By Michael Galloway
President/Publisher
Catholic Online

As I sit here on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, having just returned from Mass and receiving Holy Communion, I think back to my early childhood. I remember so many of the different homilies I heard as a child. I remember the prayers I was taught to know “by heart”. I remember one prayer that we still say every week at Mass: “We believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church”. Whenever I profess the Creed, I begin to feel an inner strength that can only be given by the Holy Spirit. The strength of understanding. The strength of forgiveness. The strength to, in the words of Pope John Paul II “Be not afraid.” The strength of Truth.

There are so many issues we need to face today as Catholic Christians. It is overwhelming. Let me know focus on just one issue, the single most important human rights issue of our day, abortion. Without the right to life there are no other rights.

In the 32+ years since Roe v Wade, there have been many wonderful organizations that have brought much awareness and education concerning what we are truly doing as a nation through legalized abortion. We now have 32+ years of history from which, I pray, we can and have learned. Most of us now have a position - or at least a thought on where we stand on this most important issue. (Announcing our "Babies Count on Me" Campaign! Can the Baby in the Womb Count on You? Read More...)

But as Catholic Christians we must also now face the truth… and the truth is very simple – Abortion is still legal in ALL 50 US States. Moreover, there is an abortive procedure every few seconds in a nation that was once rooted in Judeo-Christian principles. PERIOD. End of story. Why have we lost this monumental battle, the battle to uphold the right to life for all men and women at every age and stage? In our own founding documents as Americans we proclaim that life is an inalienable right and an endowment from our Creator!

With this all in mind we need to ask what have we really learned and what have many of these efforts actually accomplished? We also must face the Truth. Let’s be really honest - with ourselves and with God. The Truth is the proponents of the so-called “right to choose” have won the most important of contemporary battles. They have won the battle to legalize the culture of death. One must really pause at the devastation legalized abortion brings to women, men, and their families. The horror it has unleashed upon our nation is unspeakable!

However, truth always prevails and the Lord of life hears the cry of the poor. Mother Teresa reminded us that children in the womb are the poorest of the poor. They have no-one to speak for them and they cannot be heard—except that is through our voice! We need to “build” a new Culture of Life, not simply oppose abortion.

Please understand what I am trying to say. I am convinced that “anti” campaigning does NOT work. We need to both become and act more positively. Medical science now confirms what our conscience has known all along, the child in the womb is a person and our neighbor. We need to examine and learn from the “other” side, from their “winning” strategy. We need to speak about this vital issue with a new language. We need to propose a new culture of life and not simply oppose abortion. We need to talk about the fact that some “choices” are always wrong, like killing children in the womb. We must offer another way and develop the language of life.

Unfortunately, at least on this issue, evil has temporarily triumphed! That is truly what lies at the heart of the abortion issue, evil. Jesus said it “The thief (the devil) comes to kill and destroy but I have came to give life”

Does anyone really remember the Devil. I for one have not heard Him mentioned in my parish for many years. Believe me - no believe God - the Devil is real and he has become so successfully entrenched within our families. This complete destruction of the primacy of the family is one of the prime goals of the Devil. The family is the first cell of society, the first church, first school, first hospital, first economy, and the first mediating institution.

Then there is our national claim to be a free people. Do we go on pretending to be a nation “under God”? The Truth again, we are not a Christian nation, if we ever truly were. We have become a secularized nation. We have been beaten down so much that we have forgotten our own values, once so clearly informed by Christian faith. The teachings and values that many of our founding fathers gave to this mighty nation flowed from the Christian heritage of Western civilization, the teachings that our Savior, Jesus Christ gave his life for. Their influence has waned.

Let’s be ...