On Respect Life Sunday:
an issue defining these times

As election time draws near, the Church’s teaching on issues that are not only political but also moral takes on prominence in public debate and in the inner dialogue called formation of conscience. Since Christ came that we might have life and have it ever more abundantly (John 3:17), the Gospel speaks to issues of life and death: the protection of life from conception to natural death, the transmission of life through the gift of a man and woman to one another in marriage, and the conditions of life in a truly just society. All these issues are moral; many of them are also political, debated among us as citizens and shaped by laws that command our conduct.

Where civil law and Gospel morality intersect, the Church speaks. If she does not, she betrays the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How and where to speak, however, color what is said. In this country, the informal consensus among the bishops is that we speak only to the issues and avoid, except in extreme circumstances, speaking about political personalities. One reason for this, I believe, is because we should presuppose good will on the part of public officeholders and candidates. If a person did not have some sense of responsibility for the common good and some generosity and concern for others, most probably he or she would never have entered public life. The vocation of public officials should be respected, along with those who serve us in that role. Public persons however, are accountable for their actions; and criticizing their decisions and actions which are opposed to the Gospel is part of the Church’s addressing the issues of our times.

Where we speak, especially in election times, also influences what people hear. Personally, I try to avoid giving homilies that sound like commentaries on the day’s news. The Mass is an act of worship which strengthens our hope of salvation in Jesus Christ by making his self-sacrifice on the cross sacramentally present. It is Christ we preach, crucified and risen from the dead. To bring into a homily the too-frequent tawdriness of our political life imposes a context on the Mass which can weaken people’s hope. Moral issues must be addressed, including those moral issues which become part of our political life, but the way to do this must respect the nature of a homily within the liturgy. The homily is more catechesis on the mysteries of faith than conference. It is never an occasion for a priest to grandstand. Besides the homily at Mass, there are occasional conferences and talks, articles and columns such as this, interviews and other moments when a bishop can speak to the issues that define our times morally.

For 30 years, our refusal to protect unborn human beings has defined public discussion in this country. Cardinal Bernardin taught a consistent ethic of life in which abortion policy became the keystone for approaching a complex of issues surrounding human life. In 1988, he said: “I know that some people... have used the consistent ethic to give the impression that the abortion issue is not all that important anymore, that you should be against abortion in a general way but that there are more important issues, so don’t hold anybody’s feet to the fire just on abortion. That’s a misuse of the consistent ethic, and I deplore it.”

Most recently, President Clinton's veto of a bill to prevent infants from being killed while they are struggling to be born was sustained in the U.S. Senate. When Mr. Clinton first vetoed this bill in 1996, Cardinal Bernardin wrote: “As a matter of principle and as a pastor and citizen, I am deeply offended and bewildered by President Clinton’s veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. There is no justification--medically, legally or morally--for allowing such an abhorrent procedure to be performed on any member of the human family. We must ensure that our elected officials, including the President of the United States, will protect the lives of the vulnerable, most especially the unborn. It is not enough to say that one is opposed to abortion or to say that abortion should be ‘safe, legal and rare.’ One's actions must be consistent with one’s words. I regret to say that while I and my brother bishops are consistent, the President is not.”

In fact, it seems to me that the President has been consistent in a morally perverse way. From the moment of his election, Mr. Clinton has worked tirelessly to strip all legal protection from unborn children; and his entire administration has worked endlessly, especially through manipulation of United Nations conferences and through conditions placed on our foreign aid, to force our nation’s corrupt abortion policy on the entire world.

As elections draw near, Catholics must judge issues and political positions and politicians themselves in the light of the Gospel of life. It is morally impossible to play off a mother’s and father’s freedom against the death of their child. Laws which permit our doing just that are immoral and have no binding force. Catholic officeholders, while bound by the law, are also uniquely placed to work to change it. If they do not work to change immoral laws, they are objectively in bad conscience, no matter their subjective sincerity.

Just as the Church speaks clearly on moral principles and political policy, so does she speak gently to any mother whose child has been aborted. Very often, a woman will choose abortion because she feels she has no choice at all; she is trapped. The forgiveness offered to all in the sacrament of penance, the many counseling services provided by courageous and loving people of faith, the help offered through Catholic Charities and other agencies to pregnant women, the agencies which make adoption possible all bear witness to a desire not to condemn anyone but to protect and nurture human life as a loving God directs. Both the teaching and the record are clear.

Cardinal Bernardin tried to influence our nation’s political leaders to protect human life; he was unsuccessful during his lifetime. Recently, I tried to influence our state’s two U.S. Senators, both professed Catholics, to overturn President Clinton's veto of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. I was also unsuccessful. Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said: “The Lord does not ask us to succeed; he asks only that we be faithful.” All Catholics are to be faithful to the Gospel of life; this is a defining issue of our times.

The Church and the world are now scrutinizing the actions of Pope Pius XII and other pastors of 50 years ago to judge their effectiveness in combating the horrors of the Nazi regime. Those horrors were not always evident to citizens in Nazi Germany. People went about their daily lives, working and playing, talking and praying, learning and loving. Yet they lived surrounded by horror, all of it legal. Today, we discuss in papers and on TV and radio the well being of "children" while our country is awash in the blood of babies killed in their mother's womb. I believe that fifty years from now, when the inner contradictions of our national policy governing life and death have been resolved in either a change of our laws or the destruction of our nation, people will look back and ask if the Church taught clearly about abortion. The Church has; now it is for Catholics to act consistently according to their faith.

Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Chicago

Top