By CHRISTOPHER MANION
In the days following the release of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health opinion last Friday, the Vatican, the U.S. bishops’ conference, and several other Catholic leaders released statements welcoming the decision.
Unfortunately, the statements share what must be called by its proper name: a tepid, subdued, and ultimately obdurate character.
Consider the official view of the Vatican Press Office, written by Andrea Tornielli:
“A serious and shared reflection on life and the protection of motherhood would require us to move away from the logic of opposing extremisms and the political polarization that often — unfortunately — accompanies discussion on this issue, preventing true dialogue.”
Several American bishops concurred. The views of Bishop David Bonnar of Youngstown are representative of those expressed by many of his colleagues. Bishop Bonnar, in addressing the historic Dobbs decision, emphasized how abortion is just one of many political and social problems that must be address with a “broad vision.”
“In public policy, including here in Ohio, we expect to have the opportunity to now advocate for laws that legally protect the lives of those not yet born,” he wrote. “At the same time, as people committed to life, we must also advocate for policies that can more effectively respond to the many realities that threaten life and human dignity: systemic poverty that affects women, children, and families in a profound way, the wide availability of assault weapons and the deeply rooted causes of violence in our culture, the mental health and addiction crises, an unjust system of capital punishment, the enduring scourge of racism, among many other pressing needs.”
Surprisingly, writing in their roles as leaders of the USCCB, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles (USCCB president) and Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore (USCCB Pro-Life Activities Committee chairman), take a moment to credit the work and prayers of the laity who for years prepared the way for Dobbs:
“Today’s decision is also the fruit of the prayers, sacrifices, and advocacy of countless ordinary Americans from every walk of life,” they write. “Over these long years, millions of our fellow citizens have worked together peacefully to educate and persuade their neighbors about the injustice of abortion, to offer care and counseling to women, and to work for alternatives to abortion, including adoption, foster care, and public policies that truly support families. We share their joy today and we are grateful to them. Their work for the cause of life reflects all that is good in our democracy, and the pro-life movement deserves to be numbered among the great movements for social change and civil rights in our nation’s history.”
The Spirit Confronts Spirited Dissent
Most bishops’ statements ignore the role of the laity in ending Roe, and the reason is simple. The bishops haven’t led, they’ve sat in the cheap seats watching as heroes like Bernard Nathanson, Phyllis Schlafly, Paul Weyrich, Nellie Gray, and Fr. Paul Marx joined millions of priests and laity intent on reversing Roe v. Wade.
The Vatican calls on us “to move away from the logic of opposing extremisms and the political polarization,” and our bishops sing along.
They simply cannot call abortion “murder” — it’s so extreme! What’s worse, however true (I pray that they privately know that abortion is murder), calling it by its proper name prevents “true dialogue.”
In other words, “true dialogue” requires not telling the truth.
Wow, that was easy!
When Roe v. Wade was decided fifty years ago, America’s bishops were mired in confusion and dissent. At the core was the massive rejection within the hierarchy of the fundamental truths that Pope St. Paul VI taught in Humanae Vitae, promulgated five years before. Due to the lack of internal cohesion within the bishops’ conference, our shepherds concentrated their public efforts on more attractive secular political priorities.
Consumed by the “Spirit of Vatican Two” and mired in their “Social Justice” mentality, they were in no shape to rally the laity in defense of life and liberty.
Fifty years ago, their message was “The Call to Action.” Today it is racism, guns, immigration, sanctuary for illegal aliens, and virtually everything else on Joe Biden’s political agenda.
They didn’t lead fifty years ago, they haven’t led since, and they won’t lead now.
Not one will call out Joe Biden on his support of mass murder.
They are traumatized. On the one hand, they are firm and unanimous in their desire for federal taxpayer funding of their secular NGOs and the government spending that supplies the programs that provide that funding.
But they are hardly firm and unanimous on Humanae Vitae. They’d rather not talk about it, so they don’t talk about it.
They watch as Cardinal Cupich opposes the conference’s decision to identify abortion as its “pre-eminent issue,” while other U.S. cardinals object to “single issue” politics (McElroy) or “one-issue politics” (Tobin).
With that Troika in charge, why bother?
The Roots Of The Rot
On the day after the decision in Dobbs was announced, Fr. John Jenkins, CSC, president of the University of Notre Dame, wrote, “I have for many years joined with others in advocating for the protection of unborn life.”
That was an afterthought, undoubtedly written to reassure us after he had reviewed in horror the PR staff’s tepid bilge that advocated “sober deliberation and respectful dialogue…as we examine the profound and complex moral, legal, and social questions involved. We urge everyone to bring to these discussions a generous spirit and, above all, strive to establish laws, policies, and programs that ensure equality for women and support for mothers and their children.”
Wow, what a powerful…dud. Worthy of Notre Dame Doctor of Laws Barack Obama.
And this year the Notre Dame Alumni Association welcomes its own official pro-homosexual/transgender division, complete with a Mass in the Basilica (where I was baptized) where “all will be welcome” at the Communion table.
Speaking of Mass, in 1974, Notre Dame pro-lifers asked then-President Ted Hesburgh, CSC, to say a Mass in reparation for abortion on the first anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Fr. Ted was not enthused. The group’s leaders weren’t sure he’d do it at all. When he finally accepted, he looked grim. He didn’t even give a sermon.
Like most prelates of his generation, Fr. Hesburgh was shocked by Humanae Vitae. Clerical supporters of the encyclical were rare, and often “canceled” long before it was cool.
Prelates of our generation, most of them about my age, got the message in the seminary, where they were often taught to ignore Humanae Vitae because “eventually it will be reversed.” They didn’t actually deny the truth, you see, they simply went silent about it . . . only to find that, even with the miracles of modern medicine, the castration that seemed such a good idea at the time could not be reversed.
Our shiftless shepherds are in the same sinking boat as the poor trannies who realize their mistake too late. They don’t grow back.
If you deny the truths of Humanae Vitae long enough, you soon find that other truths are hard to live with. Pretty soon you can’t even stand up to the likes of Joe Biden. Call abortion murder? Horrors, you might polarize, even offend someone.
America’s violent pro-abortion Left has announced that they’ll fight hard in every state to destroy the rights of the unborn — and the rest of us too, if we get in their way.
And the bishops? They’re back in the cheap seats.
It’s up to us.
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