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The Anchor Learning from our mistakes
Last week, our editorial argued that one of the most important lessons pastors of the Church in the United States need to draw from the history of interactions with Senator Ted Kennedy on the sanctity of human life is that a strategy of conscience-education-alone with “personally opposed, publicly pro-choice” Catholic politicians hasn’t worked. The attempt to engage, teach and help persuade such politicians to conversion didn’t succeed with Senator Kennedy and it hasn’t succeeded yet with other pro-choice Catholic legislators. To say that it hasn’t succeeded, however, is really not strong enough. It’s possible, after all, to fail a test with a grade of 59; in such a case a student would be able to take some solace that, while there are some areas in need of improvement, he was close to minimal success. If a student fails a test with close to a zero, on the other hand, he obviously needs to make some radical changes if he ever hopes to succeed. And that is closer to the candid assessment that leaders of the Church need to make relative to the education-alone strategy during the past few decades. Let us take an honest look at the numbers. When we survey the long list of pro-choice Catholic politicians from both parties — Kennedy, Kerry, Giuliani, Schwarzenegger, Daschle, Dodd, Durban, Leahy, Mikulski, Pelosi, Delahunt, Capuano, Markey, McGovern, Meehan, Granholm, Sebelius, Pataki, Richardson, Cellucci, Cuomo, and Biden to name just a handful — is it possible to say that the strategy has worked with any of them? Is it possible to point to even one success story? Another way to assess the results of the education-alone strategy is to measure the direction that pro-choice Catholic politicians have moved over the years. Even if they haven’t experienced a total conversion, have they moved closer toward limiting abortions or toward making abortions easier to access? The facts show that the vast majority of personally opposed, publicly pro-choice Catholic legislators have become far less personally opposed and far more publicly in favor over the duration of the strategy. In the initial years after Roe v. Wade, publicly pro-choice Catholic legislators generally whispered their support for abortion. They displayed a public sense of shame, letting their abortion position out just enough so that it wouldn’t cost them the votes of abortion supporters. That discomfort began to dissipate after Governor Mario Cuomo’s 1984 pro-choice defense at Notre Dame. We’ve now come to a situation when pro-choice Catholic legislators vigorously curry the favor of Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Emily’s List; scores of Catholics in Congress have the chutzpah to co-sponsor the Freedom of Choice Act, which would eliminate almost every abortion restriction ever passed at the federal or state level; and 16 out of 25 Catholic senators vote against conscience protections to prevent their fellow Catholics in the medical field from being forced to participate in abortions and sterilizations. After looking at these facts, it seems clear that the education-alone strategy has failed even to deter many Catholics in Congress from becoming among the most radical supporters, defenders, and would-be public-funders of abortion on Capitol Hill. Why has the education-alone strategy been such a colossal failure? There are several reasons, but one of the most important, and least noted, is that it shares many of the same flawed approaches as the “personally opposed, publicly pro-choice” position it seeks to remedy. Today there are many “personally opposed, publicly pro-choice” Catholic legislators for whom this phrase seems to be just an empty slogan, because they give almost no evidence that they even have any personal opposition toward abortion. At least initially, however, there were some who sincerely held that irreconcilable position. These public figures had a deep personal repugnance for abortion but, for various reasons, were uncomfortable voting in favor of any laws that would prevent others from doing what they themselves maintain they would never personally do. Many hoped that women would not choose to abort their unborn sons or daughters. Some even spoke out on why they thought abortion was wrong and supported educational endeavors to help women in difficult pregnancies learn about fetal development. No matter how much some politicians stressed education in the early days, however, it was trumped by the educational value and power of the law. The law taught forcefully that there was nothing wrong with abortion as long as a mother, and a mother alone, deemed it desirable for her physical or mental health. Even though the politicians held offices in which they could work to change what the law itself teaches about the morality of abortion, they did not exercise them; and even though they professionally were accustomed, in every piece of legislation, to imposing some notion of the good on those who disagree with them, with regard to the issue of abortion they left everything to the judgment, ill-informed or not, of the conscience of the mother. The essence of their position has been that, no matter how wrong they know abortion to be, the mother should have the right to do that wrong — a lethal, permanent wrong to her unborn child. They give the ill-informed conscience of the potential wrongdoer greater weight than the truth about abortion, the life of the unborn child, and the soul and psyche of the soon-to-be-forever-wounded mother combined. When we examine the education-alone approach of pastors with respect to pro-choice politicians, we see that it has basically become a personally opposed, publicly pro-choice position with regard to them. There’s obviously a clear personal repugnance on the part of pastors to the prochoice Catholic politicians’ separation between faith and moral action, schizophrenia between private and public personality, and lip service to the Church’s teachings. Many pastors have sought to exercise their teaching office, stating forthrightly what abortion is and what the responsibilities of all legislators are with respect to it. All of their teaching, however, has been trumped by the weightier educational value of the de facto “law” that has left everything to the conscience, however ill-informed, of the pro-choice Catholic politicians. These men and women have learned over time that, regardless of what canon law says, they are at liberty to ignore the Church’s teachings on life. Even though the U.S. bishops have taught with one voice that pro-choice Catholic legislators should not present themselves to receive holy Communion, if they pay no heed to that teaching and present themselves anyway, they have learned that in practice they will almost never be denied. With Senator Kennedy’s funeral, they have now grasped that even a 100 percent proabortion voting record will not only not prevent them from having a Catholic funeral, but will not even stop them from receiving possibly one of the most public Catholic funerals in U.S. history. The upshot — these smart men and women have concluded — is that the Church’s practice is essentially “pro-choice” with respect to “pro-choice” Catholic politicians. The politicians’ own determination in conscience, erroneous or not, is given greater weight than, combined, the truth proclaimed by the Church, the duty to protect the politicians’ souls from a potentially mortal wound, and the responsibility to do all that is possible according to one’s office to try to stop the killing. The education-alone approach has failed for the same reason that the personally opposed, publicly pro-choice position has led to massive abortion on demand: the nature of sin is that the easier it is to commit, and the fewer the consequences for doing it, the more sin we’ll have. Jesus spoke of a different way in the Gospel (Mt 18:15-18). It involves not merely general educational statements that we hope offenders will apply to themselves in conscience, but the type of one-on-one instruction traditionally called fraternal correction. If that fails, and fails repeatedly, Jesus enjoined us to regard the offender as someone who no longer belongs to the community, who is no longer a member in good standing. This may seem harsh, but we should remember that Jesus always seeks nothing but the best for his Church and for individual sinners, even obstinate sinners. Implied in Jesus’ strategy is that education involves not just information, but formation, and that you can’t form disciples without discipline. This is a lesson that, after four decades of the undeniable failure of another approach, we need to consider anew.
September 11, 2009
Model of an existence made prayer
In a catechesis on July 1, Pope Benedict Later when John was four, and before the declared what is the “first task” and “the terror, he would implore his mother to take true path of sanctification” for a Christian him to Mass each morning. There at Mass, — prayer — and why St. John Vianney is in contrast to kids his age who would genso important not just for priests but for all erally seek to be the center of attention, he of us: “St. John Vianney is undoubtedly a placed his attention on the priest and what model of an existence made prayer.” the priest was doing, to the great edification The Holy Father implies that each of us of adults present. His spirit of prayer would is called to do more than “say” our prayers; grow as he later observed clandestine priests we’re called to become our prayer, by lives up close, either in the secret Masses in area that praise, thank, and petition God and re- barns, or in his own home, where they would quest, receive and share his mercy. The most hide from the revolutionary authorities seekimportant thing in prayer is not what we say, ing to put them to death. but what we are; not what we have on our Once he had reached the age of reason, his lips, but in our hearts. father Matthew decided it was time for him to This is the truth about Christian prayer. start working on the farm. There he learned God the Holy Spirit seeks to transform our how to make his work a prayer. He’d take a way of being so that, as a son or a daugh- small wooden statue of the Blessed Mother ter, we relate to God the Father in Christ the and place her in the hollow of a tree, askSon. St. Augustine taught that qualis ores, ing her to watch over him as he cared for the “how you are when you pray,” is far more sheep or did manual labor harvesting crops. important than quid ores, “what you say When he was alone, he would rejoice that he when you pray.” The subject of prayer is al- could pray out loud. Whether other children ways more important than the object of what accompanied him, he asked them to pray we ask for. The great doctor of the Church with him, often teaching them the prayers becontinued that it is Jesus “who prays for us, forehand. When they wanted to take a nap in in us and by us. He prays for us as our priest, the fields, he would agree, but secretly spend he prays in us as the time prayour master and ing. “I was very he is prayed by happy in my us as our God. father’s house,” Therefore, we he would say as recognize our an adult. “I had voice in him the time to pray and his voice in to God, to medBy Father ourselves.” This itate, to take Roger J. Landry great transforcare of my soul. mation occurs, In the middle St. Paul says, of work in the when “God sent the Spirit of his Son into field, I used to pretend that I was sleeping our hearts crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Gal like the others, but I was praying to God with 4:6). all my heart!” When the farmers in Ars later An “existence made prayer” is God’s told him they didn’t have time to pray, he goal for our life. This is the means by which would reply from personal experience, “One we will be able to carry out St. Paul’s im- cannot say that laborers or workmen do not perative, “Pray always,” (Eph 6:18; 1 Thess have the time to meditate, because they can 5:17), by allowing God to transform our ex- do it so easily while they work.” istence into a constant loving dialogue and Once the situation in France had calmed offering to God. and he was able to enter the seminary, his This is, admittedly, not what many of us life of prayer matured as his dependence on learned in Catholic schools or CCD. The God grew. He made it through seminary only Lord is asking more of us than to recite through prayer. He would pray before the our prayers before we go to bed, or even to tabernacle. He would pray all the decades of make a daily holy hour. He wants us to give the rosary. He would make grueling pilgrimhim permission to help us literally become ages to shrines. Through the crucible of his a prayer. struggles, God helped him acquired a total This is why the example of St. John Vian- confidence in prayer. He also learned from ney, a “model of an existence made prayer,” the example of his mentor, Father Charles is so important and timely. Pope Benedict Balley, how to pray with his body through said in his June letter to priests that the corporal mortification. Curé of Ars taught his parishioners about Once he arrived in Ars, he gave immediprayer “primarily by the witness of his life. ate witness to how prayer was the real susteIt was from his example that they learned nance of his life. The residents immediately to pray.” His great triumph in Ars was that, observed that he did not merely “say” the even though very few of the residents of Mass, but “prayed” it. The night owls saw Ars prayed at home or in church when he that he spent nearly all night praying in arrived, by the time he died, many were ex- church with tears before the tabernacle, begcelling in the life of prayer thanks to his wit- ging for the conversion of his parish. They ness and instruction. Pope Benedict hopes saw him pray his breviary on his knees, and that the Curé of Ars’ example can have a with what love and conviction he glanced similar impact on us. at the tabernacle door. When the crowds of John Vianney learned how to pray at a penitents pressed upon him, he abbreviated very early age from his mother. She talked his morning holy hour, but always took some to him constantly about Jesus, Mary, and his point of meditation with him into the confesguardian angel. When he was a little older, sional to pray about throughout the day. she helped him learn not just the words of His one great desire, he told them, was to the Our Father and Hail Mary but how to be able to lay down the yoke of parish duties say those words with love to God and to the so that he could run to a monastery and have Blessed Mother. He would stay up at night more time to pray. He thought such prayer attentively listening to his mother read Bible would help him “love the good God very stories, learning about how so many heroic much.” He never really got his wish. But befigures said “thy will be done” to God not cause he learned to turn his entire existence just with lips but with lives. into a prayer, he grew in the love of God unMany young children learn how to pray til the love of God came to take him to the grace, but the future saint took it more seri- monastery in heaven. ously than most. One busy day, Marie Vian“Without prayer,” he said often to his paney hastily placed a meal before her infam- rishioners, “life wouldn’t be supportable!” ished son before turning to other tasks. She Prayer supported his life and is meant by returned about 15 minutes later and observed God to sustain ours. That is why Pope Benethat John hadn’t touched the food. When she dict says that prayer is the path to santificaasked him why he hadn’t, the infant put his tion. hand to his forehead and waited for her to Father Landry is pastor of St. Anthony begin the Sign of the Cross. of Padua Parish in New Bedford.
Putting Into the Deep