Many, many years ago, I was asked to give a pro-life presentation to a large group of young adults. The person who contacted me asked if it was possible that I might tone down, or exclude, some of the issues … like abortion, for example.
Taken totally by surprise I was silent for a moment before replying, “There really isn’t any way for me to give a pro-life talk without talking about the actual issue. So, no, I can’t.”
I was given permission to go ahead, and to this day, I think it was one of my best talks. There were people in total shock, some emotional, who had never heard the reality of abortion, only the meaningless catchphrases used by the other side: a blob of tissue, clump of cells, no heartbeat … whatever. And they thanked me for coming.
Of course, the person who contacted me was trying to walk a tightrope, wanting to tick the box of “pro-life work done,” and avoid any discomfort involved. The idea was my talk could perhaps look like some of the modern anti-bullying or self-esteem programs that suggest lifting people up is also a kind of pro-life work. The benefit is that, because they leave out the bludgeoned babies part, they get a bigger audience. They are saying what everyone already agrees with, so it’s easy. No one cries, no one is offended, and no one is threatened with the loss of tax status.
I wonder how much that last issue has affected many of the choices made by charities these days. We quiver at the thought of missing out on a tax receipt or the option of providing them. We “compromise.” We don’t want to upset people. It doesn’t make for easy living having the world annoyed at us for our beliefs. So, it’s the best of both worlds. We say that all people have value, which is true, and that we should respect everything and everyone (not true). Boom. The work of Christ, done.
I get a little hot under the collar when it comes to this kind. We have lost pro-life organizations to this kind of thing, and it’s very sad.
One person involved in the total secularization of a group told me, “If I had been told that my life matters, if someone had told me that I had value, and there was a good future for me, I would never have had an abortion.”
That’s fine, and it is heartbreaking that she never heard those things. But how many people could use that message for the exact opposite purpose: “My life matters, I have value and a future, and this unwanted pregnancy will get in the way.”
If it was included as part of a message that mentioned the value and future of the child, that would be a different kind of thing.
My dream is that we as a Church, we as individual Catholics, and we parents with children, will stop making excuses, that we will stop trying to be in both camps, that we will risk uncomfortable situations and persecutions because we know that something is wrong.
I dream that we will stop giving our Catholic dollars to groups and programs that intrinsically work against the truths of our faith, perhaps groups that also have drag queen pride events as other sources of income, to groups that, in truth, hate Christianity.
And I dream that we wouldn’t equate the success of a movement with how many people were comfortable with what we said.
In fact, I can’t help but think of the prophet Jeremiah. Bear with me, but he was told by God to speak the truth (as we all are) to the sinning Israelites. He foretold the coming destruction if they did not repent. They hated him for it. In fact, they buried him in a hole and left him for dead. And they continued in their sin, and they were invaded and taken into Babylon as slaves. Kind of seems like Jeremiah failed. His rate of return stunk. Everyone hated him. Except God. Boom.
So, my dream is pretty simple, and it rubs so many people the wrong way, but not on purpose. My dream is that we would be willing to lose something, even big things (that the government is probably planning to take anyway), for what is true and just. It’s what the pagan Greeks called integrity.
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