People walk up Constitution Avenue headed toward the U.S. Supreme Court while participating in the 45th March for Life January 19 in Washington. Photo: CNS. A cloud of darkness seems to be hovering over the land of the free and home of the brave, writes Fr Thomas Rosica CSB
The last presidential election campaign in the United States was a divisive, bitter, toxic, embarrassing and polarising experience for many in the US and for people around the world, leaving many repulsed and despairing rather than excited and hopeful. Voters were disgusted by the state of American politics, and many harboured doubts that either major-party nominee would be able to unite the country after this loud, divisive electoral campaign.
Instead of focusing energies and conversations on issues, on how Americans could move their country forward, succeed and generate hope, it proved to be an exercise in destroying others. Both candidates behaved with tremendous disrespect and dishonesty to one another and to the public, and were viewed unfavourably by a majority of voters.
The mounting toxicity and division threatened any victor of that election. The memories and results of that campaign and current US government policies and laws being enacted to fulfil campaign promises have left people around the world shocked, appalled and wondering what has happened in America. Slogans and campaign rhetoric like ‘Make America Great Again’ have ended up sounding ‘Make America embarrassed again’ and ‘Make America marginalised again’.
Cloud darkness
A cloud of darkness seems to be hovering over the land of the free and home of the brave. Emma Lazarus’ words emblazoned at the base of Lady Liberty in New York’s harbour seem to have been altered: “Keep away from this land your tired and poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. They don’t belong here…”
On January 9, 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy spoke these memorable words during an address to the General Court of Massachusetts: “I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella 331 years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. ‘We must always consider,’ he said, ‘that we shall be as a city upon a hill – the eyes of all people are upon us.’
“Today, the eyes of all people are truly upon us – and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill – constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities…History will not judge our endeavours – and a government cannot be selected – merely on the basis of colour or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. For of those to whom much is given, much is required.”
On January 11, 1989, in his farewell address as he left the White House, President Ronald Reagan took up that theme of the ‘city on the hill’ once again: “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity.
“And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”
The shining city on the hill has become a dark place and many of the inhabitants of the land and indeed the whole world are appalled over what is happening. Now is the time for some deep, critical introspection and reflection on what is taking place in America and in the world. Who and what can bring a country back together after so much acrimony, hostility, division and bad, erratic behaviour of political leaders?
How easy it is for Catholics in the US and around the world to be cynical or discouraged at what we have experienced throughout the recent presidential electoral campaign in America, but neither attitude is helpful to the cause of truth, freedom and good citizenship. Our Catholic-Christian faith tells us that God will provide what we need to do his will. Catholics who are faithful citizens have the ability – with the help of God’s grace – to make choices that are morally sound even if they appear to be politically incorrect.
Pope Francis rejects the frequently misunderstood notion that there are a special set of non-negotiable values regarding life issues: “I have never understood the expression non-negotiable values. Values are values, and that is it. I can’t say that, of the fingers of a hand, there is one less useful than the rest. Whereby I do not understand in what sense there may be negotiable values.”
For those who claim that the abortion issue is the only item on the political agenda, such an attitude is not the complete pro-life position held by the Roman Catholic Church. Those who claim to be pro-life must be sure that their ethic for life is a consistent one. The Catholic Church offers a teaching on the inviolability, the sacredness, the dignity of the human person.
Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice.
Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the dignity of the human person such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself, whatever insults human dignity such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, unjust immigration policies and laws, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, disgraceful working conditions where people are treated as instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons – all of these things and more poison human society.
If citizens take into consideration these important principles and the full meaning of what it means to be ‘pro-life,’ they cannot fail in their duty as faithful citizens or loyal Catholics. The sacredness and dignity of all human life is found at the centre of all issues, including the urgent matters of abortion, euthanasia, care for creation, war and peace, the preferential option for the poor, true economic justice, immigration reform and the responsibility to make difficult moral choices.
How has the victor of the recent US election – the current occupant of the Oval Office – addressed the essential respect for all human life, the questions of freedom, difficult moral choices that must be addressed, the preferential option for the poor, the welcome and care of refugees, the care for God’s creation and authentic commitment to world peace that avoids war?
Today we are living in the midst of a culture that denies human solidarity and takes the form of a veritable ‘culture of death’. This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents that encourage an idea of society exclusively concerned with efficiency. It is a war of the powerful against the weak.
There is no room in the world for anyone who, like the unborn or the dying, is a weak element in the social structure or anyone who appears completely at the mercy of others and radically dependent on them and can only communicate through the silent language of profound sharing of affection. Human life has a sacred and religious value, but in no way is that value a concern only of believers.
There is no question that abortion is the most serious wound inflicted not only on individuals and their families who should provide the sanctuary for life, but inflicted as well on society and its culture, by the very people who ought to be society’s promoters and defenders.
But immigration issues are also critical pro-life issues in our day. The lives of 800,000 Dreamers in America are pro-life issues.
The separation of families at US borders is a pro-life issue. Wrongful incarceration of thousands of young people in US holding facilities along the southern border with Mexico is a pro-life issue. Care of the environment is also a critical life issue for the world.
As with nearly every issue that was raised during the last US presidential campaign, what Catholics call ‘care for creation’ has become very polarised and deeply misunderstood. Many, including leaders, mistakenly fear that environmentalism is just an excuse for increased government intrusion into the lives of individuals and communities.
We must answer the question that Pope Francis posed to the world: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home, 160).
Last week tens of thousands of people – many of them young men and women – descended upon Washington on January 19, 2018 for the annual ‘March for Life’. The theme of this year’s US March was ‘Love Saves Lives’. It is important to stop and reflect upon what we do as individuals and as a community to stand up for life – all human life.
Building a culture of life and ending abortion takes each and every person. Starting with the family or neighbourhood, our collective efforts will change hearts and minds, save lives, and build a culture of life. But there are other critical life issues on our agendas that require our strident, vocal and unified efforts.
In Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s 2009 landmark encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), the Holy Father addressed clearly the dignity and respect for human life “which cannot in any way be detached from questions concerning the development of peoples.”
Benedict wrote: “In economically-developed countries, legislation contrary to life is very widespread, and it has already shaped moral attitudes and praxis, contributing to the spread of an anti-birth mentality; frequent attempts are made to export this mentality to other states as if it were a form of cultural progress.
“Openness to life is at the centre of true development,” writes the Pope. “When a society moves toward the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good. If personal and social sensitivity toward the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away,” he wrote.
Benedict rightly summed up the current global economic crisis in a remarkable way with these words: “Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs.”
The Catholic Church offers a teaching on the inviolability, the sacredness and the dignity of the human person: a 20/20 vision for which we must strive each day if we claim to be ‘pro-life’. We must strive to see the whole picture, not with tunnel vision.
What does it mean to be authentically pro-life? As Christians, being pro-life is one of the deepest expressions of our baptism: we stand up as sons and daughters of the light, filled with conviction, speaking the truth with firmness and determination, and never losing joy and hope.
Being pro-life is not an activity for a political party or a particular side of the spectrum. It is an obligation for everyone: left, right and centre! If we are pro-life, we must engage the culture around us, and not curse it. We must see others as Jesus does, and we must love them to life, even those who are opposed to us.
The litmus test for being pro-life is not only attending rallies or marches during the year in major cities of the world. The real test is what we do for life the remaining 364 days of the year, and what efforts, great and small, do we embrace to consistently and systematically oppose any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, violations of human dignity, and coercions of the will.
How do we advocate for those who endure sub-human living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, human trafficking and disgraceful working conditions and wrongful, unjust immigration policies? All of these things and more poison human society. We must strive for a strong, consistent ethic for life.
Who of us, if we truly claim to be faithful, Catholic-Christians, is not deeply disturbed by the state of the world today? Our common home has become a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion.
During his brief but highly significant pastoral visit to Sweden last year, Pope Francis proposed six new beatitudes for the modern era on the Feast of All Saints:
- Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart;
- Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalised, and show them their closeness;
- Blessed are those who see God in every person, and strive to make others also discover him;
- Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home;
- Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others;
- Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.
May these words of Pope Francis be a guiding light and source of instruction, inspiration, consolation and hope to the people of the United States during these momentous and turbulent days.
May they help us to be agents of unity and healing as America moves forward. May they inspire us to march for life across America and Canada. May they compel us to realise that our welcome and love for the poorest, weakest and most vulnerable among us will save lives.
Fr Thomas Rosica, CSB, is Chief Executive Officer of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and a former press adviser at the Holy See Press Office.