I really think it’s difficult to change the culture‘s attitude towards abortion without faith in Jesus Christ. First, let it be known that what I don’t mean by this is that Christianity should be “used” to accomplish the end of the pro-life agenda (in any matters of life), because even if abortion and all such crimes were illegal, the world would still need a saviour. In other words, abortion and all life issues, as important as they are, do not resolve our ultimate plight of sin. God is not used, all other things orient us toward Him.
Furthermore, I do not mean to imply either that it is insufficient to use reason to make our case on such life issues. As Vatican I taught, reason itself proves God’s existence.
What I mean is that the grace of faith is crucial in addressing a very deep wound afflicted upon people who have endorsed, procured and undergone abortions. How could a person who has truly participated in such things, especially in a formal way, face themselves in the horror of such an act, without the knowledge of God’s mercy? How could we even begin to look at, or entertain the reasons against such sins against life?
In Dante’s Inferno, he doesn’t walk through hell alone. He faints in horror at the reality of sin. Yet he is beckoned onward, encouraged and made to keep moving through this show of horrors. But isn’t the inferno merely an inward gaze into what St. Augustine calls “massa damnata”, the interior state of all men?
I believe this is true of all sin, not just matters of abortion, and other life issues. Can anyone truly face the lizards in our interior castle without the aid of prayer and faith? (cf. St. Teresa of Ávila)
Faith brings about righteousness, not in a way where it is artificially imposed upon us, but in that we can with courage see our sin for what it is, because we know that Mercy always matches and exceeds it. Just like Moses raising up the serpent in the desert, so must we raise up the Cross to both see our sin and be healed of it.
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Photo: Luis Galvez, Unsplash / PD-US
