Catholic
public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard
line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their
idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials
also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some
interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and
justice.
Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions
and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history
and teaching does not seem to be one of them.
Interviewed
on Meet the Press
August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the
following:
"I would
say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have
studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the
doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition . . .
St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that
it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."
Since
Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time,"
she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit
John Connery's Abortion:
The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective
(Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:
"The
Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion
attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was
not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal
animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and
penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the
condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would
want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a
human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of
conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never
looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible
abortion."
Or to
put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich
Bonhoeffer:
"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the
right to live which God has bestowed on 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 his life. And that is nothing but murder."
Ardent,
practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that
from
apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that
abortion was grievously evil.
In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers
held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to
homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn
child might be animated or "ensouled." But
none
diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and
the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short,
from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion
was always, gravely wrong.
Of course,
we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins.
Thus,
today's
religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are
nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic
Christian
and
Catholic
belief.
Abortion
kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and
so are the evasions employed to justify it.
Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool
only themselves and
abuse the
fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel
and live their Catholic faith.
The duty of
the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of
the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always
rooted in moral truth.
A proper
understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a
separation of faith from political life.
But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually
teaches.
+Charles J.
Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop
of
Denver
+James D.
Conley
Auxiliary
Bishop of
Denver
