We American Catholics who have been fighting for the life of the unborn child had much to celebrate when the Supreme Court at last retreated from its long-standing usurpation of legislative power, and declared that the dismembering of a child in the womb is no longer a right guaranteed by the Constitution. One might think that church bells would be ringing everywhere. We got this from the Vatican organization most concerned with the matter. It deserves to be given in full:
The Pontifical Academy for Life joins U.S. Bishops’ statement on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. As Archbishop H. Gomez and Archbishop Lori declared:
“It is a time for healing wounds and repairing social divisions; it is a time for reasoned reflection and civil dialogue, and for coming together to build a society and economy that supports marriages and families, and where every woman has the support and resources she needs to bring her child into this world in love.”
The Court’s opinion shows how the issue of abortion continues to arouse heated debate. The fact that a large country with a long democratic tradition has changed its position on this issue also challenges the whole world. It is not right that the problem is set aside without adequate overall consideration. The protection and defense of human life is not an issue that can remain confined to the exercise of individual rights but instead is a matter of broad social significance. After 50 years, it is important to reopen a non-ideological debate on the place that the protection of life has in a civil society to ask ourselves what kind of coexistence and society we want to build.
It is a question of developing political choices that promote conditions of existence in favor of life without falling into a priori ideological positions. This also means ensuring adequate sexual education, guaranteeing health care accessible to all and preparing legislative measures to protect the family and motherhood, overcoming existing inequalities. We need solid assistance to mothers, couples and the unborn child that involves the whole community, encouraging the possibility for mothers in difficulty to carry on with the pregnancy and to entrust the child to those who can guarantee the child’s growth.
Archbishop Paglia said: “in the face of Western society that is losing its passion for life, this act is a powerful invitation to reflect together on the serious and urgent issue of human generativity and the conditions that make it possible; by choosing life, our responsibility for the future of humanity is at stake.”
I’ve seen more cheerful faces at a funeral. Let me note what is not here:
• No mention of God, or of Jesus Christ.
• No joy, that perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives will be spared.
• No meditation on the beauty and the sanctity of the child.
• No sense of relief, that a great evil may be in retreat, an evil that has done what all evils do – it has corrupted the people who perform it or permit it.
• No gratitude for Americans in the pro-life movement who have done such hard work, often with little support from the official Church, to keep the political issue alive, and to provide to women in hard circumstances medical care, clothing, baby formula, a place to stay, and so forth.
• No sense that abortion is bound up with other sins against the child and the family, sins we have come to accept with a shrug. Most significant among these is fornication. According to the CDC, in 2019, unmarried women accounted for 86 percent of abortions in the United States.
• No sense that we must, therefore, try to resuscitate, or rather to rebuild from the rubble, a genuinely human culture that promotes the union of man and woman in marriage.
Full story at The Catholic Thing.
Why does the church even have to comment? The Supreme Court reversed an erroneous decision it made in 1972. That’s it. It’s a constitutional matter. Morals don’t enter into consideration. The Supreme Court correctly found that the Constitution is silent on abortion, thus the matter of abortion law should be returned to state and federal legislatures. The Court performed its judicial role with exactitude and deference and humility and restraint.
Whoever wrote this did not understand the Vatican letter.
Actually, there is a total absence of Catholicism in the new Pontifical Academy of Life. Plus, we see news stories of the Pope praising and honoring Italy’s leading abortion rights advocate, Emma Bonino. Tragic.
““It is a time for healing wounds and repairing social divisions” this will not happen until the moral order and natural moral law is completely restored under Christ the King
Pope Francis just announced that he will appoint two Catholic lay women to the Dicastery of Bishops, to help select new bishops. I think that is ridiculous! I think that lay people should only be involved in matters that concern laymen, in the Catholic Church.
There’s nothing wrong with getting advice from women about appointing bishops. And it does concern the laity because the laity have bishops for their shepherds. Don’t you wish you had some input about McElroy being made a cardinal?
Primarily, it concerns priests and clergy– bishops are their superiors. Top clerics should determine eligibility for bishop appointments. Just like bishops determine eligibility of men for ordination to the the priesthood. Laymen have nothing to do with clergy eligibility, clergy appointments, nor ordinations of any type. Women cannot even be ordained! Silly!
Women have intuition. Like a spidey-sense. I could always tell when some man was gay and my husband could not.
How often is your gaydar triggered around priests?
More often than not
Canon Law states all the requirements for clergy ordinations. The episcopal ordination is the fullest level of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
I remember trivia of long ago, such as, a man had to have at least three fingers to consecrate validly, and therefore, to be a candidate for the priesthood. So, hopefully, a young war vet interested in becoming a priest, would not have suffered any injuries to his hands, preventing him from entering the seminary! I don’t think any Protestant clergy have those kinds of requirements. Billy Graham got rejected from entering the military chaplaincy, in WWII, because he was underweight. They gave him an extension, to “fatten up”– but next, he came down with a serious case of the mumps! So, it was hopeless!
I don’t think the Catholic Church should clericalize laymen, nor humiliate, “dumb down” and “minimalize” the role of the clergy. The two roles, clergy and laity, should not be confused snd mixed. Each one should do their very best job, for Christ.
Pontifical Academy of Death more like. The “Church of Nice” at it’s finest.