Office
of the
Abbot
NuUius
by The Right Rev. Edmund F.
McCaffrey, O.S.B.
Abbot Ordinary
On January the 22nd, 1973,
God was mocked and there
occurred the greatest setback
for humanity and civil rights in
the Nation’s history. As a result
of the United States Supreme
Court’s tragic and immoral
opinions on abortion, protection
of the right to life for the unborn
is impossible.
The Court has blatantly defied
and ignored science, for
scientific evidence shows that
the human fetus is a human
being in the earliest stages of
development.
The Court has rejected thr
truths contained in the
Declaration of Independence, for
it has denied the self-evident
truths which that great
Document enunciates, namely,
that “all men are created equal
and that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unali«nable rights, that among
CROSSROADS-February, 1974-Page 5
God Was Mocked...
these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.’’
Most of all the Court has
mocked God, for God is the
Author of life and the Source of
law, and no human law, if it is to
be valid, can contradict or
supersede the Divine Law.
Neither the Court, sen
timentality, the will of the
majority, nor social concern can
change God’s law.
Coiu-t’s decision has already
made the great massacres in the
history of mankind seem small
in comparison to the great
slaughter that is now taking
place daily in our hospitals and
abortion clinics. God, however,
will not be mocked. If this
country is to prevent God’s
wrath from descending upon it
and to receive God’s fullest
blessings, all Americans,
irrespective of race, color, or
creed, must join in an un
precedented effort to change the
environment which allowed this
decision to be nurtured. Judges
reflect the mentality of the age,
and the Supreme Court decision
reflects the sad condition of
morality that is prevalent in our
Nation. Permissiveness has
replaced moral standards and
blatant materialism has led men
to conclude that the end is all
that counts.
Abortion is not a “Catholic”
issue; it involves principles
which cut across religious lines.
The life of every human being is
sacred from conception to
death.This is so because God has
created each of us and because
each of us shares in the
redemption of Christ our Lord.
No court, no legislative body, no
individual can assign less value
to the life of any individual or
class of human beings.
In holding that the unborn
child is not a human person and
deserves no legal protection
during the first six months of
existence in the Mother’s womb
the Court clearly exceeded its
competence. It also set the stage
for the formulation and enact
ment of bad laws throughout
the land. North Carolina is no
exception. Scholars who have
studied the ipreme Court’s
opinions in the past year con
clude that the only practical way
to provide a Constitutional basis
for legal protection of the right to
life of the unborn child is now to
amend the Constitution of the
United States. Amending the
Constitution is not a matter to be
taken lightly. Yet the issue at
stake, namely, human life, is so
precious that one can have no
doubt that this is the course of
action that must be taken. A
Constitutional amendment to
protect the life of the unborn
child is essential and urgently
needed, and every American
should encourage members of
Congress to conduct hearings
and move speedily to pass a pro
life amendment. Likewise,
politicians who advocate
abortion should be rejected at
the polls.
by Abbot Joseph Gerry, O.S.B.
It is ironic that the Supreme
Court’s decision backing
abortion-on-demand, for at least
the first three months of
pregnancy, should be made at
this time. For we live in a period
of history when serious minded
men agonize over the loss of life
involved in modern warfare;
over the serious ethical
questions raised by recent
scientific and medical advances;
over the implications of pollution
on oiu* environment and the long-
range effects of drug use. We live
in a period when legislative
policies generally express a
concern for identifying and
protecting the rights of in
dividual citizens. Yet this
decision by the Supreme Court
constitutes an abandonment of
this direction and removes the
only legal protection the unborn
child had for its very life.
Recognizing the unique,
delicate and dependent status of
the unborn child, we would have
expected the normal reflective
human decision to be one of
granting special protection
under the law. And yet the legal
decision being imposed upon our
society does not recognize or
protect the value of the unborn
child until some arbitrary period
of time has elapsed, as if con
ception initiated a process whose
purpose was the realization of
something other than a human
person.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a
Lutheran theologian who was
hanged by the Nazis in 1945,
expressed very simply what is
here at stake. He said:
“Destruction of the embryo in
the mother’s womb is a violation
of the right to live which God has
bestowed upon this nascent life.
To raise the question whether
we are here concerned already
with a human being or not is
merely to confuse the issue. The
simple fact is that God certainly
intended to create a human
being and that this nascent
human being has been
deliberately deprived of life. And
this is nothing but murder.”
The law as teacher, the law
as creating the moral tone of the
community it regulates, the law
as assistfng citizens in assessing
the value of specific acts, is
ignored by this recent court
decision. We live in a society that
seems to think every man is a
philosopher king. Yet in point of
fact the majority of men stand in
need of the guidance of wise
leadership. We live in a society
that seems to think that all that
is necessary is to make non-
moral legislation. Yet this at
tempt to write a “neutral” law,
to take a “neutral” stance
regarding the unborn child, has
in fact initiated immoral
legislation for it ignores man’s
responsibility towards life, an^
area in which man cannot be'
neutral.
No amount of legal decision
making can turn evil into good.
Let us stop and reflect on what
has happened. The Court
authorizes a national policy
which sanctions the violent
deaths of millions of unborn
innocent children. By its decision
the Court has determined-that
steps may be taken to exclude
the helpless and unwanted child
from the family table. This is the
moral tone established for our
society by the majority of the
United States Supreme Court. Is
it possible for us to speak of this
decision as neutral, as taking no
side in the moral issue of life?
One of the dangers of our
technological society is a ten
dency to adopt a limited view of
man and to see him only for what
he does or produces. Our society
tends to overlook the source of
men’s dignity, namely the fact
that man is made in the image of
his Creator can be elevated to
adoptive sonship in Christ, the
God-man, and that 'from the
moment of conception man is
worthy of the full support of the
human family of which he is a
member. The judgment of the
Chiu-ch on the evil of terminating
life is a sacred gift from God,
that men are not the masters but
the ministers of life. As St. Paul
so simply stated: “If we live, we
live for the Lord; and if we die,
we die for the Lord, so that alive
or dead we belong to the Lord.”
(Rm. 14:7, 8) Moreover, the
Fathers of the Second Vatican
Council declared: “ whatever
is opposed to life itself, such as
any type of murder, genocide,
abortion, euthanasia or willful
self-destruction, whatever
violates the integrity of the
human person...all these things
and others of their like are in
famies.” (GS, 27)
We profess that one aspect of
our authentic Christian witness
is a deep respect for the dignity
and uniqueness of the person, a
profound awareness of the sense
and meaning of life. Recall how
Benedict in his Rule reverences
all ages, especially the young
and elderly. This means that our
Christian life-style should
proclaim the value of all
creation, but above all it should
provide for the realization and
fulfillment of the supernatural
dignity of the human person.
This means that the attitude we
assume, especially our in
terpersonal relations, must
always represent true Christian
■convictions, not mere desire for
popularity or human, esteem.
This places the grave obligation
upon us always to exercise
genuine Christian brotherhood in
work and in deed to all men, of
whatever condition of mental or
physical development.
Our Christian witness to the
sacredness and dignity of life
must be significant, this is, a
living sign. One who has never
read the gospels or the Rule of
St. Benedict should nevertheless
be able to experience that
Christian moral tone captured in
the Sermon on the Mount or
Benedict’s instruments of good
works. They should observe as
part of our normal life-cycle the
reverence we show our own
person, the reverence we
manifest towards others in the
real situations of our life. Ours is
the task to raise the moral tone
be it in the monastery, on
campus, in our office or neigh
borhood. One guide as to how we
may strive to bring this about is
described by St. Benedict: To
see Christ in the sick, the aged,
the guest, the superior. To
reverence all men. To visit the
sick. To assist those in trouble.
To console the sorrowing. Not to
give false peace. Not to be
jealous. Not to harbor envy. To
pray for our enemies in the love
of Christ.
Fidelity to this way of life wiil
teach as well as lead others
along the right way. For, as St.
Paul tells us: The law is fullfilled
in this: that we have love one for
another.
(Credit: ANSELMIANNEWS V.
14, Summer-Fall 1972, No. 2 & S)