The Mystery of Abortion

Without engaging the discussion about the context of the viral video or placing the blame entirely on these adolescents, it astonishes me that any students participating in a pro-life activity on behalf of their school and their Catholic faith could be wearing apparel sporting the slogans of a president who denigrates the lives of immigrants, refugees and people from countries that he describes with indecent words and haphazardly endangers with life-threatening policies.

We cannot uncritically ally ourselves with someone with whom we share the policy goal of ending abortion....While the church’s opposition to abortion has been steadfast, it has become a stand-alone issue for many and has become disconnected to other issues of human dignity....The association of our young people with racist acts and a politics of hate must also become unthinkable.

This is an excerpt from a pastoral letter written by the Rev. John Stowe, bishop of the Diocese of Lexington, concerning the kerfluffle at the recent March for Life.

Now, I don't entirely disagree with the good bishop's sentiments. Certainly, it is true that no good Catholic can support Trump's politics, Trump's wall, or Trump's insistence on characterizing immigrants as subhuman criminals. We can never forget that Donald Trump happily signed off on a bill, produced by a Republican House, a bill that gave one-half BILLION dollars to Planned Parenthood. We can never forget that Trump won his presidency, in part, by publicly attacking Pope Francis. What was Francis' sin in Donald's eyes? Well, Pope Francis had CORRECTLY pointed out that no Catholic can support the building of walls to keep out immigrants and refugees.

Just as the MSM used the Covington high school kids to trash the whole March for Life, so Trump used the Pope's preaching of the Gospel to successfully leverage America's anti-Catholic, anti-papal culture to his own electoral benefit. Outrage is all about the clicks, you see.

No, my concern in the bishop's letter is the bolded sentence. Bishop John Stowe is not remarkable in constantly being concerned about the Catholic laity's singular upset over abortion.

So here are a couple of rhetorical questions for America's bishops:

1. Why, bishops, might it be the case that, out of all the life issues, so many Catholics consider the abortion issue pre-eminent?
2. Why do Catholic laity place the issue of abortion higher than issues like racism, care for the poor, the immigrant, the elderly, the ill, etc?

Well, this small chart may (or may not) be instructive:

Sin	Canonical Penalty
Racism	None
Sexism	None
Neglect of immigrant	None
Neglect of poor	None
Neglect of refugee	None
Neglect of ill	None
Neglect of elderly	None
Rape	None
Murder	None
Abortion	Automatic excommunication

So, why do Catholics view abortion as a sin that is worse than pretty much any other sin? I'm sure I don't know. But maybe, if we study the documents of the Church, we can eventually figure that one out.