People betray themselves by their inconsistencies. Not that any of us is perfectly consistent, but inconsistency certainly raises some eyebrows and starts people asking questions.
Take the recent controversy over Obama speaking at Notre Dame. Some were infuriated that a pro-choice president like Obama was given the attention and honors he got, given that the Catholic Church is decidedly pro-life.
On the one hand, this could deserve some congratulations. When many churches are accused of trying to be "all things to all people," here you have one that is willing to take a stand. Perhaps this is something to be proud of.
The anti-abortion stance of the Catholic Church is rooted in a respect for life--all life, all the time, everywhere. There are many Catholics who take a hard line stance on abortion, allowing no if's, and's or but's about it. To them, abortion is wrong and that's all there is to it. Okay, that's a respectable stance. Then ask them about war... euthanasia... the death penalty... these are often considered "negotiable."
Many of these folks who would not support abortion under any circumstances seem to have little regard for the dropping of thousands of megatons of explosives on foreign nations--bombs which kill, most certainly, a number of unborn babies. You may remember that George W Bush--the unrepentant architect of those very actions--also spoke at Notre Dame without a peep from the pro-life contingency.
The inconsistency of the response of folks at Notre Dame reflects a trend that you can see elsewhere among some American Catholics--not all, but some.
It seems that the people I am describing are not pro-life. They seem to be anti-abortion, they have a particular call and desire to stop abortions for whatever reason. Maybe they just like unborn babies and really want to crusade for them. Fine with me. But when it comes to truly understanding what the Church is calling us to understand when it comes to respect for all life, they don't get it.
To narrow the pro-life movement to just abortion is to miss the whole point--all life, all the time, everywhere. The crippled and able. The living and dying. The young and old, born and unborn, healthy and sick, smart and dumb, friend and enemy, neighbor and foreigner, guilty and not guilty, you name it. Life is a gift from God and must be respected through all its phases and manifestations--none is greater or more deserving of their life than another.
I'm in the middle of reading The Nine which is about the Rehnquist Supreme Court in the 90s/early 00s. It's interesting to read about how the justices approached their votes in abortion cases and reconciled the opinions they wrote with their personal pro-life or pro-choice beliefs. Or failed to reconcile them, as the case may be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Frank. And it's not just Catholics. I think if you are Christian you should be decidedly against all deliberate killing of any life. I could never understand why the conservative right (mostly Christian too) would be pro-life (or anti-abortion) but totally for the death penalty. Hello!?
ReplyDeleteI've come to stand against the death penalty after a long, long bit of soul searching within myself. I'm actually going to write a blog entry about it (I started one). To have a respect for life, especially as Jesus taught, you should be against these kind of practices. And you definitely should be anti-war.
Yeah, I know the trend is larger than just "some Cathlics" but I just springboarded of the recent Obama/Notre Dame controversy and left it at that. It is hard enough writing about "some people" and being vague.
ReplyDeleteFrank - Who knew, when we had our conversation Monday night before you took me to the bus, that you had just written this blogpost? I agree with you about inconsistencies and the importance of language in this area. I think I mentioned that - as a feminist social worker, as a very regretful one-time clinic worker, as a woman who has known many, many women who have terminated pregnanices and as a women who been spared the crisis of an unwanted pregnancy, I do not know ANY woman (or man) for that matter, who can be justly called "pro-abortion". I know many "pro-life" people who - as you said - are more accurately described as "anti-abortion" simply because they do not have formulated stands on (or do not attend to) all the many other "Life" issues. I, too, struggle with the language of "choice" in this area and believe that language was adopted at a time when the women's movement was addressing "choice" in more global terms: marriage or not, career or not, children or not, men as sexual partners or not, same-race partner or not, bra or not (you get my meaning)...and the reality that women were asserting that they could chose among all the greys in between those black-or-white constructions. I do believe that all of those struggles and the underlying societal tensions have been attached to the narratives surrounding this
ReplyDeletenow-Constitutional debate so that, when Americans speak of the abortion controversy, we are rarely speaking strictly of the "life" issue. For this reason, I think it is essential that we try hard to be as honest and transparent and explicit as possible in choosing our words and "labels". (More on your next post).
We humans are so often inconsistent, and the beauty of language and community is that we can help each other struggle with WHY we are inconsistent in specific beliefs and actions, thus creating the space and opportunity for transformation. Whenever I encounter people willing to wrestle with stuff - even when they hold positions wildly contradicting my own - I recall this statement by Astrid Schlaps, a favorite professor and a psychoanalytically trained social worker: "Invite the construction of a new story without punishing people for the story they have already told". That is that I hope for when I talk with people about this deeply complex and painful issue.
Jean (don't know how to use the other identity options...)