By DONALD DeMARCO
A jet traveling at 500 miles per hour is an example of progress. But if it is running out of fuel, the next step is disaster. G.K. Chesterton once remarked that ‘“progress’ is simply a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.” It does not matter where we are going, as long as we are getting there faster!
But the larger question remains: Where are we going? The “superlative” is not a problem for Catholics. As St. John Paul II states in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, “The moral life has an essential ‘teleological’ character, since it consists in the deliberate ordering of human acts to God, the supreme good and ultimate end (telos) of man.”
Progress, it needs to be reiterated, implies a direction. The student wants to know what is true; the artist wants to find beauty; the traveler wants to return home; and the Christian wants to get to Heaven. Progress means very little if it is not moving towards a good end. In our fast-paced society it is not where you are going but how fast you are moving that counts. It is as if people have agreed that we should not be concerned about the highly contentious notion of what is good, but that it is good to keep that notion in abeyance and just keep going.
We know far more about the nature of the human fetus, his DNA content, his life, and his development than ever before in history. Yet, the unborn child is routinely despised and commonly treated as a disposable inconvenience. We know far more about the adverse effects that induced abortion has on women, both physically, emotionally, and psychologically, than ever before in history. Yet abortion is popularly viewed in the context of women’s health.
We know far more about the diseases transmitted through homosexual contact and the dire effects they have on the partners than ever before in history. Yet homosexual practices are now given a legal status equal to those life-producing acts performed by husband and wife. Knowledge is accumulating, technology is advancing; while morality is in retreat.
The political world has not been spared this curious phenomenon of advancing backwards. In a recent address at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University, Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has likened those who favor the defunding of Planned Parenthood as belonging to “terrorist groups.” It is certainly a politically backwards tactic to offend and potentially alienate the majority of Americans as a means of securing their vote.
The United States Senate voted 53-46 to defund Planned Parenthood (though it failed to get the 60 votes needed to achieve its aim). How did the Senate accumulate so many terrorists, without anyone suspecting their nefarious intentions? Hillary does not explain. She merely hurls invectives.
Cong. Diane Black (R., Tenn.) was justifiably angered by the presidential candidate’s extreme rhetoric. “Americans,” she states, “who opposed sending federal dollars to organizations that dismember and sell babies’ body parts for profit aren’t terrorists — they are compassionate, decent human beings. To be clear, these comments [those of Hillary Clinton] are disgusting and have no place in our political discourse.”
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Allison Moore objected to her “inflammatory rhetoric” by saying, “For Hillary Clinton to equate her political opponents to terrorists is a new low for her flailing campaign.”
And Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, responded by expressing his astonishment: “Hillary Clinton compares pro-life Americans with terrorists, but defends despicable PP treatment of [the] unborn?”
Nonetheless, Mrs. Clinton insists that “we are going forwards. We are not going back.” Her use of “we” does not include as many people as she may think.
America was not alone in protesting Planned Parenthood’s dismembering aborted babies and selling their body parts. Very quickly, Ireland, England, Honduras, Mexico, the Slovak Republic, the Netherlands, and Northern Ireland demonstrated their displeasure publicly. In the United States, 65,000 people protested at 342 Planned Parenthood sites. If Hillary Clinton is going to fight terrorism she will have to take on the whole civilized world.
“Progress,” “Freedom,” “Education” are all fine-sounding words. But, devoid of context, they mean nothing. Where are we going? What shall we do with our freedom? What are we learning?
These are the questions that must be answered before these three words are fitted with meaning. Progress must be directed to a good end. Freedom must be anchored in truth. Education must be ordered to wisdom.
Making things too simple can lead to the opposite of what they are presumed to produce. Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen in a unified molecule. In other words, the simplest form in which water exists is as the H2O molecule. If we reduce this entity to its elementary parts, we get hydrogen which is highly combustible, and oxygen which supports combustion. These elements are radically different than life-giving water. Crossing the simplicity barrier in the attempt to make things simpler than they can be, is to court disaster.
Hillary Clinton has not identified her opponents as terrorists. She has identified herself as a sad victim of a flaw in American culture that turns people into cartoon characters and politics into a childish game of name-calling. That she aspires to her country’s highest office is a symptom of a serious pathology that now afflicts America.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World, are available through Amazon.com.
(Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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