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Dear Sisters and Brothers in
the Lord:
This Sunday is Respect Life Sunday. I offer this article by Father
Thomas D. Williams, Dean of Theology at Regina Apostolrum University in
Rome for your reflection. It is entitled Abortion and Catholic Social
Teaching:
When the 2004 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church first fell
into my hands some months before its promulgation, one pleasant surprise
was the text’s specific treatment and forthright condemnation of
abortion in the context of human rights and, also, of the family as the
sanctuary of life. The disconcerting fact is that, more commonly, the
topic of abortion is seen as falling outside the discipline of Catholic
Social Doctrine as it is taught in most seminaries and universities.
This is due in large part to
the relatively few references to abortion in the corpus of social
encyclicals, beginning with Pope Leo XIII’s groundbreaking 1891 letter
Rerum Novarum. Of all nine widely recognized social encyclicals, the
word “abortion” appears a scant four times, and none treats it in any
depth. In part, this silence stems from the relatively recent advent of
abortion as a large-scale ethical problem. With the development of
medicine’s ability to kill as well as to heal, the number of abortions
has risen alarmingly in the past four decades.
Therefore the first mention of abortion in a social encyclical appears
only in 1971, in Pope Paul VI’s Octogesima Adveniens. Here Paul mentions
abortion in the context of Malthusian solutions to the unemployment
problem (no. 18). In part, too, the silence reflects the widespread
understanding of abortion as an issue of medical ethics rather than one
of social justice, the proper domain of Catholic social thought. It was
Pope John Paul II who effectively turned the tide, forcefully
introducing abortion into the realm of Catholic social teaching. In his
1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae he addressed the issue at great length,
placing it in the context of social justice. On beginning his discussion
of the gravity of attacks against life in our day, particularly
abortion, John Paul explicitly invoked the memory of Rerum Novarum and
compared the life issues of today with the worker question of Leo’s
time: Just as a century ago it was the working classes which were
oppressed in their fundamental rights, and the Church very courageously
came to their defense by proclaiming the sacrosanct rights of the worker
as a person, so now, when another category of persons is being oppressed
in the fundamental right to life, the Church feels in duty bound to
speak out with the same courage on behalf of those who have no voice.
Hers is always the evangelical cry in defense of the world’s poor, those
who are threatened and despised and whose human rights are violated.
(no. 5).
This text, from the first
pages of Evangelium Vitae frames the entire question of abortion in
terms of the Church’s social teaching. If Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical
concentrated its attention on the plight of the working class as the
social group most in need of courageous defense at the time, the
attention of the social Magisterium should now shift toward this new
class of the oppressed. John Paul II goes on to say:
Today there exists a great
multitude of weak and defenseless human beings, unborn children in
particular, whose fundamental right to life is being trampled upon. If,
at the end of the last century, the Church could not be silent about the
injustices of those times, still less can she be silent today, when the
social injustices of the past, unfortunately not yet overcome, are being
compounded in many regions of the world by still more grievous forms of
injustice and oppression, even if these are being presented as elements
of progress in view of a new world order. (no. 5)
Pope John Paul saw that
abortion is an emblematic and singular socio-ethical problem, deserving
central attention in Catholic social thought. To illustrate the
uniqueness of abortion as a matter of social justice, here are six
characteristics distinguishing it from related social phenomena:
1) Abortion deals
specifically with the destruction of innocent life. This differentiates
discussion of abortion from other related topics. We are not discussing
the killing of enemies, as in war, or convicted murderers, as in capital
punishment, with all the nuanced moral considerations that must be
brought to bear on these cases. This is why then-Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) in June 2004 wrote: “There may be a
legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war
and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion
and euthanasia.” Though all life is precious, moral theology has
always differentiated the destruction of “innocent life” as particularly
heinous and always and everywhere worthy of condemnation. No one can,
“in any circumstance, claim for himself the right to destroy directly an
innocent human being” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum
Vitae, 76-77; emphasis added). No one is more innocent and defenseless
than an unborn child.
2) Another factor distinguishing abortion as a social phenomenon is the
sheer magnitude of the problem: an estimated 46 million abortions
performed worldwide each year, a figure that alone makes abortion a
social problem of staggering proportions. “Humanity today offers us a
truly alarming spectacle,” wrote Pope John Paul, “if we consider not
only how extensively attacks on life are spreading but also their
unheard of numerical proportion” (Evangelium Vitae, no. 17; emphasis
added). An isolated murder would be a social problem, but one of limited
proportions. A serial killer would pose a more serious social problem
still. But yearly killings in the millions cry out for immediate and
decisive action. The volume of abortions underscores the social nature
of the problem, and makes abortion one of the most serious social
justice issues of all time.
(To be continued next week.)
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