Charles J. Chaput: The Homicides Involved in Abortion Are 'Little Murders'

10/18/2008

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third point. We need to be very forceful in defending what the words in our political vocabulary really mean. Words are important because they shape our thinking, and our thinking drives our actions. When we subvert the meaning of words like ''the common good'' or ''conscience'' or ''community'' or ''family,'' we undermine the language that sustains our thinking about the law. Dishonest language leads to dishonest debate and bad laws.

Here's an example. We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue, and it's never an end in itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of evil. Likewise, democratic pluralism does not mean that Catholics should be quiet in public about serious moral issues because of some misguided sense of good manners. A healthy democracy requires vigorous moral debate to survive. Real pluralism demands that people of strong beliefs will advance their convictions in the public square - peacefully, legally and respectfully, but energetically and without embarrassment. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the public conversation.

Here's the fourth point. When Jesus tells the Pharisees and Herodians in the Gospel of Matthew (22:21) to ''render unto the Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's,'' he sets the framework for how we should think about religion and the state even today. Caesar does have rights. We owe civil authority our respect and appropriate obedience. But that obedience is limited by what belongs to God. Caesar is not God. Only God is God, and the state is subordinate and accountable to God for its treatment of human persons, all of whom were created by God. Our job as believers is to figure out what things belong to Caesar, and what things belong to God - and then to put those things in right order in our own lives, and in our relations with others.

So having said all this, what does the book mean, in practice, for each of us as individual Catholics? It means that we each have a duty to study and grow in our faith, guided by the teaching of the Church. It also means that we have a duty to be politically engaged. Why? Because politics is the exercise of power, and the use of power always has moral content and human consequences.

As Christians, we can't claim to love God and then ignore the needs of our neighbors. Loving God is like loving a spouse. A husband may tell his wife that he loves her, and of course that's very beautiful. But she'll still want to see the evidence in his actions. Likewise if we claim to be ''Catholic,'' we need to prove it by our behavior. And serving other people by working for justice and charity in our nation's political life is one of the very important ways we do that.

The ''separation of Church and state'' does not mean - and it can never mean - separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be ''leaven in the world'' and to ''make disciples of all nations.'' That kind of separation steals the moral content of a society. It's the equivalent of telling a married man that he can't act married in public. Of course, he can certainly do that, but he won't stay married for long.

Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama

I began work on Render Unto Caesar in July 2006. I made the final changes to the text in November 2007. That's a long time before anyone was nominated for president, and it was Doubleday, not I, that set the book's release date for August 2008. So - unlike Prof. Douglas Kmiec's recent book, Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama, which argues a Catholic case for Senator Obama - I wrote Render Unto Caesar with no interest in supporting or attacking any candidate or any political party.The goal of Render Unto Caesar was simply to describe what an authentic Catholic approach to political life looks like, and then to encourage Americans Catholics to live it.

Prof. Kmiec has a strong record of service to the Church and the nation in his past. He served in the Reagan administration, and he supported Mitt Romney's campaign for president before switching in a very public way to Barack Obama earlier this year. In his own book he quotes from Render Unto Caesar at some length. In fact, he suggests that his reasoning and mine are ''not far distant on the moral inquiry necessary in the election of 2008.'' Unfortunately, he either misunderstands or misuses my words, and he couldn't be more mistaken.

I believe that Senator Obama, whatever his other talents, is the most committed ''abortion-rights'' presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973. Despite what Prof. Kmiec ...
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Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good is an online publication of the Witherspoon Institute that seeks to enhance the public understanding of the moral foundations of free societies by making the scholarship of the fellows and affiliated scholars of the Institute available and accessible to a general audience.This article is used with permission.

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1 - 10 of 10 Comments

Dude one
4 years ago
Thanks!! Very interesting article.
kelpFurlreS
4 years ago
yo, www.catholic.org great name for site)))
Harold Olsen
4 years ago
Pro-abortionists will tell you that abortion is not killing. See what their reaction is when you say to them, "Your mother should have had an abortion." The odds are that if they verbalize their response they will accuse you of threatening their life. If they do not verbalize their response, look at their facial expression. You'll most likely read that very same response in their face. They know it's killing!
CatholicFirst
4 years ago
Paul Bradford: Shame we couldn't get the pro-abortionist to adopt your changing hearts tactic pre Roe.

In 1971 Judith Blake was the chairman of the department of Demography at UC Berkeley, an enclave for population control freaks.

After studying public opinion against legalized abortion, she concluded that a Supreme Court decision striking down state laws would be "the only road to rapid change."

Right before Roe, Bella Abzug�s legislation to nullify state anti-abortion laws had languished in Congress for eleven months, attracting no more than 20 sponsors.

Changing hearts is indeed an important job in the pro-life effort but as Gov. Robert Casey stated, the law is the great teacher.

In the end tactics aside. Abortion is unjust and children deserve the full protection of our society including its laws.
Ken J.
4 years ago
In response to Paul Bradford, by the logic in your comment then perhaps Lincoln shouldn't have signed the Emancipation Proclamation until everyone's hearts and minds were changed. Or maybe Kennedy shouldn't have sent troops to enforce integration at the University of Alabama until he changed the hearts of those who were against it. Had they not done those things, they would have betrayed the values that is given to us all by our Creator, values which we are required to defend as children of God. It doesn't matter how lousy the Republicans are, most of them will not enact laws or appoint judges that will protect and defend the killing of our unborn. You certainly can't say that about Obama or most of the Democrats. Our right to life is primary and MUST be protected by law. If we as a society refuse to do that, then we will fall, that much is certain. I pray you have a change of heart.
Stephanie Zito
4 years ago
Thankyou for this wonderful commentary. I thankyou for making the point "our job as believers is to figure out what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God" is what I believe is the bottom line. People need to remember they belong to God and to have eternity with God means to put our hearts and mind on the things of God. Faith and understanding and living the word of God are vital for life. Human lives all belong to God whether or not they can defend themselves. If we don't defend all life including the unborn, we are denying God what is His. If we yield to the myth that separation of church and state is what we need, then we deny God. We deny ourselves as Christians and allow ourselves to be told what to think. Separation of Church and State is genecide of all human life. Abortion is infanticide of human life, morality, the teachings of Jesus Christ and the very foundation of the truth of God. And the church of God will be destroyed. Our first priorities in life need to be all that belongs to God, life and God's word. Without attention to what matters to God for eternity, we are doomed if we surrender to Caesar.
Shilo Stigen
4 years ago
Wow! A speech like that makes me want to get his book! I don't say that very often.
Paul Bradford
4 years ago
Of course, these are simply my personal views as an author and private citizen. But I'm grateful to Prof. Kmiec for quoting me in his book and giving me the reason to speak so clearly about our differences. I think his activism for Senator Obama, and the work of Democratic-friendly groups like Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, have done a disservice to the Church, confused the natural priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined the progress prolifers have made, and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue instead of fighting within their parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn.

As Bishop Chaput readily admitted, these are his personal views as an author and private citizen. I would like to share my personal views in the same spirit.

Since the late 'seventies, conservative Republicans have taken an interest in the Pro-Life movement, not with a desire to end abortion but with the thought of gaining allies for a political agenda that has nothing to do with advancing Catholic Social Teaching.

The plan that has been outlined for Pro-Lifers to follow has been as convoluted as a Rube Goldberg project. The idea has been to elect Republican presidents who will nominate conservative Supreme Court justices who may, if the time ever becomes right, overturn Roe v Wade so that the states will be free to make their own regulations regarding abortion. Somehow, Pro-Lifers have convinced themselves that this scheme will (eventually) protect the unborn. It has only had the effect of increasing the power of the GOP (and, as an unhappy side-effect, put Pro-Life Democrats at odds with the leaders of their own party. Republicans have co-opted the Pro-Life movement even as abortion rights advocates have co-opted the progressive wing of the Democratic Party).

The rate of abortion has been steadily decreasing since 1981 -- not because of legal restrictions, but because the Pro-Life witness has changed the minds and hearts of young women. The young woman of 2008 is much more likely to respect the life of her unborn child than the women of her mother's generation was in 1978. This improvement in this respect for life, this movement toward building a Culture of Life has advanced steadily under Democratic and Republican administrations and during both good and bad economic times.

Barack Obama has no authentic interest in lowering the abortion rate (although he does seem to be sincerely interested in lowering the rate of unintended pregnancy). John McCain, on the other hand, has nothing new to offer in the way of Pro-Life strategy. Our choice is between a candidate who has only an indirect interest in reducing abortion and a candidate who is committed to following the same discredited strategy we've been using for thirty years.

We haven't overturned Roe v Wade. I expect that if we ever do overturn it, the long term effects will ultimately be bad for the Pro-Life movement.

The non-governmental strategy of changing hearts and minds has had a positive result. There is still a lot of work to do. Laws can only reflect the values of a society -- they can't shape them. Pro-Lifers should direct their efforts to strategies that actually have some hope of working.
Carlos
4 years ago
I read Render "Unto Caesar..." and learned more about my Catholic faith. We'll never know how much we care until we care enough to know. Our faith is what we should be willing to die for, if necessary. We cannot, we should not put it aside when we vote.
Alice Daily
4 years ago
Pray for 30-pieces-of-silver Doug Kmiec.

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