, philosophy, history, politics, art, culture and even school choice for years. This is probably true of most priests. I have learned to dialogue with people who do not be-lieve in Christ, the Church, the pope, religious life or even our American way of life. Even with my atheist friends I found something to dialogue about – even if it was the simple fact that the God they were denying was not anything like the God I believe in. (Usually atheists have simplistic ideas about God.) But in almost all dialogues I can assume that each of us was looking for the truth. Truth is simply defined as the knowledge of what really is. Getting at the truth was the important thing, and it is the word we were looking for. There was a time when truth was important for people. I am not so certain it is today!
I spite of my years of dialogue, I have real trouble dialoguing about abortion, euthanasia or the other denials of human life. The whole pro-choice argument is based on a big lie – a terrible denial of an obvious truth. To some people it is not obvious that there is a God. To others it is not obvious that Christ is the Son of God. To others the Catholic faith is not obvious. You can dialogue about these things. Oh sure, you can argue about when life begins, but if the person you are dialoguing with thinks that killing a viable child is morally acceptable as in partial birth abortion – why go on talking? There is here a complete denial of truth. Push it just a step further. Consider the child who may not be viable now but who with medical advances will be viable in a few years, and tell me that’s not a child. Well, then, the person can accept killing any child. It’s like dialoguing with Joseph Mengele about whether the twins in his experiments were truly human. He gave them lollipops and even entertained them and then he cut them up. He was kind, so he always anesthetized them first. He was a kindly liar. Mengele simply had no concept of truth. And today, we have a tendency to see “kindly liars” as people of truth. Look at our government officials today!
What is the issue in pro-choice? The issue is truth. Not what is convenient, not what is agreed on, not what is nice, not what is going to sell politically. The question is truth. If someone is lying about the obviously viable children or about-to-be viable children, how in the world can you have a dialogue? Such a person will lie all the way down to the first human cells of a zygote and ignore the fact that the entire genetic code of the person is in each of those cells. What is really terribly dangerous is that this Kafkaesque dialogue goes on with many nice and kindly people, good friends, kindly and generous souls. Some are even members of the clergy. What in the world is missing? A really vital and personally effective idea of the truth, nothing more, nor less.
The problem with a dialogue over the position called pro-choice is that there has already been a denial of truth that everybody should know. Pro-choice means abortion. The truth is you can’t kill innocent human beings. “What about the rare exceptions, like rape?” they will say. I know a wonderful young man, diligent and moral, whose mentally ill mother was the victim of rape, which brought him into the world. Did he deserve to die because of his biological origins? The simple, unavoidable truth is that abortion, euthanasia, many forms of scientific experiment, and even many forms of contraception destroy innocent human life. If you’re a believer in God, it’s an appalling sin against the Ten Commandments. And if you only believe in humanity, then it is truly inhuman. Without some acceptance of truth, of what really is, life on this little planet becomes impossi-ble, and so does all real dialogue.
One final, inescapable fact is that as Christians we are more responsible than anyone else to defend the truth because Jesus is Himself the Truth. His enemy is the father of all lies. And that’s the truth.
The anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Roe vs. Wade (1973), is this Friday, January 22. We are reminded that God recognized each of us before we were born, and called us by name, so too may we recognize the value of each human life and pledge ourselves to continue to defend and nurture God’s greatest gift to us.” (1992 Respect Life Manual, NCCB).
May your week be a peaceful one…full of prayer for all of our children born and unborn!
Sincerely Yours in Christ,
Fr. Jan
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