Mother Teresa And Current Events
By FR. JOSEPH JOHNSON
(Editor’s Note: Fr. Joseph Johnson is a priest of the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese and this commentary first appeared in his church bulletin. It is reprinted here with permission.)
- + + National headlines are revolving around a newly enacted law in my home state of Texas. It makes abortionists and their accomplices liable for the death of any unborn child whose heartbeat can be detected. These current events unfolded at the same time that we were preparing to observe the Feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta. Her perspective is very helpful as we try to analyze everything going on around us.
Legalized abortion is an epic fight in its duration, its capacity to enflame passions, and its stark contrast between good and evil, life and death. The infamous Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade started in Texas. Perhaps it is fitting that the legal fight that started in Texas now returns to Texas.
“Jane Roe” was the pseudonym of Norma McCorvey who was seeking an abortion. She much later repented of her role in legalizing abortion and became Catholic in my home parish in Dallas. I knew the priest who instructed her in the faith and the priest who received her into the Church. McCorvey’s attorney was Sarah Weddington who taught law at my alma mater, the University of Texas.
Henry Wade was a fellow alumnus of the University of Texas. He served as the district attorney of Dallas from 1951 to 1987. He was known as “the Chief” among the Dallas legal community and was a friend of my father. He successfully prosecuted Jack Ruby for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination. Wade was named as the defendant when Weddington sought to challenge the constitutionality of the Texas laws criminalizing abortion.
Abortion is always an issue which is sure to arouse strong feelings. Even in Catholic circles, it is shocking to hear what divergence of “opinion” exists. The nation’s most prominent layman until recently stated that he agreed that life begins at conception but couldn’t impose his views on others. Now as president, Biden just this week repudiated his earlier stance and proclaimed himself a champion of abortion rights. He directly repudiated official Church teaching as he revised his opinion on conception.
Let’s review what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches (excerpts from nn. 2270-2273):
“Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
“Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.
“Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.
“The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.”
President Biden stated this week that he has directed “the whole of government” to seek ways to protect legalized abortion. Let that sink in for a moment…this is the guy who didn’t want to impose his views on others.
At this time, I invite all those Catholics who voted for this man to do a serious examination of conscience. He never pretended to be against abortion but now he has become worse than ever in advancing and defending it. (Don’t forget about the Hyde Amendment.) This is a natural evolution from his earlier posturing. What culpability do you have in advancing abortion by supporting him? Calculating the degree is imprecise, but surely guilt there is.
If your child dies, you would surely weep. Somehow over 60 million deaths since abortion was legalized doesn’t cause us to weep. Where is our national mourning? Where is our national outrage at this abomination? It is just a statistic. We fail to see that those were our children. We dismiss the number and carry on with our already-born lives. We cast our votes based on other issues and ignore this horror which now surpasses the combined total of victims massacred by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
Mother Teresa was renowned for her vigorous defense of all human life. Let’s listen to what this great saint had to say about the question of abortion. Above all else, she embraced the unborn child as the most vulnerable member of society and the most deserving of our care.
She didn’t mince any words when she said: “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” She used her Noble Prize speech as well as her invitation to the United States National Prayer Breakfast to “speak truth to power” about the evil of abortion and the beauty of life.
She had strong words for feminists as well: “Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three-quarters of its victims are women: half the babies and all the mothers.” Her numbers were actually off. In many countries, female babies are much more likely to be aborted as they are “less valuable” in society. So, far more than three-quarters of victims are women!
It was unthinkable to Mother Teresa to separate care for the poor and desire for world peace from the question of abortion. She understood and clearly taught: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” She went on to observe that: “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
Mother Teresa knew that she couldn’t change everything on her own. She was humble in describing her role and that of her religious community: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” At the same time, she reminds us that we have a role to play. Have we been a “missing drop” when it comes to defending the lives of the unborn?
Have we forgotten that “the ocean” is much less for missing the hundreds of thousands of unborn babies who are killed in our nation each year? Maybe there was another Michelangelo or Shakespeare among them. Or maybe another Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King, Jr!
It would be the height of arrogance to assume that there was no one who would have enriched our world. Where is the mediator who could make peace in the Middle East or secure mutual respect between people of different races in our own country? Where is the cure for cancer or for the coronavirus? Wouldn’t it be ironic if that scientist’s life was terminated by our “enlightened” callousness to life? We are so very shortsighted!
May Mother Teresa intercede from Heaven to change hearts in our state and across the nation — starting with our Catholic president — to respect and protect the dignity of every human life, born and unborn!