Mirror of Justice

If I were writing a statement for a parish on the theme of “respect life,” I would worry that a sentence like “Our bishops – our pastors and teachers – have stated clearly that abortion, in particular, is not merely one ‘issue’ among many, but is the ‘fundamental human rights issue for all men and women of good will[,]’” would be unnecessarily polarizing. It is too easy to ignore that the overwhelming majority of American Catholics do not think that an embryo is the same thing as a baby even though they think that abortion is immoral in most circumstances. Many of them might deny that abortion is the “fundamental human rights issue for all men and women of good will.” They might read the statement (I am not saying that it was) as striving for political influence. I recognize that a parish might think it important to witness to the truth and, if people do not like it, so much the worse for them. But I believe it more constructive for a parish to encourage dialogue about issues such as these. In this connection, I would encourage us who are in parishes (as has a wonderful priest in the Cornell Catholic community) to reflect upon the Common Ground Initiative begun at the invitation of Cardinal Bernadin. http://www.nplc.org/commonground.htm. In so doing, we might reflect, as my priest suggested, on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the ongoing life of the Church