Q. I have recently read a book entitled Constantine’s Sword by James Carroll. I was taken aback by its premise and wonder about its veracity. Do you have an opinion on the book? — E.J.S., New Jersey.
A. You have good reason to wonder about the veracity of Constantine’s Sword (and the movie based on the book) since its author, James Carroll, is a former Paulist priest who has written a 756-page volume that, in the words of Robert P. Lockwood, “is not history at all, but an amateur’s meditation on various historical events skewed to reflect the prejudices of his own thesis. This is not careful scholarship. This is simply a very long anti-Catholic essay.”
Reviewing the book for the Catholic League newsletter Catalyst, Lockwood points out that Carroll’s main premise is that the anti-Semitism so prominent in the Nazi Holocaust originated in the Gospel accounts of the Passion and Death of Jesus. These accounts, asserted Carroll, allegedly played down the role of the Romans in the execution of Jesus and shifted the blame to the Jews, thus leading to the view of Jews as “Christ-killers” and to centuries of anti-Jewish hatred.
Accusing Carroll of “a gross misreading of history,” Lockwood says that “it was not the belief of the Church, the New Testament, the Church centered in Jesus, the understanding that Christ died for the sins of mankind, or the Church belief in an objective and universal truth that persists in Christ that created the Holocaust. It was the rejection of those, and the attempt to substitute for Judeo-Christian civilization a secularist pseudo-scientism of race, class, and nationalism as the meaning of life.”
Lockwood also notes that Carroll, in the last section of the book, called for a “Vatican III” Council whose agenda would include such cherished goals of disaffected Catholics as labeling the Gospels as anti-Semitic, rejecting papal infallibility, ordaining women, electing bishops, abandoning priestly celibacy, endorsing contraception, and disregarding the truth that Jesus is the only means of salvation.
Such an agenda, said Carroll, would allow the Church “to embrace a pluralism of belief and worship, of religion and no religion, that honors God by defining God as beyond every human effort to express God.” But the truth is, says Lockwood, that the theological utopia Carroll envisions already exists; it is called Unitarianism.
Q. Would you please comment on the attached letter from the Clergy Advocacy Board of Planned Parenthood encouraging women to have abortions, particularly their statement that “abortion is not even mentioned in the Scriptures — Jewish or Christian — and there are clergy and people of faith from all denominations who support women making this complex decision.” — R.R., Massachusetts.
A. It takes a lot of gall to suggest that the same God who issued a commandment against killing would not have a problem with killing babies, the most innocent and defenseless of His creatures. But what can one expect from those allied with an organization that has piled up millions of dollars in profits over the corpses of millions of unborn babies?
Yes, it is true that the word “abortion” is not mentioned in the Bible, but neither are such modern-day evils as drunken driving, drug abuse, insider trading, tax evasion, and racism. However, abortion was practiced in biblical times as indicated by the fourth-century B.C. physician Hippocrates, author of the Hippocratic Oath which doctors used to take: “I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked — nor suggest any such counsel — and in like manner I will not give to any woman a pessary to produce abortion.”
While there may not be passages in Scripture that specifically mention abortion, there are many passages that affirm the sanctity of human life. For example:
• “You shall not thus worship the Lord, your God, because they offered to their gods every abomination that the Lord detests, even burning their sons and daughters to their gods” — Deut. 12:31.
• “I call Heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live” — Deut. 30:19.
• “Children too are a gift from the Lord, / the fruit of the womb, a reward” — Psalm 127:3.
• “You formed my inmost being; / you knit me in my mother’s womb. / I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; / wonderful are your works! / My very self you knew; / my bones were not hidden from you, / When I was being made in secret, / fashioned as in the depths of the earth.” — Psalm 139:13-15.
• “These merciless murderers of children, / and parents who took with their own / hands defenseless lives, / You willed to destroy by the hands of our fathers, / that the land that is dearest of all to you / might receive a worthy colony of God’s children” — Wisdom 12:5-7.
• “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, / before you were born I dedicated you” — Jer. 1:5.
• “During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’ ” — Luke 1:39-42.
• While the Bible was still being compiled in the first century, a collection of apostolic writings called the Didache stated: “You shall not procure abortion. You shall not destroy a newborn child.”
• Around that same time, the Jewish historian Josephus said that “the law has commanded to raise all children and prohibited women from aborting or destroying seed; a woman who does so shall be judged a murderess of children for she has caused a soul to be lost and the family of man to be diminished.”
Bear in mind, too, that one does not have to be a Bible believer to know that abortion is evil. There are atheists who oppose abortion because it is contrary to nature and to a well-ordered society to allow the murder of innocent members of that society. The responsibility to protect the most vulnerable members of the human family from a barbaric method of execution should be obvious to all reasonable people, especially since five decades of genocide against the unborn have led to the killing of persons along the whole spectrum of life, from the womb to the tomb. We have reached the point where no one’s life is safe if someone wants to end your life for social or political or selfish reasons.
Q. How do you answer those who say that pro-lifers are hypocrites because they support the death penalty while opposing abortion? — K.R., Connecticut.
A. Actually, you will find that many abortion opponents also oppose capital punishment, while it is the pro-abortion side that opposes the death penalty for convicted criminals, but not for innocent babies. In any case, Calvin Freiburger gave this answer in LifeNews:
“Abortion kills an innocent child; capital punishment kills someone convicted of an unthinkable crime. Abortion can be done for virtually any reason; capital punishment is, well, punishment, meant to deter the worst offenses. Abortion is left entirely to the choice of one woman, with no representation of any kind for the baby’s interests . . . capital punishment is carried out only after an investigation, a trial with a constitutionally guaranteed legal defense, conviction by a jury of one’s peers, sentencing, and a lengthy appeal process.”
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