Calm in the Storm

We may not live in hurricane or tropical storm territory, but we are definitely in a raging storm. It is a cosmic storm, at that. It is impossible to turn on the television or view anything on-line without being assailed with accusatory political rhetoric and predictions about what our country will be like if one or another person is elected to office. O yes, these winds are howling! We should not make the mistake of thinking that this storm is only about political platforms or parties. ​The storm in which we find ourselves is one that howls from the very depths of the cosmos, from the forces of good versus evil, of creation versus anti-creation, of life versus death. So the question arises, “How do we survive the storm?” Maybe the question is better put, “How does our culture and our civilization survive the storm?”
            
Surviving the confusion, the vitriol, and the clamor of this storm is all about listening to Jesus Christ as He teaches us the truth through His Church. No political party or ideology can teach us the truth about our relationship with God and one another. There is only One who can teach us, the One who proclaimed, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). Jesus, true God and true man, assures us that He will be with us,  in His Church, until the end of time (Mt 28:20). Our Lord also promised that He would send the Holy Spirit upon the Church. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you and he will be with you” (Jn 14:15-17).
            
We should not be confused or led astray. The world with its divisions, its denial of truth, its secularization, and its rejection of the dignity and the worth of each and every human person can not and does not give us the truth. It is only Christ Jesus who teaches us and speaks to us through His Body the Church—it is only He who gives us the truth. 
            
So, what is the truth? Christ tells us, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Mt 5:17). He clearly tells us that the Ten Commandments remain in full effect and that they are fulfilled in Him. 

The truth is that Christ abhors one person’s killing another, and extends this rejection of killing even to one’s harboring anger toward another. “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But, I say to you that if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment…” (Mt 5:21-22).
            
Based on the Ten Commandments and the teaching of Our Lord in the Gospels, the Church has condemned murder—especially that committed against the weakest and the most vulnerable. Thus, the Bishops of the United States have clearly taught that abortion is the preeminent issue when we go to the polls to vote. The bishops have taught in consonance with what the Church has taught for 2000 years. Christian writers from the first century to Pope Francis in our own time have clearly and strongly condemned abortion as a serious sin, completely incompatible with following Christ. The Didache or “The Teaching of the Apostles” (circa 78 A.D.) clearly stated, “You shall not procure (an) abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (2:1).  Pope Francis during his apostolic visit to Belgium just two ago clearly and without hesitation addressed the proposed legislation that would extend abortion in Belgium from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, “Doctors who do this (abortion) are –allow me the word – hitmen.  And on this you cannot argue. You are taking a human life.” He called the proposal to permit abortion “homicidal”.  
            
Christ calls us to protect and deliver from abortion the most innocent and vulnerable humans persons in our midst – the unborn in their mothers’ wombs. These innocent ones are the smallest, voiceless, nameless, and unable to defend themselves. Even if we did not have the clear and definitive teaching of Our Lord through the Church that abortion is gravely wrong, we would still have the Natural Law written on our hearts that tells us we should not kill our own children. For to kill them is also to kill mothers spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes physically who find themselves in difficult situations. To kill these tiny unborn children is to kill family life and relationships between husbands and wives, between men and women. To kill these unborn beautiful human beings is to kill our nation, our culture and our civilization. Abortion is a cosmic blow that shakes the very foundations of our life and our future. It is a cosmic assault on the truth of who we are as persons possessing inherent dignity and worth. No one has the right to deny a person of this.
            
As we stand in the midst of this storm, and as we are faced with the upcoming election in November, there are a number of realities to keep in mind.

• Each of us has a responsibility to exercise our right to vote in support of the common good.
• Abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human life and dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental good and the condition for all others. Abortion, the deliberate killing of a human being before birth, is never morally acceptable and must always be opposed. (Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship #64, USCCB)
• Laws that legitimize any of these practices are profoundly unjust and immoral. Our(Bishops’) Conference supports laws and policies to protect human life to the maximum degree possible, including constitutional protection for the unborn and legislative efforts to end abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. We also promote a culture of life by supporting laws and programs that encourage childbirth and adoption over abortion and by addressing poverty, providing health care, and offering other assistance to pregnant women, children, and families.” (Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship #65, USCCB)
• Forming Consciences teaches that “[t]he threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed” (p. 6). Simply stated, “[a] Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors an intrinsically evil act … if the voter's intent is to support that position" (no. 34). 
• And, according to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "[a] Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil... if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion.” This can never be justified.

This simply means that a Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors an intrinsically evil act such as abortion, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. 
 
If we find ourselves in a position in which two candidates espouse morally objectionable stances as a part of their platform, such as abortion, it is permissible to select the one who would endorse the lesser amount of evil as compared to the other. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) put it, “When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for the candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.” This means that Catholics could not vote for a candidate who endorses an intrinsically evil act such as legal abortion merely because they prefer that candidate’s party or because they find the other candidate unlikable or even morally reprehensible in his personal conduct.
 
We must not allow ourselves to be swayed by passionate emotions or misplaced loyalty to an ideology or a person. We are called to objectively examine the issues at hand and vote to prevent the killing of our own innocent children in such great numbers. Thank about it. We are horrified by the Armenian genocide that killed as many as 1.5 million in 1915. Likewise, we are forever saddened and outraged by the Holocaust of the Second World War that killed 6 million Jews.  Again, in 1994, we tragically saw the Rwandan genocide murder as many as 800,000 ethnic Tutsis. Over the last 50 years in our own nation, we have witnessed the intentional killing of 65 million of our own pre-born children. That is why there is an urgency about the pre-eminent issue of abortion in our November election. We cannot continue to allow the killing of our children.
            
Pope Francis has supported this urgency about ending abortion. He taught us in his 2015 Encyclical Letter Laudati Si
 
Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.” (#120; quote from Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate)
 
In a general audience on October 10, 2018, Pope Francis said,
 
But how can an act that suppresses innocent and defenseless budding human life be therapeutic, civil or simply human? I ask you: is it right to do away with a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? One cannot do this; it is not right to do away with a human being, albeit small, to solve a problem. It is like hiring a hitman to solve a problem.
What leads man to reject life?... It is the idols of this world: money—better to take this away from our midst, because it will cost—, power and success. These are erroneous parameters to value life.
 
Dear Friends, in this storm of confusing ideas and of pressure from the promotion of a pro-abortion agenda, we must seek the protection, the nurturing and the future of our unborn children. Not to do so is to say that they are disposable non-persons who can be sacrificed on the altar of greed, a pro-death ideology, and an agenda of selfish self-will. It is to doom the future of our culture and civilization to darkness and a demographic winter. We must think clearly and objectively before we cast our ballot.
            
Will we continue to allow the sacrifice of our children?  Will we allow women to be further damaged by shame, guilt, and abuse from abortion?  Will we support the destruction of our families, our culture, and our civilization?

Yes, the winds howl all around us, but in the midst of it, we hear the strong, clear voice of Jesus say, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me…See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face f my Father, who is in heaven.” (Mt 18: 3-5, 10)  and “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (Jn 10:10)
 
Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh