Richard Kerley, of whose descent into schizophrenia and tragic death as a vagrant I recently told on this site, back in the late 1970s when abortion was still generally abhorred and abortionists were still occasionally prosecuted, made a very telling point. I remember the scene clearly: he was leaning on the piano in our living room. He observed that the greater the number of women who have (elective) abortions, the more demand there will be that abortion be legalized, because these women will only be able to dull their irrepressible sense of the evil they have done by demanding social assurance that it was OK. One can extend the point and say that the greater the number of mothers, husbands, and sisters there will also be who demand social assurance that abortion is OK, because of their wish to feel assured that their loved ones acted defensibly.
This same related-party wishfulness has been a strong factor in compounding the support for every type of sex-related evil which has become publicly respectable since Vatican II and Woodstock, from fornication to homosexual “marriage”. I recall a friend telling in the 1970s of her experiences when trying to present the Church’s teachings on marriage to a school religious education class here in Canberra. The response was aggressive hostility from some (Catholic) girls: “My older sister/brother is living with her/his boyfriend/girlfriend because they are not yet ready to get married. Are you trying to say that she/he is in mortal sin?” “My older sister/brother and her husband/wife are practising contraception because they can’t yet afford to have a baby. Are you trying to say that she/he is in mortal sin?”
A few days ago I circulated by email my above account of Richard Kerley’s observation, in relation to an excellent article on abortion, “The Deed that Dare Not Speak Its Name”, in the Spectator (U.K.) of 11 May by Dr David Daintree, who recently retired as President of Campion College in Sydney, an orthodox Catholic liberal arts college. Dr Daintree himself replied with the following pertinent remark:
“I recall a meeting with the headmaster of the very evangelical St Andrew’s Cathedral School [Sydney], who told me that the day after he preached against abortion he was deluged by complaints from parents, all of whom (he knew or suspected) were mothers or aunts or what have you of young women who had had abortions. He said too that it was a very middle-class thing. My daughter is a GP [medical practitioner] in a working class area: none of the women there, she says, countenance abortion.”
Great point — pity about your gratuitous swipe at Vatican II, which rather shoots ourselves in the foot.
Spot on article. I am reading Pope Paul VI Beatified?
by Fr. Luigi Villa Th.D. You want to find out why Vatican II was such a disaster, read his book. Then
read Mother Mariana, Our Lady of Good Success.
By the way, you are right on.
What an insight. Isn’t “Aggressive hostility” and Catholic Christian an oxymoron? Everything went off track in the 60’s.
Pope Francis just said: “the problem isn’t that we are sinners, it’s that we are not ashamed of what we have done.” Shame and humility went out the window in the 60’s also.
Abortion is a single act involving at least two people, the doctor who performs the abortion and the woman who does not want to have her baby come to full term.
This is a joint sin of premeditated murder, that is that both parties know the act of abortion will cause a death.
The American laws do not view abortion as crime because the sense of justice for all has been water down to be justice to those who want to feel the act of abortion is acceptable in society, and therefore cannot be held accountable of the crime of murder.
And yet, in the time of Jesus, the punishment for stealing was death on the cross. Jesus, who by his preaching and telling the truth had cause those Jews of the law who were narrow-minded and plotted to kill the truth.
Is it not what we do to day. We do not want to hear the truth of morality and want our law makers to make it legal to mute our guilt.
Our free society has become a very sinful society with respect to moral way of life. How do upright moral people change the ways of society to conform to the laws of God. Only God himself can change the hearts of sinners. In the meantime we must pray for all our brothers and sisters that they may see the moral errors and change to conform to God’s law.
Fr Hugh he is just stating facts. Was it a swipe at Woodstock too? Grow some thicker skin. Facts are facts.
Vatican II and Woodstock? Come now. Surely the vast array of pagan beliefs and practices which afflict the modern world must predate Woodstock, which was merely a symbolic celebration of a culture already become demonic. And to mention Woodstock in the same breath as Vatican II seems dismissive of the teaching role of the Church. Truth may, or may not, lead people to God, depending on individual circumstances, but the Truth of Catholicism–and we know there is room for conflicting interpretations of Vatican II–is the world’s salvation. It is the solution, not the problem.
Most inciteful. This would explain, not condone, the rather large number of Catholics that support these social evils. They choose the wrong *good* in thinking they are being supportive of those others, whom they *love* (not) who in turn chose the wrong*good*. Martin Luther King wrote from prison about something like this in his *single garment of destiny*: “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, an inescapable network of mutuality. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the say God’s universe is made.”service
Couldn’t agree more. That’s why many agressively dont want to hear about it-because they know deep in their hearts it is what church says it is-an ‘unspeakable crime’.
Moreover as the lady who runs Rachel’ Vineyard’ has said the pain, the shame leads many to multiple abortions. I know the pychology-She think I have killed my son/daughter so you cannot live either it wouldn’t be fair.
The turmoil and hurt is overwhelming-there was a woman who said she was constantly on the point of passing out.
We need to pray for post-abortive women constantly.
Yes, an excellent point. But, regarding the Vatican II comment, one must hope that Mr. Jory assumed we knew he was implying the following: “which has become publicly acceptable since the advent of the numerous devious misinterpretations of Vatican II; those calculated deviations by the liberal clergy who promulgated them in the guise of the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’…”
This is a brilliant observation. It gets to the core of why people clamor to have laws protecting immoral activity. In fact, I would say that this is the main and primary motivation behind all anti-family and anti-life laws. There is no grand conspiracy to bring in a secular/post-Christian world. It all stems from the fact that people choose evil acts and develop vices, and then want to remake the world so that they don’t feel guilt and don’t have to face the reality that they have sinned.
Colin,
I can no longer make posts or comments on the Ink Desk, so I don’t know that this will come through, but the impulse to respond here is irresistible, so I have to try.
This topic is broader and deeper than bears thinking about; worse, its tentacles reach BEYOND the consequences you mention and extend into denial of religious freedom by the same social devices with which it has gained social acceptance. It is what happens when the distinction between sin and sinner is erased. That erasure happens when the anonymous becomes personal and known by association, affection, and personal experience, and the effects are compounded by lack of catechesis. It’s how unthinkable sin is transformed via social acceptance into law and into mandatory participation, including those who still think it is “mortal sin.”
I’ve written on this before. Catholic doctors, pharmacists, nurses, are forced to participate in infanticide–and priests will be forced to perform homosexual marriages–as an issue of civil rights.
Don’t know if this will come through, but it was worth a try.
My own gut feeling for a long time now is that the legalized killing of the preborn unborn in oh-so-pristine settings of the spotless abortion clinic / “hospital” will be the final undoing of what is left of the Judeo-Christian west unless it can be stopped. I live in California, one of the two major abortion killing centers of the U.S., (the other being New York City) and because state government in California is basically dominated by the TRULY DEMONIC Democratic Party, as is the case in New York, it will probably take a MIRACLE for such reprehensibility promoted and ferociously and assiduously defended by said demonratic party to be stopped. We live in strange and apocalyptic times (actually, when was that ever NOT the case?), so we need to STORM heaven with prayer and sacrifice, especially to Our Glorious Virgin Mary, and then perhaps the miracle may take place. MAY GOD BLESS AND PROTECT ALL, MARKRITE
In the words of Bob Dylan: I pity the poor immigrant (bourgeoisie) when his gladness comes to pass.
All the more reason that God’s Mercy must be proclaimed and extolled.
We seem to have slipped into the fuzzy thinking that people are good people or bad people, and that they stay that way. In a culture that focuses so much on image and “branding”, it is exacerbated. The real truth must be shown, somehow. Groups like Silent No More will be at the forefront of this.
Sinners want others to sin too so that they do not look so bad. See, “everyone” is doing it.
Lets make such and such a sin legal and if it is legal than it must now be okay, right?