By FR. SHENAN BOQUET
(Editor’s Note: Fr. Shenan Boquet is the president of Human Life International, and he travels around the world spreading the Gospel of Life in that role. He is a priest of the Houma-Thibodaux Diocese in Louisiana where he served before joining HLI in August 2011.
(Fr. Boquet’s commentary below urging abortion opponents to “get in the game” was posted at HLI.org on January 28 and is reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
(In this commentary, Fr. Boquet references the January 22 March for Life in Paris. According to Fr. Mark Hodges in LifeSiteNews, more than 50,000 pro-lifers from across France gathered for the event.
Carrying signs and chanting “Protecting the weak is truly strong,” protesters called on presidential candidates to “fight abortion.”
(The president of the pro-life Jerome Lejeune Foundation, Jean-Marie Le Mene, criticized the French government for legislation that has made abortion “commonplace,” especially a currently proposed bill that would ban pro-life websites.
(In a few months, France will elect a new president. Right-wing candidate Francois Fillon is a Catholic who uses the Carter-esque “I am personally opposed but politically support abortion” line.
(Pope Francis expressed his support before the Parisian march, calling for a “civilization of love and a culture of life.”
(A major focus of the demonstration was on France’s proposed anti-life amendment that criminalizes pro-life speech. The amendment would make it illegal to “interfere” in any way with the abortion industry — including simply seeking to dissuade a woman from aborting her baby.
(The annual Paris March for Life is the largest pro-life demonstration in Europe.)
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An exhaustive report published January 25 by Global Life Campaign demonstrates that during the last century in 100 countries, over 1 billion babies were murdered through the crime of abortion. It is truly impossible to fathom: One-eighth of the world’s population is missing.
Yet for those supportive of population control this is welcome news. Regardless of global impact upon societies and cultures, proponents of the Culture of Death, with indiscriminate adherence to their agenda, march onward blindly ignoring the social, cultural, spiritual, and economic consequences of the silent genocide.
If this trend continues, by the end of this century, not one country will be above replacement level. This is, of course, the ultimate goal of the many in the UN and its allies in the anti-life movement.
There are already visible signs that witness the ever encroaching demographic winter. Each year because of the anti-life mentality, which includes high abortion rates, there are 500,000 fewer Japanese, 500,000 fewer Russians, and 1 million fewer Europeans.
Because of abortion and an anti-life mentality, whether imposed or self-inflicted, Europeans are rapidly fading . . . the median age in Europe is 55 as compared to Africa, where the median age is 20 — hence the aggressive attack against Africans who love family and life, a potential threat to so-called developed countries.
How do we transform culture, minds, and hearts?
The truth about the dignity of human life and natural family requires a radical change of direction on political, cultural, legal, and religious levels. The overall well-being of individuals, communities, and societies depends on how we on each of these levels respect, defend, and uphold the dignity of life and family. This is what leads to the authentic progress of nations and peoples.
Sadly the attitude toward religious witness in the public square has been trivialized by many, relegating faith and its daily practice to a private hobby.
The reshaping of culture is not without discomfort or inconvenience. The societal and cultural transformation required will demand conviction, as well as courageous fervor, to stand up for our religious convictions — no matter the cost — and let our voices be heard, being neither content to remain silent or limit our convictions to simple platitudes.
The proponents of the Culture of Death have been extremely successful because most Christians conveniently divorce their life in Christ from everyday life, resulting in a failure of integrity, and really, of faith. Thus we become indifferent toward or silent about life and family issues — frightened of the demand life in Christ will require.
We should take heed of the challenge given by the Second Vatican Council fathers:
“Christians, as citizens of two cities, to strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously and in response to the Gospel spirit. They are mistaken who, knowing that we have here no abiding city but seek one which is to come, think that they may therefore shirk their earthly responsibilities. For they are forgetting that by the faith itself they are more obliged than ever to measure up to these duties, each according to his proper vocation.
“Nor, on the contrary, are they any less wide of the mark who think that religion consists in acts of worship alone and in the discharge of certain moral obligations, and who imagine they can plunge themselves into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are altogether divorced from the religious life.
“This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age….The Christian who neglects his temporal duties, neglects his duties toward his neighbor and even God, and jeopardizes his eternal salvation” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 43).
Still, there are signs of real hope and change.
Last Sunday I joined nearly 50,000 in the Paris March for Life. It was amazing to see so many youth, young adults, and young families participating.
The spirit of the March was joyful in spite of the negative political and cultural climate in France. The attitude of those I met was one of determination to transform the hearts and minds of French citizens about the dignity of every human life — from conception to natural death.
Each speaker prior to the March challenged the crowd to never lose heart but remain convicted in overturning the unjust laws that permit the destruction of human life. The speakers called upon every Frenchman to generously place his or her talents at the service of life.
We see this same enthusiasm and determination was experienced during the March for Life in Washington, D.C., where nearly 500,000 pro-lifers gave witness to the dignity of human life. It really was a glorious day.
Godspeed!
Now, I’ve made no secret of what I think of the sideline-sitter’s complaint that these public demonstrations don’t change anything. This is the same nonsense that one could say about every great effort of social change…until the change happened. It is one essential part of the widespread, local, national, international, spiritual, political, service, cultural battle we are in.
What I don’t have any patience for are complaints from those who hear that almost 60 million babies here and one billion babies around the world have been killed, and who yet only have criticisms for those who are imperfectly doing their best to stop the killing.
Get in the fight. There is no time to lose, and there are many ways to get involved, including starting your own project if you see an unmet need. Go for it, and Godspeed! As long as your efforts are based in prayer and offered to God so that He will truly animate your work, your work will not be in vain.
“But by reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. They live in the world, that is, they are engaged in each and every work and business of the Earth and in the ordinary circumstances of social and family life which, as it were, constitute their very existence.
“There they are called by God that, being led by the spirit to the Gospel, they may contribute to the sanctification of the world, as from within like leaven, by fulfilling their own particular duties.
“Thus, especially by the witness of their life, resplendent in faith, hope and charity they must manifest Christ to others. It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are so closely associated that these may be effected and grow according to Christ and may be to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer” (Lumen Gentium, n. 31).
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