Todays News &
Views
April 22, 2005
Dave Andrusko, Editor
Editor's note. Archbishop Charles J. Chaput was
one of the honorees last night at the 12th annual Proudly
Pro-Life Awards Dinner. The following column appeared in the
Denver Catholic Register the week of January 15, 2003. The
column "was condensed and adapted from the archbishop's remarks
to Colorado Legatus members, Jan. 9." As you will see, it is
absolutely brilliant.
Death, Wounding of Millions the Legacy of
Legalized Abortion on Demand
By Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Next week, on Jan. 22, we mark the 30th
anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that
legalized abortion on demand. It's an important moment. The Roe
decision, in many ways, has been a turning point in our life as
a nation. In the space of a few decades, an act of violence that
was condemned as a "crime against humanity" at the Nuremberg
Trials, has become a woman's "right to choose" and even an act
of convenience. We need to take a hard look at the consequences.
Political systems are organic. They're ecologies.
Even Benjamin Franklin, who was not a particularly virtuous man,
once wrote that, "Only a virtuous people are capable of
freedom." Bad laws and bad court decisions poison the roots of
the way we live. They damage the way we think and that damage
in turn creates more bad laws, more bad court decisions, and
more bad political behavior . . . and gradually we lose the
ability to see what's right, and to do what's good. We lose the
capacity to recognize and live real freedom. And that's where we
find ourselves today.
When the Supreme Court issued Roe v. Wade in
1973, it set two distinct tragedies in motion. First, it
legalized abortion on demand. It opened the floodgates to
killing 40 million unborn children, and it wounded the lives of
millions of women and men in the process. Roe put the definition
of human personhood up for grabs. It removed the unborn from
human status and in doing so, it set a precedent that comes
back to haunt us in all our debates about infanticide,
physician-assisted suicide and what some hospitals now
alarmingly call "inappropriate care" for the seriously ill.
Second and in a way, just as brutally Roe
undermined our reasoning and our moral vocabulary. We're losing
our ability to think clearly about moral issues. The way
abortion supporters misuse the label "pro-choice" simply proves
this point. "Pro-choice," as an expression, has no connection at
all with the real, flesh-and-blood event of an abortion.
Abortion always involves a killing. But the language surrounding
it has become sanitized, evasive, and dishonest.
The word "community" means more than just a
social agreement to tolerate each other's appetites and alibis.
Real community always involves shared beliefs and a shared
commitment to the future. The common good always demands that
individuals sacrifice their own wants and needs for the good of
others. So if we want to renew our public life as a nation, we
need to begin by realizing that abortion, euthanasia, racial and
ethnic prejudice, greed, exploitation of the poor and all the
other acts of violence against human dignity in our day begin
right here in our own selfishness as private citizens; in our
own refusal to live in a spirit of truth.
G.K. Chesterton used to say that "tolerance" is
the alibi of people who don't believe in anything, and that the
point of having an open mind is the same as having an open
mouth: Sooner or later, it's supposed to close on something
solid. Chesterton wasn't preaching the joys of bigotry.
Actually, he was doing just the opposite.
As Christians we have the very serious obligation
to show even our enemies charity, justice, mercy, understanding
and respect. But we also have the responsibility to do all these
things in a spirit of love and honesty, which means working to
serve the truth, and naming and resisting sin.
Real love is always rooted in truth. And we serve
the common good best when we serve the truth best. That's what
Samuel Adams meant when he wrote that a person "is the truest
friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote
its virtue." And that's what George Washington meant in his
Farewell Address when he warned that, "reason and experience
both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in
exclusion of religious principle."
History is made and nations are built by
people who believe in something zealously and act on it in the
public square, not by people who have a skepticism toward all
belief. If we want public officials who act with both
intelligence and moral character, the only way we'll get those
qualities is by carrying our religious faith and moral
principles into the public debate not just at election time
like last November, but week in and week out, in dialogue with
the people who represent us.
Roe v. Wade is an American tragedy. But we can
still change that and I can think of no higher priority among
the issues that face us as Catholics and as citizens.
Dave
Andrusko can be reached at
dandrusko@nrlc.org.