As I have written before, the pro-abortion crowd is more and more basing its support of abortion not on the claim that the fetus is not yet a human being (more advanced prenatal technology has given the lie to that), but on the uglier but more honest assertion that not all human beings have the right to live.
In 1855 Orestes Brownson explains how, since Calvinists teach the utter depravity of nature, from this follows the conclusion that only the elect have rights; those not in a state of grace can be dispossessed or treated with contempt – which is how all Calvinist societies have operated.
Calvinism begins by denying all natural rights, nullifying nature, and therefore all natural liberty, and asserts rights for the elect only.
… writes Brownson.
For the “elect” substitute “those in power” and you have the Calvinism of today.
Our modern nihilists are simply Calvinists in Calvin Klein jeans.
For the moderns, since life has no meaning, man has no dignity. It is the Catholic Church that insists upon the dignity of man, made in the image and likeness of God, whether in the womb or out of it – and insists upon the meaning of life.
By contrast, the modern Calvinists – the narcissistic nihilists around us – see rights as being the result of power only. If you enough power to have a solid claim to life, you have a right to keep it; if you don’t, or if you prove useless to someone who has more power than you, you have no rights.
A little interesting fact on Orestes Brownson.
“Deep in the heartland of Indiana, nestled below the main altar of Sacred Heart Basilica on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, there lies a crypt housing a small altar, a few pews, a baptismal font, and the tomb of Orestes Brownson, one of the most interesting Catholic writers in American history.
This writer was baptized at that font many years ago, so the name of Orestes Brownson has long been at home in my memory.”
“And he said: Amen I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in his own country.”
I think this is the case because the prophet is the only one to see the corruption that is occurring around them. Everyone else is too blind to see.
It is easier for an outsider to see the cancer while the person who has the cancer is in self-denial.