Part 2

Let me begin by asking you to be sure to read Part Two. It is a notice about the passing of a great pro-life advocate. Thank you.

Paul Greenberg writes arguably the best commentary in American journalism today. The Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's editorial page, Mr. Greenberg is a passionately committed pro-lifer whom I read whenever I need a pick-me-up or when I just want to see how a real commentator practices his trade.

The syndicate which distributes his wonderful essays describes him thusly: "An exceptional craftsman, he gives readers an aesthetic as well as political experience and has evoked comparisons to [two other famous journalists] H.L. Mencken and William Allen White." Quite so.

Mr. Greenberg often writes about abortion and euthanasia and lethal stem cell research. His observations are always rich with subtle, and not so subtle, indignation. Like all rigorous thinkers he is appalled and angered by sloppy arguments, question-begging, and all the other rhetorical armament anti-life proponents use to protect their agenda against the truth.

This week he wrote a column titled, "Unsettled." Let me quote a few paragraphs:
"Nothing is settled till it's settled right. …For nothing is less settled than law when it runs head-on into reality. You can bet something will bend, and it won't be reality. Oliver Wendell Holmes called it responding to the 'felt necessities of the time.'

"Those who speak of Settled Law may use the phrase only when the legal question at issue has been 'settled' to their satisfaction for the moment, which they tend to confuse with forever.

"That's why some on the Senate Judiciary Committee kept trying to get His Honor Samuel A. Alito to agree that Roe v. Wade was 'settled law.' It was a way of getting the next associate justice of the United States to prejudge any cases involving abortion--and commit himself to supporting it.

"His inquisitors uttered the phrase Settled Law as if they were citing Holy Writ. (A typical sally, provocation and leading question: 'You do not agree that [Roe v. Wade] is well settled in court?'-- California's Dianne Feinstein.)

"Never mind that the meaning of Roe v. Wade itself has been anything but settled since it was first handed down. It keeps growing, mutating, metastasizing. Like any other tumor." [www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/paulgreenberg/2006/03/15/189900.html]

I was about to add a few words when it became obvious Mr. Greenberg surely didn't need my two cents worth. If I may, I'd like to quickly switch to another fine piece of writing.

Yesterday Father Thomas Williams wrote a corker of an op-ed that appeared yesterday on nationalreview.com, titled, "Wanted: Pro-Life Democrats: Enough of this 'big tent' Catholicism from the party with little room for pro-lifers." [www.nationalreview.com/comment/williams200603140813.asp]

Fr. Williams was picking up on the "Statement of Principles" issued at the end of February by 55 House Democrats, most of whom are pro-abortion. We've written about their statement--and the rebuttal issued by three prominent Catholic Church leaders--twice. It's the usual "we're good Catholics on lots of issues of concern to the Church so don't hold our position on abortion against us" rationalizations.

Fr. Williams' critique is devastating.

"To justify their position, the authors of the statement appeal to the so-called 'primacy of conscience.' Yet conscience is not a pass to excuse wrongdoing. Would it make any difference if a serial killer claimed he was following his conscience when he murdered his victims? Even if the politicians are following their conscience, Catholic morality makes an important distinction between good conscience and bad conscience, and a conscience that sees nothing wrong with killing the innocent falls decidedly in the second category. Our first duty concerning conscience is to form it according to the moral law, and especially for a Catholic, no doubt can exist regarding the objective evil of abortion.

"True, the statement acknowledges the 'undesirability' of abortion, and the signers hasten to assure their constituencies that they do not 'celebrate its practice.' That they do not 'celebrate' the greatest social ill of our time may prove cold comfort to those who spend much of their free time actively campaigning for its abolition. And as regards its 'undesirability,' this poorly chosen term will likely provoke only indignation.

"Hangnails are undesirable; under-seasoned salads are undesirable; lines at the cash register are undesirable. Abortion is repugnant and evil. Can you imagine a politician stepping forward and (with much hand-wringing) asserting that he finds rape 'undesirable' and that he does not 'celebrate' its practice, but that he will not stop defending legislation that permits it? Such a politician would rightly be ridden out of town on a rail."

Let me add just one observation. I had read the statement a couple of times, commented on it on two separate occasions, and STILL missed what Fr. Williams hones in on: how the "Declaration of Principles" trivializes the sheer horror of abortion.

"Abortion is repugnant and evil," he writes. To grudgingly concede only that abortion is "undesirable" is an attempt by these Catholic Democrats to simultaneously sooth their constituents' alarm (and perhaps their consciences) and declare, "Don't bother me; I've got more important things to deal with."

Two powerful, provocative op-eds. Please take time to read them both in their entirety.

Please send your comments to Dave Andrusko at dandrusko@nrlc.org.