Bernard J. Coughlin, S.J., former president and current chancellor of Gonzaga University, has an excellent essay "on the square" on President Obama's call for common ground on abortion. Here is a taste:
In the nineteenth century it was the right of freedom versus the right to enslave; in the twentieth century it is the right to life versus the right to kill the innocent. And much as people would hope to find common ground, there is no common ground to be found. The right to life is not granted by kings, rulers, clergymen, parliaments, or congresses. It is the Creator’s work, not to be fudged.
In disputes over civil laws—the best housing policy, the best health policy, the wisest tax laws—it is reasonable to hope for common ground. But in some matters there is no common ground. The president encouraged his audience to “increase adoptions” and to “reduce the number of abortions.” Friends of mine have suggested the same, and it is all to the good. But abortion always kills an infant. I can readily imagine President Lincoln hearing from the slave owners: “We will decrease the number of slaves,” and “We will increase social services.” But he also knew that one slave is still a slave. And one fetus killed is still killing an innocent life.
***
It is not faith that tells us that abortion kills an innocent life. It is science. And the more we know about it the more the phrase “a woman’s right to choose” is recognized as simply a euphemism for “a woman’s right to kill the child in her womb.”
***
Every infant is God’s child, and his gift to us as a sister and brother. And just as President Obama has so praiseworthily pledged himself to guarantee every child the right to an education, so should he first, and with far greater righteousness, pledge himself to guarantee every child, as far as humanly possible, the right to life.
The president says: “We must find a way to live together.” All the while, the infant in the womb is answering: “But first I have to live.”
For the whole essay, click here.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Michael P., you are right, religious and sexual freedoms are not opposed. And, it is fitting that you would have so titled your post on this the memorial of Mary Magdelene. As Fr. Raymond-Leopold Bruckberger, O.P. said: "There must have emanated from this man, who was the Christ, a light, a power far above nature to free the love of a burning and passionate woman like Mary Magdalene from all obsession, pacify it, order it, and at the same time bring it to full flower."
Please reassure me, Rick, that this is not a critical mass of the base--or "base"--of the Republican Party. See here.
"Analysts say Islamic militants are trying to drive out last of naion's Christian minority." For this OSV story, click here.
A reader responds:
Thanks for posting the D'Agata essay. One very minor thing jumped out at me, but something I've never really thought of before.
The president of the United States is often described as "the leader of the free world." See D'Agata: "met the first African American man to lead the free world ...."
True enough, I guess, if the world is seen as populated by countries. But the world is populated by ... people.
So, couldn't the Pope be properly described as "the leader of the (truly) free world".
Just a thought.
Over at The Immanent Frame, a new post this morning of interest to MOJ readers:
Religious and sexual freedoms are not opposed
Read it here.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Dino D'Agata concludes his essay, The Pope and the President: From Notre Dame to Vatican City and Back, with these words:
[T]he Church’s claim—that it is the bearer of Christ Himself in the world despite many of the highly glaring flaws of its adherents, both clergy and laity alike, as well as despite its historical mistakes—is what was really at stake the day its leader, a human being whose task is to witness Christ and not to evaluate another human being according to ethical guidelines, met the first African American man to lead the free world. One would hope that many Catholics, starting from the bishops themselves, would understand that Christianity means a human encounter in which Christ makes Himself known through the very presence of the baptized believer—something the Holy Father exemplified for us in his encounter with Barack Obama—an encounter that cannot be reduced to either side’s “positions” on a variety of topics. One would hope that Catholics—conservative and liberal alike—take their cue from this and stop reducing their faith to a set of easily apprehended ethical tenets when the true ontology of faith is unpredictable, because it has to do with the mystery of how God takes on human flesh in the present—something that can potentially throw back any believer, liberal and conservative alike, because it removes faith from the realm of one’s own intellectual pretensions and transcends any facile reductions of what a human being actually is to what he or she thinks or believes.
The rest is here. What do you think? And, Michael P., how would "a post-metaphysical, apophatic Catholic/Christian" respond to D'Agata?
Monday, July 20, 2009
FIRST THINGS has a short essay by me with the above title, in which I explore the effect of choice on solidarity. Since that essay is a bit truncated, and is not available online in any event, I am providing a link to the original version.
The same argument could apply to choice at the time of death: Voluntary euthanasia makes it more likely that the disabled will be more burdened and less cared for, since they have an easy way out. And if they persist in choosing to live, they will get less sympathy and support because it's their own choice to do so.
There is a lesson here about freedom itself, but I have not quite formulated it.
