45-Year Dream Come True

I am sending you as a prophet to a rebellious house.” (cf. Ezekiel 2:3) [Spanish]

This week we keep a double national anniversary. We are American Catholics, with a homeland stretching from sea to shining sea. So we rejoice in the 242^nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which took place here on the English-speaking East Coast. And we rejoice in the 249^th anniversary of the landing of St. Junipero Serra in San Diego Bay, on what was then the Spanish-speaking West Coast.

As we read in the gospel this Sunday, Lord Jesus went home to Nazareth to speak the truth to His own people. Our own people are the people of America. And we Americans find ourselves at a dazzling turning point in our history right here and now.

Forty-five years ago, the US Supreme Court did something the Constitution never empowered it to do, namely: the Court laid down a national law permitting abortion. It made no sense 45 years ago; it makes no sense now.

For two generations, Roe v. Wade has hung over the life of our nation like a tropical storm front, full of lies. And all our cities and towns have missing people because of it. Sixty million missing friends and neighbors. All sacrificed to a cruel, false god of shame and fear, by heartless pagan priests in ramshackle “clinics.”

Now, suddenly, in the summer of 2018, we find ourselves at a point in our history when we can reasonably hope that this will change. With a new justice, the Supreme Court likely will abandon its claim to govern the country when it comes to abortion. Sometime in the next year or two. Lawmaking authority in this area would then return to the normal democratic process. This is something that we have hoped and prayed for, for decades.

We Catholics are pro-life. As Pope St. John Paul II explained to us, we Catholics simply cannot accept the idea of elective abortion. Accepting it would mean betraying the most central realities of our Christian faith.

That said, we also love, and sympathize with, all mothers who find themselves in situations which might tempt them to seek abortions. The culture of death, the throwaway culture—it poisons many minds, with its hopeless, dark fear of the future. We Catholic Americans fight the culture of death in our country not with anger and judgment, but with love.

Roe v. Wade accorded a “right” to abortion that does not exist. The irony is: this actually short-changed pregnant women of the rights they do, in fact, possess.

Every pregnant woman has the right to love and support, without being judged. Every pregnant woman has the right to the best healthcare available for her and her baby. Every pregnant woman deserves our friendship, our advocacy, our help.

Before too long, we will, in all likelihood, vote in elections in which laws about abortion in the State of Virginia will be a real campaign issues. So let’s begin to reflect clearly on where we stand.

No one has the right to kill an innocent unborn child. Healthcare does not include abortion. The idea that abortion counts as healthcare is a bald-faced lie. No honest doctor, nurse, or sonogram operator could maintain that lie for five minutes.

On the other hand, pregnant women can and do experience complications, including grave ones that can threaten the lives of both baby and mother. A good and reasonable doctor, treating a pregnant mother for a life-threatening complication, could apply a therapy or procedure that the baby cannot survive. That would not be an abortion, but rather a tragedy.

Now, we know that plenty of people fear what will happen when an abortion case reaches the Supreme Court with a pro-life majority and the whole legal situation changes.

Let’s sympathize with that fear. Let’s acknowledge that something has to fill the vacuum that Roe v. Wade will no longer fill. Something has to occupy the psychological space that the abortion industry has occupied in these last, lawless 45 years.

Let’s pledge ourselves: We American Catholics will fill that space with our Christian love. When the tropical storm that is Roe v. Wade finally blows out to sea, away from these shores, and the sun comes back out again: We will stand there with acceptance, support, and tender loving care for every pregnant woman.

There’s another irony here–one that I myself take great delight in considering. It’s a fact that the abortion industry kills a disproportionate number of non-white babies. Abortion has suppressed the population growth of non-white America for decades.

Our current President will appoint a justice who likely will tip the balance, and the Roe-v.-Wade abortion regime will end. Then the non-white proportion of the US population will begin to increase at an even greater rate.

So, thank you in advance, President Trump, for giving us more brown, red, and yellow native-born-American fellow citizens to welcome into our beloved nation!

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