Culture Wars between the Abortion Lines

The time since the overturning of the Roe v Wade decision by the Supreme Court of the United States has provided an opportunity for more subtle and nuanced opinions to surface in contrast to the polarized and single focus arguments of culture war politics.

Christopher White reports that theologians and Vatican officials told the National Catholic Reporter that the differences between American and Vatican responses to the high court's June 24 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization reflect different approaches to how Catholic leaders navigate one of the thorniest policy matters in public life today.

Kim Daniels, co-director of Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, and a member of the Vatican's Dicastery for Communications,  said the Vatican's response to the Dobbs decision "tracks Pope Francis’ approach throughout his pontificate."

the pope's approach includes "reinforcing that all human beings have an inviolable dignity, including unborn children; resisting ideological blinders by recognizing that issues of life and human dignity are all interconnected; and calling for solidarity with the vulnerable, including public policies that promote social and material support for women and children in need."

"Pope Francis’ approach," "offers a model for how Catholic and other pro-life leaders can rise to the challenge: by moving past politics as usual, witnessing to a consistent ethic of life, and making solidarity with women and children in need a defining priority." (White, 2022)

Therese Lysaught, a professor at the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at Loyola University Chicago and a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that U.S. bishops' conference statement in response to Dobbs reflected the way life issues were approached under Pope John Paul II, rather than Francis. She said that John Paul's 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae "advances a deeply polarized ideology of the 'culture of death' against which Catholics must fight by obeying the moral law or, better, changing the civil law."

"Although John Paul II wrote important social encyclicals, 'life' issues remained siloed from 'social' issues under his pontificate and were reduced to a few topics — almost exclusively abortion, euthanasia, and issues related to sexuality — framed almost entirely in the language of commandments, laws and absolutes," 

"Pope Francis' tone has been very different," 

"He has tried to redirect the church’s attention from an obsessive focus on law," she observed, and "has consistently shown how the distinction between 'life' issues and 'social' issues is a false distinction."(White, 2022)

Similarly, Lysaught said that under Francis, the church is seeking to be a "healing presence amidst the messy realities of the world" rather than engaging polarizing issues as part of a culture war.

In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, Lysaught said, statements coming from Vatican officials "strike a tone of carefulness and prudence regarding the ambiguities and complexities of the issue" of abortion. She said they "reiterate Pope Francis’ clear and consistent statements on the morality of abortion while situating it within a broader spectrum of life issues, emphasizing the need for fundamental socioeconomic changes, and foregrounding the need for dialogue aimed at social healing."

Lysaught characterized the U.S. bishops' statement after the Dobbs decision as treating those wider commitments as an "afterthought … buried in one sentence in the penultimate paragraph."

"The [bishops'] statement triumphs the victory of one side of an ideologically polarized issue, continuing that polarization," she added, saying that after a decade of the Francis papacy, many U.S. church leaders have failed to embrace his vision.(White, 2022)

The attempt to “fight” an argument in the culture wars so often hides opportunities for positive co-operation on addressing the many social issues impacting women, prisoners, immigrants, elderly, and the economically disadvantaged.

References

White, C. (2022, July 12). Reading between the lines of Vatican response to Supreme Court overturning Roe. National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/reading-between-lines-vatican-response-supreme-court-overturning-roe 

Challenge of a catholic Church

 

The conflict between the supporters of Donald Trump and the elected members of the US Congress reached a peak on Jan 6 that increased concern among Christians about the role of Church members in divisive political action.

"catholic" Church from left to right

 

A specialist in American Christianity and historical theology, Dr. Stephen Nichols combines a passion for church history with a love for the Reformed tradition as he presents a history of the Apostle’s Creed on the website 5 Minutes in Church History.

 

Each phrase of the creed opens up for us multiple passages of Scripture and multiple theological themes and ideas. But the phrases at the end of the Creed are particularly worth pondering: “I believe in the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.” Think about each one of those phrases and its impact on how we live. Think about the perspective on life that those phrases give us. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own moment, in our own day, and get caught up in the pressures and not realize that there is the life to come. As we think about our own church communities, relational struggles, issues at work, and those sorts of things that can fester, it is good to think about what it means to speak of the forgiveness of sins. And then we’re reminded of the life everlasting. And this creed that reminds us is a great gift from the early church.1

  The United Methodist Church offers Traditional and Ecumenical Versions of the Apostle’s Creed.

 

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord;

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, dead, and buried;*

the third day he rose from the dead;

he ascended into heaven,

and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic** church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,and the life everlasting. Amen.2

Rebecca Bratten Weiss writing in the National Catholic Reporter claims Bishop Robert Barron’s 'beige Catholicism' erases years of racial, and social justice activism. It is not enough simply to decry ideological battles as vitriolic or uncivil. We need to see that often these battles are between those who are advancing agendas of hatred and violence, and those who are upholding justice. Far-right Catholics are not simply problematic due to their rejection of papal authority; they are dangerous, because they have traded fidelity to the pope for a license to violence and bigotry.

 

And the ones who are doing the most, risking the most, to oppose this anti-Christ agenda are not the moderates who avoid taking a strong stand against bigotry. The Catholics on the frontlines are the ones who would probably be labeled liberal, modernist or progressive. Are these the "beige" Catholics? Or would that term be better reserved for Catholics who take a polite middle ground where they'll rarely have to see injustice, let alone confront it?3

Bishop Robert Barron writes that Word on Fire represents a “No” to both beige and self-devouring Catholicism.

 It wants neither to surrender to the culture nor to demonize it, but rather, in the spirit of St. John Henry Newman, to engage it, resisting what it must and assimilating what it can, being, as St. Paul put it, “all things to all people . . . for the sake of the Gospel” (1 Cor. 9:22–23). Against self-devouring Catholicism, it is intellectually generous, but against beige Catholicism, it desires to make all thoughts finally captive to Christ. Against the angry denizens of the Catholic right, it seeks not to condemn but to invite; against the representatives of the too-complacent Catholic left, it sees evangelization as the centrally important work of the Church.4

The Pillar is a Catholic media project focused on smart, faithful, and serious journalism, from committed and informed Catholics who love the Church. The focus is on investigative journalism. Presenting stories that matter can help the Church to better serve its sacred mission, the salvation of souls. Before co-founding The Pillar, JD Flynn was editor-in-chief of Catholic News Agency. Ed Condon worked as the DC editor of the Catholic News Agency and was an associate editor of the Catholic Herald. His journalistic work has appeared in publications including the Washington Post, National Review, the Washington Examiner, the Spectator, the Bulwark, First Things, as well as several academic and legal journals.

 

JD is a member of the College of Fellows at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, has served a consultor to the USCCB, and is published in the Washington Post, the New York Post, First Things, The Lamp, National Review, and in various Catholic publications. Before co-founding The Pillar, Ed Condon worked as the DC editor of the Catholic News Agency and was an associate editor of the Catholic Herald. His journalistic work has appeared in publications including the Washington Post, National Review, the Washington Examiner, the Spectator, the Bulwark, First Things, as well as several academic and legal journals. Ed is also a practicing canon lawyer, having worked in dioceses across three continents and the Holy See. Previously he spent nearly ten years working in professional politics in the United Kingdom.5

In accord with its goal to provide Catholic news free of charge, CNA and ACI Prensa are funded, almost entirely, by gifts from our readers and benefactors. 

Catholic News Agency is an apostolate of EWTN News.6

G.K. Chesterton, the great essayist and creator of the fictional detective Father Brown, described the Catholic Herald as the only newspaper he trusted. It claims to be the gold standard of Catholic news, analysis, and culture writing since the 19th century.

 

The Catholic Herald is one of the world’s oldest and most trusted Catholic publications. Founded in London in 1888 — yes, the same year as the Jack the Ripper murders — we have a storied background and over 130 years of wisdom that we bring to covering the Church today.7

The Economist writes in the article, Two Nations under God, that Evangelicals are divided over the movement’s support for Donald Trump. The slow death of a culture can, however, lead to resurrection. In Oregon a group of Christian ngos has sprung up, whose founders are theologically evangelical and socially conservative but have no links to politically conservative evangelicalism. The left-leaning state government is working enthusiastically with them. Ben Sand runs a group called Every Child, which mobilises communities to work with Oregon’s Department for Human Services.

 

“Evangelicals look at Oregon and say this is where God goes to die,” says Mr Sand. But having no cultural power can be helpful to the spiritual message, he says. “The best thing for the evangelical movement is for it to lose its cultural influence, because only in that context of humility, of going back to what matters most in the ethics of Jesus, will the church find its soul again.” The detachment of faith from right-wing politics appeals to Fariborz Pakseresht, director of the state’s dhs: “Perhaps this is what true Christianity looks like.” Mr Sand says evangelicals need a more biblical definition of Christian victory, one that is not political. He and many of his millennial friends voted Democrat and he says that does not define them. Millennial evangelicals are no less socially conservative but many are less political. They are more racially diverse, care more about racial justice, immigration and climate change. The old battlegrounds such as gay marriage interest them less. “We lost the culture wars. I’m not fighting for a power I never had,” says John Mark Comer, an influential young pastor in Portland.8

Shadi Hamid, contributing writer at The Atlantic, comments that as religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen. He asks if the quest for secular redemption through politics will doom the American ideal. Though the United States wasn’t founded as a Christian nation, Christianity was always intertwined with America’s self-definition. Without it, Americans, conservatives and liberals alike, may no longer have a common culture upon which to fall back.

 Unfortunately, the various strains of wokeism on the left and Trumpism on the right cannot truly fill the spiritual void—what the journalist Murtaza Hussain calls America’s “God-shaped hole.” Religion, in part, is about distancing yourself from the temporal world, with all its imperfection. At its best, religion confers relief by withholding final judgments until another time—perhaps until eternity. The new secular religions unleash dissatisfaction not toward the possibilities of divine grace or justice but toward one’s fellow citizens, who become embodiments of sin—“deplorables” or “enemies of the state.” This is the danger in transforming mundane political debates into metaphysical questions. Political questions are not metaphysical; they are of this world and this world alone. “Some days are for dealing with your insurance documents or fighting in the mud with your political opponents,” the political philosopher Samuel Kimbriel recently told me, “but there are also days for solemnity, or fasting, or worship, or feasting—things that remind us that the world is bigger than itself.”9

The motto “WWJD” (What would Jesus Do?) was taken to the pulpit by Congregational church minister Charles Monroe Sheldon in the 1890s. It is time for Christianity to ponder this question as we seek to help a world of inequality, racial injustice, political conflict, and environmental upheaval.

 

References

1	(2015, July 8). The Apostles' Creed | 5 Minutes in Church History. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/the-apostles-creed/
2	(2014, April 17). Apostles' Creed: Traditional and Ecumenical Versions | The United .... Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.umc.org/en/content/apostles-creed-traditional-ecumenical
3	(n.d.). Barron's 'beige Catholicism' erases years of racial, social justice .... Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/barrons-beige-catholicism-erases-years-racial-social-justice-activism
4	(2021, March 2). The Evangelical Path of Word on Fire - Word on Fire. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/the-evangelical-path-of-word-on-fire/30079/
5	(n.d.). The Pillar. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://www.pillarcatholic.com/about
6	About Us :: Catholic News Agency (CNA). Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/about.php
7	(n.d.). About The Catholic Herald - Catholic Herald. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://catholicherald.co.uk/about/
8	(2021, March 5). Two nations under God - Evangelicals are divided over the .... Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/03/06/evangelicals-are-divided-over-the-movements-support-for-donald-trump
9	(2021, March 10). How Politics Replaced Religion in America - The Atlantic. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america-politics-religion/618072/

 

Support for LGBTQ youth

 Support for The Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to explicitly prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in the United States Congress is coming more from Democrats than Republicans.

A place for all

 

Different assessments of the legislation exist  among Catholic bishops and theologians. Joshua J. McElwee reports Pope Francis' famous remarks in a 2013 press conference "Who am I to judge?" were discussed in an interview of the Pope in July 2015, by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli. Francis' reply appears in his book “The Name of God is Mercy.”

 

"On that occasion I said this: If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?" the pope says. "I was paraphrasing by heart the Catechism of the Catholic Church where it says that these people should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized." "I am glad that we are talking about 'homosexual people' because before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity," he continues. "And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love."1

In April 2019, John Gehring asked why were the Bishops so quick to oppose LGBTQ Protections when congressional Democrats introduced The Equality Act? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly opposed the measure. In a letter to Congress, the chairmen of three USCCB committees denounced the proposed bill, claiming that “rather than offering meaningful protections for individuals,” it “would impose sweeping regulations to the detriment of society as a whole.”

 Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia professor and scholar of religious-liberty law, thinks we have reached a stalemate in trying to strike a balance between respect for religious freedom and LGBTQ equality. Religious institutions that see a threat to their conscience rights and LGBTQ advocacy groups have become “deeply intolerant and have no respect for the rights of the other side,” Laycock says. “Both sides are dug in.” The Catholic Church and other religious institutions that hold traditional beliefs about marriage and sexuality are facing what Laycock calls “unprecedented demands” to provide birth control and other services. “There is no precedent in American history for asking our largest religious groups to violate central tenets of their faith,” Laycock says. At the same time, he notes, religious individuals and faith-based institutions have often overreached in making religious-liberty claims. A reasonable accommodation of religious-conscience concerns in a diverse public square, Laycock argues, is different from an absolutist understanding of religious liberty that has no limits. He says that so-called First Amendment Defense Acts pushed by conservative lawmakers go too far in “creating a total carve out” for religious exemptions, even when the government fails to articulate a compelling interest. He sees the opposite problem with the Equality Act: a lack of any accommodations for religious groups. “The demand for religious exemptions is proper, and there are none in this bill,” he says. But Lisa Fullam, a professor of moral theology in the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University, argues those religious exemptions are at the heart of the problem. “The bishops seem to want to carve out space for Catholic institutions to practice exactly the kind of discrimination the Catechism forbids, and use shaky justifications to that end,” Fullam says. “It would seem obvious that the bishops would support this legislation since the Catechism explicitly rejects any form of ‘unjust discrimination’ against LGBT people.”2

In Louisville, Kentucky, women religious have signed on to a bishops’ statement supporting LGBTQ youth. Six women religious communities and a federation of congregations of women religious have added their support to a statement signed by bishops supporting LGBTQ youth. In January, "God Is on Your Side: A Statement from Catholic Bishops on Protecting LGBT Youth" was released on the website of the Tyler Clementi Foundation, a group that fights anti-LGBTQ bullying in schools and faith communities. Ten bishops, an archbishop and a cardinal have signed the statement as of Feb. 12. The staff at the schools sponsored by the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Kentucky, wanted to start an outreach program for LGBTQ students at the high school and asked the sisters if they had a statement in support.

 

"While we had general statements in support of all life, we did not have a specific statement," Ursuline Sr. Jean Anne Zappa, president of the community, wrote in a statement to Global Sisters Report. "We thought it was important to help those students and wanted to support the staff pastorally." The congregation's communications director, Kathy Williams, was aware of the "God Is on Your Side" effort, so the sisters crafted a statement in support. "We respect the intrinsic dignity of all human life, including the lives of LGBT youth, who face many challenges, including bullying, harassment and violence, as well as being at higher risk for suicide," the Ursulines' statement reads. "As followers of Christ, we are called to welcome and defend those on the margins, especially those whom society rejects. ... LGBT youth are children of God, created by God and loved by God. We stand in solidarity with them."3

The conviction of Pope Francis that God is mercy resonates with our experience of Love that is unconditional and calls us to protect the well being and the dignity of all especially the marginalized and persecuted.

 

References

 

1	(2016, January 10). Francis explains 'who am I to judge?' | National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/francis-explains-who-am-i-judge
2	(2019, April 8). The Wrong Message | Commonweal Magazine. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/wrong-message
3	(2021, February 12). Women religious sign on to bishops' statement supporting LGBTQ .... Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/news/news/women-religious-sign-bishops-statement-supporting-lgbtq-youth

 

Cooperation and Culture Wars

 

The inauguration of the 46th President of the United States and the second Catholic to be elected to that position has also highlighted tension within the US Catholic Church between liberal and conservative bishops on how to advance a consistent ethic of life emphasis to shape political policy.

 

The road of the culture wars

 

  A recent editorial in the National Catholic Reporter expressed the opinion that it is time for the Vatican to investigate the US bishops' conference. It is time for Pope Francis to order an apostolic visitation to investigate what has gone wrong with an organization that began during World War I as a model of cooperation and national audacity and is now a symbol of division and national embarrassment.

On Jan. 20, when the nation inaugurated Joseph Biden as the 46th president, the same Archbishop Jose Gomez issued a 1,250-word statement. After dispensing with congratulatory remarks, it promised there will be areas of "strong opposition" from the bishops toward the Biden administration. It then identified at least six issues of disagreement, expounding on them at length. If the intention was to somehow shame the country's second Catholic president for his political positions, it is perhaps a consolation that the shaming didn't quite hit the intended target. Instead, thanks to an unprecedented public rebuke by Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, Gomez was outed as bypassing normal conference procedures and not having given other prelates time to review his message to Biden. "Ill-considered," Cupich called Gomez's statement. A fit summary for the entire misbegotten operation of the U.S. bishops' conference.1 

The Tyler Clementi Foundation has published a statement from some Catholic Bishops in the United States on protecting LGBT Youth. They place the statement in accord with the Gospels, that show Jesus Christ taught love, mercy and welcome for all people, especially for those who felt persecuted or marginalized in any way. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that LGBT people are to be treated with “respect, compassion and sensitivity.”

 

All people of goodwill should help, support, and defend LGBT youth; who attempt suicide at much higher rates than their straight counterparts; who are often homeless because of families who reject them; who are rejected, bullied and harassed; and who are the target of violent acts at alarming rates. The Catholic Church values the God-given dignity of all human life and we take this opportunity to say to our LGBT friends, especially young people, that we stand with you and oppose any form of violence, bullying or harassment directed at you. Most of all, know that God created you, God loves you and God is on your side.2

Madeleine Davison reports in the National Catholic Reporter that Catholic Bishops have signed dueling statements on LGBTQ people.

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of the Catholic LGBTQ advocacy organization DignityUSA, was pleased that a group of Catholic bishops were willing to sign the statement. "Given that this statement asks for nothing more than human dignity, I would hope that more bishops would add their names," she said... In order to fully support LGBTQ youth, she said, church leaders must attend to the youth's "need not to hear themselves preached about in negative terms, need to not be excluded from Catholic education programs, [and the] need for parents to feel that they can love and support their kids just as they are." The other statement, released Jan. 22 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, expresses "concerns" with President Joe Biden's decision to extend existing federal protections against sex discrimination to include LGBTQ people.3 

Fran Ferder, a Franciscan sister and a clinical psychologist, and Fr. John Heagle, chair of the Gospel Nonviolence Working Group for AUSCP (the Association of United States Catholic Priests), offer a psychological analysis, in the National Catholic Reporter of the president and his supporters who conned Catholics to the extent that nearly 57% of white Catholics voted for Trump in this last election.

The Second Vatican Council ended more than 50 years ago, but the institutional church in the U.S. has failed to create a communication network to implement its vision and practice. Instead, the bishops have, by the failure of initiative and imagination, allowed EWTN to become the voice of Catholicism. The worldwide reach of EWTN evolved from pre-Vatican II traditional piety to advocating for right-wing partisan politics. EWTN anchor Raymond Arroyo is a frequent guest on Laura Ingram's Fox News program. Is this really how the church intends to evangelize our culture?… Despite their polite rhetoric, the U.S. bishops, as a group, have not affirmed the prophetic vision and pastoral practice of Francis. If anything, they have passively resisted it and, at times, actively rejected it. This, in turn, has given encouragement for right-wing Catholic movements to become more vocal in their opposition to Francis. Timothy Busch, the Napa Institute, the Knights of Columbus, William Barr, Steve Bannon and the Federalist Society now lead the lay resistance to Francis and the opposition to finishing the work of Vatican II.4 

In the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters offers the opinion that on abortion, both Biden and the pro-life movement lack moral consistency. His view is that principles of all kinds, including those drawn from our religious beliefs, must be applied to concrete political and legal circumstances with prudence. We all choose some elements from our patrimony and not others. It is complicated, and different issues require greater or lesser degrees of morally acceptable policy alternatives.

The leaders of the movement do not see this because they are too busy walking to the bank. As my colleague Tom Roberts recently noted: Tens of millions of dollars, in some cases hundreds of millions, annually pour into organizations, extreme left and extreme right, intent on maintaining their pro-abortion and pro-life positions without compromise. What exists is the equivalent of a far-flung and deeply funded industry — the lobbying organizations themselves and the attendant universe of lobbyists for hire, consultants, advertising specialists, pollsters and digital specialists that make up the infrastructure for the endless war. Something in the culture will need to change before attitudes change, and attitudes need to change before the politics will change. I have no idea what that cultural change will be. As I noted in June, I used to think American society would rediscover its need for solidarity if we faced a horrible and indiscriminate threat, "something like a pandemic." Well, here we are… There needs to be some consistency about the invocation of religious sources. It is fine to have a liberal political expression of Catholic faith as it is fine to have a conservative political expression, but surely the presence of the faith element should cause a person to occasionally challenge their party, and it seems they only challenge their church...I tremble for our country when I think of how God and history will judge us for getting the abortion issue so wrong, for failing to craft and support a feminism that cherishes each and every human life. I tremble, too, when I contemplate the backlash that awaits on the morrow of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe or Casey.5 

Rebecca Bratten Weiss, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, advocates that Pro-life and pro-choice Catholics should work together with President Biden to reduce abortion demand. Catholics who uphold magisterial teachings on morality ought to find common cause with pro-choice advocates because of our many shared goals of eliminating poverty, fighting structural racism, working for peace and protecting the environment.

the policies promoted by the Democratic Party are demonstrated to work to reduce abortion — as 48 years of culture war and misguided legislation from the right have not. And it is a mistake for pro-life Catholics to treat pro-choice concerns about personal privacy and bodily autonomy as irrelevant. Yes, we want a culture in which women choose life. Do we want one in which they are coerced into doing so? What kind of moral landscape would that be? I think Biden should articulate a consistent life ethic acknowledging the seriousness of the church's teaching on abortion — which he personally accepts — while also acknowledging the concerns of pro-choice leaders, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, who are motivated by genuine moral seriousness as well. He should pursue policies that are demonstrated, historically and globally, to reduce abortion, and call upon citizens to support these policies that will safeguard both the sanctity of life and the dignity of human choice. Rather than threatening women with punishment or placing them in impossible positions, we need to work collectively for a truly just society in which women are not driven to abortion because of fear, poverty or abuse.6 

The Catholic News Agency reports that Denver Archbishop Aquila challenges 'pro-choice' Catholics to test their conscience. The archbishop further added that some consciences are erroneous or even dead to the truth. He said, when one believes to be following their conscience, they should put it to the test and question whether it is consistent with Church teachings.

“Our consciences must be formed according to the Gospel and according to the teachings of the Church. We must listen to that, and then our works will become good, and they will bring light,” he said. The archbishop said Catholics should preach the Gospel of Life with clarity, mercy, and love but they should not be apathetic to or supportive of the evils of abortion. He encouraged Catholics to show kindness to abortion advocates, especially women who have terminated a pregnancy, and to pray for a greater conversion to life. “Let us first pray for the conversion of our country and for the conversion especially of Catholics who take a so-called pro-choice position,” he said.7

 

Pope Francis has commented on the indifference and “throw-away” attitude in our society. Efforts by bishops, conservative and liberal, in the Church to transform these morally and spiritually harmful trends, in accord with Jesus' teaching, will foster cooperation in addressing all of the anti-life action in our world.

 

References

1	(2021, January 28). Editorial: It's time for the Vatican to investigate the US bishops .... Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/editorial-its-time-vatican-investigate-us-bishops-conference
2	(n.d.). God Is On Your Side: A Statement from Catholic Bishops on .... Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://tylerclementi.org/catholicbishopsstatement/
3	(2021, January 25). Bishops sign dueling statements on LGBTQ people | National .... Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/bishops-sign-dueling-statements-lgbtq-people
4	(2021, January 14). How Catholics got conned by Donald Trump | National Catholic .... Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/how-catholics-got-conned-donald-trump
5	(n.d.). On abortion, both Biden and the pro-life movement lack moral .... Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/abortion-both-biden-and-pro-life-movement-lack-moral-consistency
6	(n.d.). Pro-life and pro-choice Catholics should work together — with .... Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/pro-life-and-pro-choice-catholics-should-work-together-president-biden-reduce-abortion
7	(2021, January 28). Denver archbishop challenges 'pro-choice' Catholics to test their .... Retrieved January 29, 2021, from http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/denver-archbishop-challenges-pro-choice-catholics-to-test-their-conscience-70430