Why the issue of abortion is still the preeminent priority

It is the belief of this pro-life leader that those who consider abortion as merely one issue among others see abortion as just that—an issue. They don’t see 60 million dead people.

(Image: kishivan | us.fotolia.com)

“It is not Catholic that abortion is the preeminent issue that we face as a world in Catholic social teaching. It is not.”

Bishop Robert McElroy of the Diocese of San Diego boldly declared these words during a heated debate earlier this month at the annual fall meeting of the bishops, held in Baltimore. Since the Supreme Court decision of 1973 that imposed legalized abortion on the entire nation, one would be hard pressed to find any other bishop speak so forcefully against the decades-long position of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that abortion is the “preeminent” social justice concern believers should consider when they go to the polls.

McElroy made his comment when amendments were considered to a letter that would accompany the 2015 document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (FC), the primary text of the USCCB on Catholic political responsibility. The treatise is meant to provide guidance on how Catholics should apply the Church’s social thought when they go to the polls. FC teaches that of all the social injustices of which Catholics need to be concerned “abortion remains our preeminent priority.” Debate was stirred when Cardinal Blaise Cupich strongly proposed that paragraph 101 of Pope Francis’ 2018 apostolic exhortation Gaudete et exsultate be included in its entirety. That paragraph reads:

The other harmful ideological error is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist. Or they relativize it, as if there are other more important matters, or the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend. Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection. (84)

Coming to Cupich’s aid, McElroy wanted “abortion remains our preeminent priority” removed from FC, and if not, that article 101 of the pope’s exhortation be included with the intention to mitigate the pastoral’s emphasis on abortion. Cupich himself stated that FC needed to reflect the “Francis magisterium” that other issues are “equally sacred” and that defending the unborn is not “the only thing that counts.”

By a vote of 143-69 the Cupich intervention failed. Instead the bishops, in a kind of compromise, quote in part article 101 where the pope notes that other lives are “equally sacred” and provides a footnote to that article. The bishops recognize that indeed there are other social issues. However, regarding abortion FC declares:

The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed. At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty.

Our efforts to protect the unborn remain as important as ever, for just as the Supreme Court may allow greater latitude for state laws restricting abortion, state legislators have passed statutes not only keeping abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy but opening the door to infanticide. Additionally, abortion contaminates many other important issues by being inserted into legislation regarding immigration, care for the poor, and health care reform.

Article 22 states abortion is the preeminent issue because abortion is an “intrinsically evil” action that “must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned.” The bishops even identify the right-to-life as “the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 5).”

Article 28 of FC, within the context of abortion, explicitly denies that all social justice issues have equal weight and notes two mistaken approaches to the application of Catholic social doctrine:

The first is a moral equivalence that makes no ethical distinctions between different kinds of issues involving human life and dignity. The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed.

In article 29 the bishops caution against “the misuse of these necessary moral distinctions as a way of dismissing or ignoring other serious threats to human life and dignity.” In other words, it is wrong to act as if no other social justice issues exist besides abortion.

However, footnote 3 in the above quote cites the “Doctrinal Note” issued seventeen years ago this weekend by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was prefect. The note directly addressed the problem of the Catholic politician who lives “two parallel lives”—those who separate their faith commitment from their political actions:

In the face of fundamental and inalienable ethical demands, Christians must recognize that what is at stake is the essence of the moral law, which concerns the integral good of the human person. This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia. . . . Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death. (4)

Vatican II and John Paul II

Abortion is the preeminent social justice issue because the protection of human life presents “fundamental and inalienable ethical demands” in a way other, even very grave moral evils, do not. “What is at stake is the essence of the moral law.”

The claim that abortion is the preeminent social issue stands on plenty of doctrinal solid ground. Vatican II’s Guadium et spes states: “Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes” (51). No other grave injustice is condemned by the Church in such strong, severe language.

Moreover, in article 62 of Evangelium vitae, John Paul II went so far as to declare that the Church’s condemnation of direct abortion is an infallible teaching.

Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops—who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine—I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.

No other serious injustice, except for euthanasia, has received such a solemn clarification. Consider also John Paul II’s teaching in Christifideles laici:

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture-is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. (38)

The injustice of abortion is the preeminent social justice issue because the right-to-life, so violated in abortion, is the condition for all other rights. In this we need no other argument.

In 1998, the bishops at the end of that year’s November meeting issued a pastoral letter titled Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics. Adopting the consistent ethic of life approach to social justice issues the bishops admonished that “abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice. Any politics of human life must work to resist the violence of war and the scandal of capital punishment. Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care” (22).

However, the bishops go to say: “But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.” And if anyone has any doubt that abortion is affirmed as having priority in the hierarchy of social justice concerns the bishops state:

If we understand the human person as the “temple of the Holy Spirit” — the living house of God—then these latter issues fall logically into place as the crossbeams and walls of that house. All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house’s foundation. These directly and immediately violate the human person’s most fundamental right—the right to life. Neglect of these issues is the equivalent of building our house on sand. Such attacks cannot help but lull the social conscience in ways ultimately destructive of other human rights. As Pope John Paul II reminds us, the command never to kill establishes a minimum which we must respect and from which we must start out ‘in order to say ‘yes’ over and over again, a ‘yes’ which will gradually embrace the entire horizon of the good” (Evangelium vitae, 75).

The right-to-life is characterized as “most fundamental.” Abortion and euthanasia, unlike other social evils are “direct attacks on innocent human life”—attacks that “strike at the house’s foundation.” And if the right-to-life is attacked the conscience is dulled that is “ultimately destructive of other human rights.” All of this certainly supports why abortion and the life-issues have “preeminent priority.”

We could quote Church documents all day long, but let’s cut to the chase. When it comes to abortion the first thing to be considered is the horrific body count. No other grave injustice in America, or in the world, has claimed as many lives. In the United States over 60 million human beings have been put to death since 1973. No other group of people perishes at the rate of 3000 per day as do the unborn. Moreover, no other group—even those who are victimized and oppressed—are formally declared by law to be “non-persons.” Only the unborn have been systematically and legally cast out of the human community. For the purposes of their right-to-life the unborn are reduced to the level of a thing; even worse than a thing, they are reduced to trash, their bodies treated as so much waste or sold for scientific research.

The unborn are the most oppressed group in America. Their oppression should shake us to the core of our souls as only these totally innocent persons are subjected to a violent obliteration protected by law. The injustice of abortion is staggering. And for all the foregoing reasons, even if the bishops never say so—abortion is the preeminent priority as a social justice issue. Thus it is incumbent on the shepherds of the Christ’s flock to guide the conscience of the Catholic voter to first take the injustice of abortion into account when selecting public officials.

Pope Francis, Gaudete et exsultate, and Cardinal Bernardin

And let’s examine paragraph 101 of Gaudete et exsultate. Pope Francis says that other lives are “equally sacred,” to those of the unborn. But even though this is absolutely true and must never be denied, this doesn’t mean that all injustices are equally urgent. For instance, every child in the family is equally sacred, but the fact is, one child may need extra care, attention and resources, say for instance the child who is ill, handicapped or especially troubled—and the care may need to be given immediately. The extra swift attention spent on that child in no way indicates that the lives of the other children are less precious.

However, it’s not as if Cardinal Cupich has no leg to stand on. Indeed, while article 101 could have been inserted into FC without detracting from abortion as the “preeminent priority”, albeit with some proper explanation, article 102 of the pope’s exhortation is more troubling. There Francis states:

We often hear it said that, with respect to relativism and the flaws of our present world, the situation of migrants, for example, is a lesser issue. Some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the ‘grave’ bioethical questions. That a politician looking for votes might say such a thing is understandable, but not a Christian, for whom the only proper attitude is to stand in the shoes of those brothers and sisters of ours who risk their lives to offer a future to their children.

Francis seems to assert that the plight of the illegal immigrant is equal to the plight of those who suffer abortion. Yes, Christians should be concerned about the rights of those who wish to migrate to another country especially when they seek to escape oppression and poverty. But can the injustices that immigrants may face and the evil of abortion be equated? There is at least one, if not several differences between the plight of immigrants and the plight of the unborn. We can start with the fact that the right-to-life is inviolable and even John Paul II in EV declared as infallible teaching that “the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral.” And abortion as the preeminent issue received support from EV 58: “Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable.” Human beings have a right to immigrate to another country, but this is not an absolute right as is the case with the right-to-life.

The problem we face between those who insist on equalizing all moral ills and those who insist that abortion has priority is that of political identity. Sadly, the Democratic Party advocates and defends legalized abortion, while the Republican Party, by and large, supports the right-to life. Thus, the pro-life movement, having nowhere else to go, is politically dependent on that party. Many Catholics abhor the Republican Party and especially abhor the Republican who now occupies the White House. Therefore, Catholics who ally themselves with Democrats, knowing that party’s support for abortion contradicts Church teaching, must justify their allegiance by asserting other social evils are as important as abortion—or even more important. The pro-life movement is marked by a political conservatism which some find odious and with which they refuse to be identified.

The debate over the gravity of the injustice of abortion when compared to other social evils is certainly nothing new. Those who believe abortion is only one issue among several find strong support from the “Seamless Garment” speeches of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, delivered in 1983 and 1984.

Those who don’t see abortion as the primary instance of injustice, and who may actually support legalized abortion have used Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life” as a club to beat the pro-life movement seeking to dilute its political influence, divert attention away from the killing of the unborn and believe they’ve been given a justification to support candidates and a party that directly defends a law that sends millions of people to their deaths. After all, other “life” issues are equally important. Even if Bernardin never intended it, arguably this has been the chief outcome of his “seamless garment” proposal. Thus, nearly forty years after Bernardin gave those speeches, a bishop can actually say, “It is not Catholic that abortion is the preeminent issue.”

It is important to notice that even Bernardin identified the single moral principle guiding the “seamless garment”, namely “prohibition against direct attacks on life … central to the Catholic moral vision.”

It is the belief of this pro-life leader that those who consider abortion as merely one issue among others see abortion as just that—an issue. They don’t see 60 million dead people. The unborn are essentially silent, invisible victims and thus it is easy to never be personally affected by their absence. Indeed, it is because their plight is so innately hidden, their killing sanitized, and their existence easily dismissed, that this oppressed class needs extra, urgent attention. When the bishops assert, in the face of nearly unprecedented opposition from within their own ranks, that abortion is the “preeminent priority” – we must take it to heart and end this slaughter.

 


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About Monica Migliorino Miller 9 Articles
Monica Migliorino Miller is Director of Citizens for a Pro-life Society, teacher of theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, and the author of several books, including The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church (Emmaus Road) and Abandoned: The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars (St. Benedict Press).

29 Comments

  1. This is one Catholic who neither “abhors” the Reoublican Party or the current occupant in the White House.

    Here is what I DO abhor: the position on abortion promoted by Nancy Pelosi, Joseph Biden, Cuomo, and the rest of the Catholic politicians who use their elected office to see to it that abortion continues in this country.

    • Given that the Supreme Court is neither a law-making body nor has jurisdiction over state laws which are not somehow against the Constitution (as it should be interpreted, not as misinterpreted in false evil judgments), then it is the responsibility of the state legislatures (because of the 10th Amendment) to abide by the natural law-which forbids murder.

    • Not just abortion, but now we are moving into infanticide, given the vote of the New York State assembly with cheers from Gov. Cuomo, and comments from the Governor of Virginia!

    • The preeminent issue is PRO-LIFE. For us to focus on abortion prominently is what we should do. But it appears to me that Trump has committed innumerable ANTI-LIFE acts.
      1. Kidnaping children from their parents, placing them in cages, giving them mylar blankets to sleep on concrete floors , and leaving on the lights on all night.
      ???PRO-LIFE???? I don’t think so.
      2. If some one doesn’t agree with Trump, Then he denigrates them.
      ????PRO-LIFE???? I don’t think so.
      3. I see only Mitt Romney among the Senate, who has challenged him. What hold does he have over the rest of the senate that they can’t even chastise him over some of his ridiculous utterances.
      4. The average number of lies he has told is an average of 14.6/day.

      5. No concern about the climate. Is that PRO-LIFE?

  2. How can the fact that since 1973 more than 60,000,.000 – SIXTY MILLION – totally helpless people have been murdered with the approval of the government and in many cases paid for by the people – NOT be the preeminent issue of our time?

    And how can we NOT see the connection between that fact and the dissolution of our society all around us and all around the world?

  3. Wow Monica! You nailed it. I’m gonna send this article to all my pro-abortion, practicing Catholic, friends. Let’s see, I think that’s most of them. I better get started.

  4. I sometimes speculate about how many ‘chemical’ (at home) abortions take place. The record surely must be hideous. Abortion is the preeminent expression of self-will and bears the burden of those who reject any constraint on what they want to do – the growing and perhaps dominant segment of our world’s societies.

  5. One of the reasons why abortion has to be a pre-eminent issue is that all those other issues of homelessness, migration, etc..the people affected can, and do have voices to speak for themselves. There is also a face to put with this homeless person or this migrant. Not so for the poor unborn. Their voices are never given the chance to speak for themselves. A real unique face that one can stare at is never given the chance to develop.

    I personally know many a Catholic who spouts the garbage of abortion is not the pre-eminent issue. Every single one of them also believes that missing Mass to attend a sporting event is okay.

  6. The March for life must be renamed March for Humanae Vitae and rerouted to the doorstep of USCCB, with a demand for all U.S. priests to preach this document with all its implications. The pulpit is mightier than the curette, the euthaneedle or the frankentube. Once father Twinkie gets it or gets the boot, we can expect many of the 100 millions of abortion-deranged women and partners to come home to confession.

  7. ‘Human life , always sacred ..’ ;
    ‘every human person as temple of the Holy Spirit ‘..surprised that the media has not focused lots more on those words , instead of all the hysterical attention to the words ‘who I am to judge ‘ , which was an endorsement of trust in God that He can use even wounds , to bring His light and love and healing in relationships and dignity .
    Have heard Catholics who have lost babies through miscarriage , mentioning them as though they were somehow subhuman and that error , possibly from our misunderstanding on what baptism is as well .
    The Holy Father possibly recognizing such subtle errors based on human values in many hearts , how the truth has been eclipsed , that it is essential for same to be reinforced , for the strength to withstand the powers that are ever at work , to lead lives to the wrong choices .
    Caring for the poor and the marginalized thus a means too , to help in that essential identity , in nations and persons and for offering reparation as well ;
    those who support life , being strong in such areas too can be a win win situation ,
    when done with enough compassion as well as prudence and justice for all involved .
    The priority given to the cause to protect life – let us hope that it would serve also as reparation for any perceived harshness in other less critical areas as
    well .
    Holy Father , having made a special Feast of Our Lady of Loretto – in honor of the house of the Holy Family ,the blessed moments in there , a house said to have been miraculously transported around by holy angels – let us hope that all of our own lineages and homes too would be blessed as being of the Holy House .
    A blessed Advent Season !

  8. Wow! The real indication of anyone’s virtue or lack of virtue, goodness or evil is whether that person is MAJORLY moving toward the promotion of life or MAJORLY moving toward the promotion of death; defects, warts and intestinal gas notwithstanding. Barack Obama, considered great by his race and moving oratory, submitted African countries to a quid-pro-quo bribe to force them to approve abortion or big financial aids would be withheld, even though Africa resisted that push amid their many other grave problems and grave injustices. Africans were slanted majorly toward life, even if their lives lack so very much.

    On the other side, President Trump, who is not a moving orator, lacks many desirable character traits and has made plenty of mistakes, none criminal, is strongly for life and against abortion. Even if Mr. Trump were evil incarnate, as his enemies assert, with the goat demon Baphomet face hiding under his unique hairdo and face, we would be facing an impossible contradiction as evil would never fight against the killing of the unborn as a top priority, not even as a cover up, it’s the ultimate test! “So Jesus called them together and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand” (Mark 3:23-25).

    Whatever Mr. Trump’s past sins may be, he is doing the Catholic Thing, he is consistently and strongly moving toward life. Whatever Mr. Obama’s past virtues may be, he is doing the Anti-Catholic thing, he is consistently and strongly moving toward death. Same with every Lay Catholic, Bishop, Cardinal or Pope, and every other non-believing human being. These Clergy and Laity that play games with the absolute preeminence of the fight for life and against abortion, which is the most monumental, most heinous, most repugnant injustice ever in all of human history, are only serving their Marxist, evil, political overlords, moving consistently and strongly toward death, and are therefore NOT Catholic.

    True Catholicism is earned through full communion with Jesus’ Cross, it is not an easy, cheap entitlement, even for ordained Clergy, Pope included. That’s why Jesus allowed the Priest’s scandal, to slap us with two hard backhand slaps across the face so as not to worship Clergy, Pope included. Peter remembered that super hard anti-clericalism, anti-humanism backhand slap across his face and became a holy, truly Catholic Pope (Matthew 16:23). After betraying Jesus, he repented, and he was totally committed to life, the only true way, until persecution, torture, death and beyond. He preferred to be “aborted” by evil than to be rejected by God!! So does every True Catholic! Only death-loving-evil pretends to always have been perfect by following the Evil Gospel of Political Humanism (1 John 1:8). That is not Catholic!!

  9. They don’t see 60 million dead people.

    Indeed. And in the same way bigotry blinded Americans to the plight of nearly 4 million enslaved human beings in the U.S. in 1860. American bigots knew the slaves were there, they just didn’t count; they were “just ni**ers.” To those blinded with bigotry today, those 60 million dead people are “just fetuses” or “just masses of tissue” who just don’t count. The root of the problem in both cases is evil, willfully ignorant bigotry.

    That even a significant number of the apostles of Christ are afflicted with the lethal bigotry of our times explains much about the contemporary demise of Christianity. Why do these sanctimonious bigots think deliberately taking the life of the child in the womb used to be against the law?

  10. The 4 Sins that Cry Out to Heaven for Vengeance

    1. WILLFUL MURDER
    2. The sin of Sodom
    3. Oppression of the poor
    4. Defrauding laborers of their wages

    “Q. 926. What is the first of them?

    A. Wilful murder, which is a voluntary and unjust taking away another’s life.

    Q. 927.How show you the pravity of this sin?

    A. Out of Gen. iv. 10. Where it is said to Cain “What hast thou done? the voice of the blood of thy brother crieth to me from the earth: now, therefore shalt thou be cursed upon the earth.” And Matt. xxvi 52, “All that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.””

    -The Douay Catechism of 1649

  11. The larger public does “not see 60 million dead people,” but the larger pro-life community does not see anything wrong with contraception–at least in my experience. Susan above suggests renaming the March for Life the as the March for Humanae Vitae. To do so, however, would be considered divisive.
    .
    I actually listened to a pro-life woman argue for IVF with no consideration for the dead embryos involved because her friends had suffered with infertility so greatly–IVF was the only way they could get a baby.
    .
    I remember reading an article some years back where a physician (pharmacist?)sat down with “the stats” on how well The Pill does the job of suppressing ovulation, how often people are presumed to engage in sexual intercourse, abortion, live births, etc, and he concluded The Pill did not simply prevent conception, but also worked to prevent embryos (not “fertilized eggs”) from implanting in the uterine lining.
    .
    That number was far greater than the number of babies butchered by abortion.
    .
    The abortion industry uses the medical term “fetus” for baby. Nearly every article I have seen on the subject of the abortafacient properties of The Pill, Mini-pill, IUD refer to the thinning of the uterine lining so that a “fertilized egg” cannot implant. Fertilized eggs do not implant. Embryos do. Just ask the local IVF doctor.
    .
    Embryos (homo sapiens ones, anyway) are people too. So are homo sapien fertilized eggs–who quite literal have no face or voice, but they too are complete human beings just as an 8 month fetus is, or 6 months baby, toddler, teenager or grown up. But if embryos get little attention, fertilized eggs get none.
    .
    A seemingly uneventful pregnancy can end in a still birth. It is rare, but it happens. A fetus may die in utero for unknown reasons. More common are the death of embryos and fertilized eggs even in a mother who is not a user of any type of contraception. And I have heard that argument-so many embryos just naturally don’t survive anyway-that the abortafacient properties of The Pill are irrelevant.
    .
    But it is not just because it is abortafacient that The Pill is a major problem. All contraceptives are “intrinsically evil.”
    .
    Until people really come to grips with the fact the “marital act” is not just some pleasant activity to do on a Friday night or way to show love, but it is the very way by which God himself has decided that human beings are to by created, the body count through abortion will continue to rise-unless it finally becomes so high, there are no longer people of reproductive age to get pregnant.
    .
    Hmm. Aren’t most societies aging…?

    • Am Fam Physician. 2000 May 1;61(9):2605-2606.
      to the editor: The article “Update on Oral Contraceptive Pills” was timely and informative. However, one critical piece of information was overlooked. When prescribing oral contraceptive pills (OCPs), particularly when they are to be used as “emergency contraception,” it is important for physicians to remember that one of the potential mechanisms of action is prevention of implantation. Given that the United States has a diverse population, it is probable that a substantial number of women seeking birth control or “emergency contraception” subscribe to the belief that the fetus is a human being from the time of conception, and that it is morally wrong to interfere with the life of that human being for any reason, with the possible exception of a significant danger to the life of the mother. Therefore, it is incumbent on physicians who prescribe OCPs to review the possible mechanisms of action with all patients, so that those who would choose not to take the chance of allowing conception but preventing implantation, can make a truly informed decision. This is particularly important when prescribing OCPs for “emergency contraception,” where the probability of failing to prevent ovulation and successfully preventing implantation is much higher than with the usual use (Jeremy Klein MD). You’re correct Kathryn that the contraceptive act is intrinsically evil. Dissect by intervention the transmission of life from the conjugal act is to prioritize sensual pleasure in opposition to love of the spouse. That love is evidenced in love for what is transmitted and nurtured. Love is ordained by God toward life not death. That is inherent to our nature. The advent of the pill was the advent of a culture of death seen in adultery, promiscuity, deviate sex, the astronomical rate of abortion, now the growing association of violence and death in sexual acts. Paul VI was prophetic.

  12. Oh’ little candle burning in the night
    Who did light your pure white light?
    Was it, Mother’s joy, Fathers delight?
    One warm and tender loving night
    Or was it, Adams apple, their sensual delight
    That set you a burning in the night
    I’m a little candle burning in the night
    No one can see my pure white light
    Cane and Salome are the idiom of the day
    They would have my form melt away
    Oh’ little candle in the night
    You have an angel ever bright
    Guardian of your blazing wondrous light
    Lit from above, ever shall you reflect his love
    Herod reigns, Rachel weeps no more
    Hearts of seasoned wood doe’s God abhor
    As seasoned wood weeps no more
    kevin your brother
    In Christ

  13. Ha! That’s like removing the starting line and expect to finish the race. Like ignoring Gn: 1:26 — If there’s no beginning then the middle and the end will not exist. It’s 1,2,3 not 3,2,1. This is so simple it becomes a mystery as God Himself is. To ignore God which is exactly what presuming things down the timeline are equal in every way to the beginning is pure chaos. Our opinion does not supersede God’s Word. You know the drill […]

  14. Over 60 million that the question of “What if” will never be known by the mother and father,but only by God in his infinite love for his creation.

  15. Outstanding article Dr. Miller. Come Holy Spirit and en-kindle in us the fire of your love, to be salt and light to a world that so desperately needs God’s mercy.

  16. Almost every day I am now reminded of the one and only half way intelligent criticism I ever heard made by Catholic dissidents who, in arguing for a married priesthood, did point out that priests can suffer from a warped personality from not having anyone in their life willing to point out what idiocy they are capable of. Bishop McElroy, you are guilty of moral idiocy and moral depravity.

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