Can you think of a case where a church leader has been successful in changing the mind of a person such as Governor Cuomo?  I’ve never heard of one.  Do you think that any Catholic leader could change the moral positions of such luminaries as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, to name just a handful?  History has shown that this strategy will never work.   This is pure appeasement.  Appeasement is as good as surrender.   This is what has happened to the Church today when it comes to the moral issues of our day, such as abortion, euthanasia, marriage and the family.    Some examples of failed appeasement experiments:

1. “Peace in our time” by the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938.  Click here to view the video of Chamberlain’s announcement in 1938.  Right after he signed the appeasement agreement with Hitler, what happened in 1939?  Hitler conquered Czechoslovakia, the subject of the agreement,  then came the invasion and conquest of Poland and the start of War II.  Peace in our time?
2. The Vietnam Paris Peace Talks of 1968-1973.  As a Vietnam veteran myself I recall this as if it happened yesterday.  I was in Vietnam when these failed talks started.  The Americans signed a peace treaty with the North Vietnamese in 1973.  What happened after this agreement was signed?  By 1975 the North Vietnamese had conquered all of Vietnam.  What happened to the treaty?
3. Notre Dame, a Catholic University, invites the most pro-abortion president in history to speak there in 2009.  Click here to watch a short clip of Fr. John Jenkins, an apostate priest and president of Notre Dame, make the most lavish and loving introduction of President Obama; you would think that he was introducing Pope Benedict XVI.  I’m sure he would not be so kind to the Pope.
4. Archbishop Dolan himself has met with President Obama in the last few months and supposedly, shared with him his concerns.  No doubt he told him of his opposition to the HHS proposal to force Catholic institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraception at no cost to the employee.  Well, what happened after this meeting?  Just this week HHS announced that they will force Catholic institutions to provide such benefits and there will be no conscience or  religious exceptions. Check out the story by clicking here.

Appeasement does not work.  Appeasement does not work.  When will they learn?

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish (74).  God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.(75)

2272 Formal co-operation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. ‘A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication lataesententiae‘ (76) ’by the very commission of the offence’, (77) and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law . (78) The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

Liberal Catholics ignore this requirement with impunity.  No one I know, or have heard of, has ever been excommunicated for being pro-abortion, or supporting pro-abortion legislation or politicians, not even people who defy the church publicly such as Catholic politicians such as John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sibelius and countless more.  So the question arises can you be a Catholic and ignore essential Church teaching?  I will argue that you cannot.   Let me put it simply:  If you do not follow what the Church teaches 100% of the time, you cannot call yourself  Catholic; you’re an apostate Catholic.  What is an apostate?  The dictionary defines “apostate” as one who is not faithful to religion or party or cause.  If you’re not all in, you’re all out.  In Revelation 3:15-16 the Lord says this:

¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

In Luke 13 Jesus is asked about who will be saved; in Luke 13:24-27 He responds this way:

²⁴ “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. ²⁵ Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’  ²⁶ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’   ²⁷ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’

You may think that this is too narrow and that a loving God would not punish someone who thinks that he/she can ignore with impunity what His Church teaches.  If this was the case, that you could decide what to follow and what not to follow, why do you need a church?  You can decide these things for yourself.  You would not need a church.  The ultimate question is  who is the final authority?  Is it you or is it God and or the Church.  Right and wrong is based on a universal standard such as the Bible or the Church.  If the standard is you, why follow the Bible or the Church, you believe that you can decide the best.

Let’s use an example from our daily lives.  Can you be faithful to your wife or husband, for example, if you are not 100% faithful?  If you determine that in some situations you can be unfaithful are you really faithful?  NO.  You’re 100% faithful or you’re not.  If you’re Catholic and support legislation that promotes abortion or a political candidate that supports abortion, you’re not faithful to the church; you’re an apostate, pure and simple, re-read the definition of apostate as mentioned earlier.

Let’s look at this divide.  What is the correct position?  How does the pro-life person know that the unborn is a human person and how does a “pro-choice” person know that the unborn is not a human person?  First of all, you cannot answer this question by just giving your opinion; it must be based on universal evidence that is accessible to all.   When does life begin?  Does it begin after birth or at conception?  Let’s look at science.  No one will say that science is partial or religious.  Science has confirmed that life begins at conception.  If you check with any Embryology book you will find that science confirms that life begins at conception. Click here for some documentation.  On the other hand, where does the “pro-choice” person get documentation that the unborn is not a human person?  I’ve not seen any reference to any; I only hear the mantra:  ”it’s a woman’s choice,” or “my body, my choice.”  This is not evidence, but a personal opinion.  When was the first day of your life, when you came out of the womb? No, your first day of life happened at conception.  All of us started the same way.  All of us where once a fetus, a new-born, an adolescent and and adult.

A common position held by the “pro-choice” side is that the unborn is not a person.  Well, when does a human being become a person? Can there be a human being that is not a person?  Can it by assigned and if so how do you determine when personhood starts?  The answer is that personhood starts the only time it can, at the same time as the beginning of life; to assign it at any other time is subjective and can change according to the whims of whomever does the assigning.  This position is not only not logical, but it is self-defeating.

In defense of the church, I have to admit, that we are the church, and as such those of us who are moral people need to lead the church.  However, I see no one in a position of responsibility in any church make the dignity of life a focus.  On the other hand, I see helping the poor as a big focus in many Catholic Churches.  I’m all for helping the poor and my family does more than most.  Let me ask a simple question when it comes to poverty: How many people in the United States died last year as a result of poverty?  I did a search for deaths due to poverty or hunger in the U.S. but could not find any figures; apparently, the CDC does not even track such statistics.  The Catholic Church believes and teaches that life begins at conception, meaning that necessarily the unborn are persons from conception.  Yet, 1.5 million unborn children are killed each year in the United States alone and hardly anyone notices.  No outrage from the church or the people. As individuals, we are very limited in what we can do, but the church has a big microphone but it never uses it.  An example,  pro-abortion politicians like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi are never sanctioned by the church, even though they openly go against church teaching on abortion.  The church could make a huge impact by  saying that if you’re pro-abortion, or if you vote for pro-abortion legislation, you are automatically ex-communicated.  As far as I know, no U.S. politician has ever been ex-communicated for being pro-abortion.  A famous priest, Father Robert Drinan, was openly pro-abortion and a U.S. Congressman in the 1980s.  In 1980 Pope John Paul II ordered him out of Congress, not for being pro-abortion, but because he ruled that priests should not be in political office.

What are our responsibilities when it comes to promoting the dignity of life?  Most people will say that they are helpless.  Well it may be true that one individual can do little, but there is at least one important  thing each of us, especially Catholics or Christians can do:  Never vote for a pro-abortion politician or anyone that votes for a pro-abortion law of any kind.  As you well know, when we elected the most pro-abortion president of the United States in our history, Barack Obama, 54% of Catholics voted for him; a complete moral collapse.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church  specifically states that abortion is an evil.  Anyone who cooperates with this evil is just as guilty as the one who performed the abortion.  If you are the get-away driver of a bank robber you are just as guilty as the robber.  In a like manner, anyone who votes for pro-abortion politicians or politicians who vote for legislation which promotes abortion or abortion funding is guilty of promoting evil.

Wait a minute!  Did I hear that right?  Abortion is murder, but government should stay out of it?  What am I missing?  This seems so incoherent, that I can’t believe an intelligent person can utter such contradictions.  However, this is very typical of what I hear from the “pro-choice” side all the time.  The worst of this is that the “pro-choice” side sees no contradiction in this.  This is scary.

I’m reminded of a terrific new documentary that is a big hit on YouTube, called 180 Movie.  This 33-minute documentary shows exactly how this contradiction is so widespread in our culture.  The documentary starts out by giving a ten minute summary of the horrors of the Nazi holocaust; followed by  a man-on-the street interviews, where the interviewer finds young adults in all sorts of counter-culture attire and disposition, as well as more normal looking people and adeptly takes them step by step through the irrationality of their position; a sort of “Colombo method” as Greg Koukul would call it.  Most of the people interviewed came around to see the error of their ways and said that they will change their position.

I’m not mystified of this bizarre way of thinking by our culture.  As the film shows, the Nazi period made some of the same assumptions about the Jews.  They said that Jews were not fully human, so they could be killed at will.  In our own country, this same way of thinking prevailed during slavery.  Slaves were not considered human so they could be owned and enslaved.  I highly recommend that you spend the 33 minutes to see this entire film; it will be worth it.  Click on the hyperlink above.

Last month I attended a speech by a Jesuit Priest, Fr. Robert J. Spitzer,  at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.  Fr. Spitzer talked about his new book, Ten Universal Principles; A brief Philosophy of the Life Issues.  The book makes all the rational, logical and reasonable arguments for the truth of the pro-life argument.  His ten principles are sub-divided into four sub-headings:  The Principles of Reason, the Principles of Ethics, the Principles of Natural Rights and the Fundamental Principle of Identity and Culture.  In this piece I will review the first one – the Principles of Reason, which is subdivided into three principles:  (1) The Principle of Complete Explanation, (2) The Principle of Non-contradiction, and (3) The Principle of Objective Evidence.  

When I was struggling with my “pro-choice” position, I wanted to prove that my side had truth in it.  I looked and could not find any truth in it.  What is the test of whether a position is right or wrong?  Is it true?  The Principle of Reason answers this question. In today’s moral relativistic culture, truth is relative.  You have your truth and I have mine, as the saying goes.  When you look at this position you immediately notice something very glaring.  If truth is relative, then there can be no truth.  Truth then becomes subjective – whatever you define as truth.  Spitzer mentions an example.  ”Year after year, I begin with the simple question that originates with Plato, namely, How many of you believe that all opinions have validity and should be respected?  Spitzer goes on to point out that most of the students raise their hands.  After asking them if the opinions of Hitler, Stalin and others should also be respected, people start to back off.

Spitzer proposes three methods for ascertaining the validity of an opinion: The quantity of the evidence, the logical consistency of arguments and the quality of the evidence.  The first he calls the Principle of Complete Explanation.  ”The general principle is this:  opinions that explain the most data and are verified by the most evidence are better than those that do not.”  He gives examples of Einstein’s theory vs Newton’s theory.  Einstein’s theory proved to be the best one because it explained more that Newton’s theory.  Spitzer goes on to put human personhood to this test.  The denial of human personhood as the “pro-choice” side has done has served to devalue unborn life.  Once life is devalued then it can be discarded at will.  Slavery denied human personhood.  Even the US Supreme Court agreed that slaves were not fully human, as it did in the Dred Scott decision of 1857.  The Roe vs. Wade decision affirmed that the unborn were not human also. The decision further stated that “we don’t know when life begins.”  Once you accept this proposition, the denial of human personhood, there are serious consequences.  One of the most obvious is that you can justify to yourself and to others that if a pregnancy is inconvenient then you can just abort the baby and everything is cool.  You’ve just killed a human being but you’ve rationalized it in your mind because, after all, that baby was not yet a person.  Spitzer puts it this way:  ”If humans are viewed as mere things, then they can be treated as mere things, and this assumption had led historically to every form of human tragedy.”  On average, 1.3 million babies are killed in the United States alone and it goes unnoticed by the general public.

The second, the Principle of Non-contradiction is similar.  The principle basically states that something cannot be both true and not true at the same time.  According to the Ten Principles the classical formulation is this:  ”A real being cannot both be and not be the same thing, in the same respect, at the same time.”  The first thing that comes to mind when I read this is what some typical Catholic “pro-choice” politicians usually say to defend their position.  Vice President Joe Biden provides a classic explanation.  Click here to listen to his explanation.  This is bizarre explanation that defies reason and logic.  He claims to believe that life begins at conception, which necessarily means that a human being begins at conception.  He follows it up by saying that since others disagree, they can choose to kill and unborn if they want. Is this logical?  Hardly.  This is akin to saying, I believe that slavery is wrong, but since others believe differently, they can choose to have a slave if they want to, after all, who am I to force my belief on them.  Would a politician go far today if he argued this way?  Spitzer goes on to point out other contradictions.  ”For example, some courts say that human embryos have right of inheritance and can sue after birth for pre-birth injuries (meaning that human embryos are persons with rights), while other courts declare that human embryos are not persons and do not have even the right to life.”

The third principle is The Principle of Objective Evidence:  ”Non-arbitrary opinions or theories are based upon publicly verifiable evidence.”  This is the question that kept nagging at me when I was “pro-choice.”  Where can I get evidence that is universally verifiable that proves that an unborn is not a human?  Ask any “pro-choice” person what he/she bases his/her position on and see what answer you get.  As Spitzer clearly states on page 16 of his book “We cannot simply assert something as a matter of our subjective opinion (that is, an opinion that we claim to be true just because we felt or believed that it was so).”  Many believe that science is the only truth (this is referred to as scientism), yet even those that do will fail to look at science on this subject.  It is a scientific fact that a human life begins at conception.  Look at any embryology book.  Yet the “pro-choice” side conveniently ignores this fact all the time.  They will go to “privacy,”  ”a woman’s right to choose” or other nonsense.  What do these terms mean?  They mean only what these people want it to mean.  This is not the Principle of Objective Evidence by any measure.  In other words, the “pro-choice” side has no facts to back up their claim.

The fact that Catholics are no different from the general population when it comes to the pro-life issue is morally indefensible.  In the last presidential election, 54% of Catholics voted for Barack Obama, the most left-wing, pro-abortion President of all time.  He won the election with 53% of the vote.  So, it can safely be said that Catholics are responsible for electing the most pro-abortion candidate of all time.  This is a moral failure on the part of Catholics.  If Catholics were united on the life issue no pro-abortion candidate would ever win office.  As a consequence all candidates would re-think their position on the life issue. Most pro-abortion Catholics, like Vice President Biden and Senator Kerry have stated that they keep religion separate from politics.  Check out this video clip of Joe Biden on this issue. This is a pathetic response.  If you keep moral issues out of politics then you will get atheist and moral relativism in its place.

The fact that we dismiss the life issue as Catholics is moral cowardice.  Now, I know, I know:  ”there are other issues than pro-life issues,” as the typical liberal Catholic will respond.  Liberal Catholics will usually be of the Liberation Theology persuasion, a Socialist/Marxist philosophy, denounced by Pope John Paul II.   The poor are their saints.  Well, how many poor people died last year in the United States?  We know that an average of 1.3 to 1.5 million babies are killed every year in the United States alone.  Which is the more urgent issue? Do liberals help the poor more than conservatives?  In a book by Arthur Brooks, Who Really Cares?, studies show  that conservatives give more to the poor than liberals. This argument that liberals are the more compassionate, then, does not bode well for them.

The other issue usually brought up by the liberals is war.  They are against war.  Well, I’m against war too, but think that there are times when war is unavoidable.  The Catholic Church is also anti-war, but recognizes that there are “just wars.” The church has a Just War Doctrine.  As for Iraq and Afghanistan, both of these wars, experts in this field have argued that they qualify as a just wars. Check out this article by Professor Robert George, an expert on bio-ethics from Princeton University on why this is the case.

Let me put it clearly:  As a Catholic, a Christian, or any reasonable person, you cannot be pro-abortion and be either a reasonable person, a Catholic or a Christian – they are incompatible.  Unfortunately, the church refuses to do anything about Catholics that do not follow church doctrine.  This, to me, is an abdication of your responsibility as a gatekeeper of the faith we practice.

For Catholics who follow church teaching one of the biggest frustration is how inactive the church is in defending the unborn.  In most churches, the pastors never, preach a pro-life message.  Many of my friends from other Catholic Churches tell me the same thing.  Just this past week, a very disturbing thing happened in the pro-life cause:  The Bishop of Amarillo, Texas, Patrick Zurek, recalled Father Frank Pavone home and confined him there; effectively stopping his pro-life work.  Bishop Zurek did not accuse Fr. Pavone of any wrongdoing and we still do not know why he has taken this action.

Father Frank Pavone is the head of Priest for Life and is one of the most eloquent defenders of the unborn in the United States, if not the world.  The fact that the bishop of Amarillo, his superior, has ordered Fr. Pavone to cease his work is most alarming.  Here is another example of the Catholic Church, not only not promoting the pro-life position, but, as this case shows, stifling the pro-life cause.  If you’re a regular churchgoer, as I am, you’ve seen, first hand how the church has been co-opted by our culture.  Most priests, Fr. Pavone excepted, will not engage their parishioners in pro-life arguments.  They simply shy away from it, as if it was a political hot potato. Most seem unprepared or unwilling to bring up the issue.

The moral relativistic culture of our day has conquered the church.  Hollywood has won over the church.  The church was not conquered by force, but by co-optation and by moral weakness.  Most churches walk a fine line of not offending anyone; they opt for the easy road and do not take a stand.   Money is more important than moral values or church teaching.  If you go to any church in Southern California you will find that about 50 to 60% of the parishioners are liberal or what can be described as “cafeteria Catholics.”  This is also no problem to the church.  Apparently popularity and cash is more important than principles.

Some examples of church inaction:  Recently, Vice President Joe Biden, a Roman Catholic, made a well publicized statement on TV while in China, stating that he “understood” the Chinese position on forced abortion.  Now if you don’t know, China has a one-child policy;  any more than one child and Chinese women are forced to have an abortion.   Women are routinely monitored for possible pregnancy, as well as their menstrual cycle, to detect if they’re required to have an abortion.  Did you hear any Catholic bishop rebuke Joe Biden for this?  No.  Total silence. Prior to the passing of Obamacare, a Catholic nun, Sister Carol Keehan, endorsed Obamacare in defiance of the Catholic Bishops.   The Obama Administration referred to her as if they had Catholic support for the plan. Did anything happen to a subordinate who publicly defies her superiors?  No.  Silence.  In the military, insubordination will get you a Court Martial, in private or public business, insubordination is grounds for being fired; in the Catholic Church, as we’ve seen with Joe Biden and Sister Carol Keehan, you just get a pass.

Let’s start from the beginning.  It is a well established scientific fact that life begins at conception. Dr. Jerome Lejeune, “Father of Modern Genetics” and discoverer of the cause of Down’s Syndrome, stated, “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”   Those who claim that an unborn is not a person cannot tell you when human life begins with any documentation of their position.  They may give you their opinion of when it happens, but nothing based on fact and certainly nothing based on scientific evidence.

So, those claiming that an unborn is not a person have no case; however, they will still make the straw-man argument that an unborn can be killed because, in their opinion, the unborn is not a person.  In 1857, in the famous Dred Scott U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a slave, although a human was not a person, at least not a 100% person.  In the more popular 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, the Supreme Court stated that they did not know when life begins.  Well, even if you don’t know when life begins, does it follow that you can destroy a human being such as an unborn?  Let’s make this a little clearer.  Let’s say, we’re blowing up a 50-story hotel in Las Vegas to build a newer one.  The hotel is emptied.  Before you give the command to ignite the dynamite you ask your foreman if he’s checked that there is no one left in the building.  He tells you he does not know.  Do you go ahead and blow up the building?

Personhood begins at the same time that life begins.  Personhood is inherent in a human life.  There can be no other answer.  if you answer that personhood begins at any other time, then you have to ask who determines when it begins?  Professor Robert George of Princeton University is one of the most eloquent defender of the unborn’s dignity; he defines personhood like this:  ”Professor George claims that it is a matter of justice to recognize the personhood of the unborn from the moment of conception. Failure to do so divides the world into human person with human rights and human persons without rights. History has shown the horrific results of such a division…”

To claim that personhood is assigned at any other time than at the beginning of life is to play God.  If it can be assigned at any other time then it logically follows that it can be taken away or denied at any other time, as we’ve seen above in Dred Scott.

Since I’m Catholic, I’ll refer to what the Catholic Church says about this subject.  The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference has a document addressing this very issue called “The Challenge of Forming Faithful Citizenship.”  Here is a brief excerpt:

The Church’s obligation to participate in shaping the moral character of society is a requirement of our faith, a part of the mission given to us by Jesus Christ. Faith helps us see more clearly the truth about human life and dignity that we also understand through human reason. As people of both faith and reason, Catholics are called to bring truth to political life and to practice Christ’s commandment to “love one another” (Jn 13:34). According to Pope Benedict XVI, “charity must animate the entire lives of the lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as ‘social charity’” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, no. 29). The United States Constitution protects the right of individual believers and religious bodies to participate and speak out without government interference, favoritism, or discrimination. Civil law should recognize and protect the Church’s right and responsibility to participate in society without abandoning our central moral convictions. Our nation’s tradition of pluralism is enhanced, not threatened, when religious groups and people of faith bring their convictions into public life. The Catholic community brings to the political dialogue a consistent  moral framework and broad experience serving those in need.

If those of us who are moral people do not participate in government or politics, who will, the immoral?  Why should moral people not want to shape their government?  This makes no sense at all.  Those of us who are moral people have a duty to be involved in politics and shape them.  Do not the politicians shape our society?  why leave it to those who are moral relativists.

I find it laughable when a person call up a radio talk show and says they’re Christian but they want religion and moral values out of politics.  What does this mean?  I can only conclude that this type of person will only want to exclude those with whom they disagree with and not with anyone with whom they agree with, whether it is moral or not.

In conclusion, if those of us who are moral are not involved in politics, then the immoral will be and they, and they alone will shape our society.