And another thing we’re against is war. Not only unjust wars. We don’t like war at all. War should never be the answer. We should always do everything we can do avoid war and to get out of war whenever possible. An unjust war is even worse. We’re against unjust wars.
However, even in an unjust war soldiers on both sides choose to fight. They have weapons and training to defend themselves. When innocent people are killed in war it is terrible, but (unless they were attacked by evil madmen) they were not killed on purpose. Their deaths were a terrible side effect of war, one which all civilized people lament and would seek to avoid.
Abortion, on the other hand, is not like war at all. In abortion an unborn child cannot defend himself. He cannot fight back. He cannot even run away. No soldier sets out to kill a child, and all but the most insane and callous terrorists object when children are killed intentionally, and yet abortion is the intentional killing of millions of defenseless children simply for convenience of the mother.
In the present war about 5,000 Americans have been killed by the enemy. During the same time nearly six million American babies have been killed through abortion. This means abortion kills more people than war. While we are against the killing that happens in war, we can see that many more people die through abortion. This is why we think abortion is worse than war.
When an innocent child is maimed or murdered by terrorism or an unjust war it is obscene and awful, but when an innocent child is murdered by his own mother and father the crime is even more obscene. When there are life giving options like adoption in a rich and willing society, killing little babies is indefensible.
Father,I think you should clarify that you are not saying only American soldiers lives count, by not including the number of dead Iraqis.Second, what about Iraq? Why do you not add up the number of abortions under Saddam with the number of dead because we invaded? Not such a favorable body count for the Iraqis. And how many years until their puppet government allows abortion? Americans are already moving in preaching the liberation of birth control with President Bush’s approval. Shall we add those deaths to the count as well?Third, how could any children have been aborted? Are you implying that Bush oversaw and protected the murderers of millions of babies as the head of the Executive Branch?!Finally, as I posted in the other thread, the Church regards those men and women and children killed in an unjust war as being murdered.
The second paragraph should say:Why don’t you compare the number of dead Iraqis as a result of the war to the number of aborted Iraqis under Saddam? Not such a favorable comparison for you.
I’m not sure what your arguments are here Christopher. The point of my post is that I am opposed not only to unjust wars, but to all wars.That’s your position too isn’t it?If both abortion and war are evil, is it possible that you think the war in Iraq is a greater evil than abortion?If this is so, then you are one seriously deluded guy, and there’s not much more I can say.
Father, I can’t recall anyone commenting here who thinks that abortions are anything but an abomination. Who are you trying to convince? Comparisons with other abominations aren’t so effective because you appear to be downplaying other types of horrors.
I am downplaying other types of horrors. I think they’re bad, but I think abortion is worse. That has been the point of my posts.Its not real hard. The numbers alone declare my position. Add the innocent defenselessness of the victim, the cruelty of the procedure, the sickness of mothers and fathers intentionally killing their babies and the insanity of societal suicide…I insist that abortion is worse also because so many think it is not so bad, or only as bad as other bad stuff. It’s not. It’s worse. Much worse.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Then let’s talk number then for a moment. War could, if it gets out of hand in our nuclear age, obliterate us all. Or at least millions and millions of us in a millisecond. In terms of sheer numbers, that is right up there at the pinnacle of horror.And if we misuse our environment to the point of no return, we may wipe ourselves out that way. Seven billion and counting of us exterminated by our own actions and inactions.That said, I reject the argument of proportionality. It is a relativity. It doesn’t properly consider a wrong a wrong. I’m not going to say that killing one hundred million one way is worse than killing 10 million another. Comparing horrors and downplaying some to others isn’t convincing.I do not see the world from a primarily one-issue perspective. Our survival is too important to do that. We must have informed views on many vital issues, and we must take them all into acount when voting for our representatives in government.
Fr. Longenecker,I see your point and raise you 1. I get it, I really do. Death rates are really, really low when you compare the invasion and occupation of Iraq (probably 100,000 deaths, displacement of a few million Iraqi Christians, whatever) with abortion.But you have been discussing the office of the president and comparing Obama to Herod. As I have said over and over again, the president has lots of power over war and not much power over abortion. Only the appointment of supreme court justices which the senate must approve. In the current climate, it would be difficult to appoint and approve a staunchly pro-life justice.So I think Obama’s stance on abortion is lamentable, but he is not the anti-christ. He is not Herod. We should pray, every day, that Obama sees the light on abortion and has a conversion moment on that issue. If Obama were pro-life we would have a great president.
Kirsti, you reject the argument of proportionality? It doesn’t consider a wrong a wrong? What??!!A wrong is a wrong, but there are different levels of guilt. If a person breaks your window on purpose it’s wrong. If he breaks your window, comes into your house, ransacks it, hits your grandma over the head and steals your jewels this is more wrong.There is proportionality in both numbers and level of wrongdoing.This is not just a religious concept.Secular law recognizes this. Common sense recognizes this.Killling six million innocent babies is worse than killing 100,000 armed combatants.Your other points are hypothetical.
Marcus, stop deluding yourself.A president does not have much power to overthrow Roe v. Wade, but he does have power to promote or restrict abortion.Take one example: veto FOCA or sign FOCA.FOCA removes all restrictions on abortion up to birth and prohibits states from imposing any by a federal mandate. It allows teenaged girls to have abortions without parental consent. It is an abortion free ticket.Presidential power puts this into effect with a signature or not.Then there is federal funding for abortion, promoting states rights to restrict abortion, promoting abortion alternatives. All these a pro life president could do.
Fr. L,FOCA, I presume, was a bill that came out of Congress. That would be the house of representatives and the senate. The president, if her were to veto the bill, could face an easy over-ride in the massively democrat-controlled congress.I don't deny that the President appoints justices, could veto bad legislation, et cetera. But the president has disproportionately higher powers over warfare. A president's powers over abortion are somewhat effemeral when it comes to exective acts and vetoes. Supreme court justices are more permanent. Once we've entered into a state of war the effects are lasting and painful.I think that you are deluding yourself that this was some sort of clear, cut & dry case!
Hypotheticals, indeed. How can someone possibly posit, as proof, the ‘sometime-in-the-future-it-may-happen’ scenario against the already-happened-and-is-now-happening deaths of millions of babies?The kind of cultural mindset that feels comfortable with killing babies will certainly lead to other atrocities. US history shows us that it was a liberal mindset that got us in most of our armed conflicts in the last 70 years.
Father,First War is the worst sin that falls under homicide in every text book of moral theology I have read (perhaps you could point me to ones you have read that do not agree with this). Each time the sin of war is unleashed tens of thousands of people die, hundreds of thousands to millions of people suffer. Remember this is all done by one sin. Also in a war there is always at least one side that is unjust, and many times both. However, when someone commits the sin of abortion, one person dies. It is heinous because it is filicide against someone who is defenseless. But no theologian compares it to war. But perhaps the theologians are just deluded.So looking at it at the national level:War is something a government does to another country/group of people, that have no responsibility for the government elected.War is a sin of commission that directly results in people being compelled to murder.Failure to protect the unborn is a sin of omission.Allowing an abortion to occur as our government does is truly evil, however the government is far further away with the assistance given for an abortion, than the assistance given for war. The president has direct authority over the military, he can do almost nothing to reduce abortions, as president Bush reminded us throughout his term.Finally, and this is off thread topic, people like Fr. Newman are lying when they give blanket endorsements to John McCain. John McCains is not pro-life according to the Catholic definition of the term. McCain rejects the Catholic teaching on a just war. Anyone who voted for McCain remotely cooperated with grave evil, just like the person that voted for Obama. The only difference is that they came to different prudential conclusions concerning proportional reasons.
Fr Newman did not endorse any particular candidate.
I think Fr. Newman did endorse a candidate, but if he did not, he made it seem as if he did. From the answers to the Greenville News:“Question 2. You say that voting for a pro-abortion politician, when there’s a plausible pro-life alternative, amounts to “material cooperation with intrinsic evil.” In speaking with the diocese spokesman today, he mentioned that this is church policy insofar as people vote deliberately and intentionally while knowing what’s at stake. Does this reflect your view (that a deliberate act, as opposed to an unknowing or ill-informed one, is what amounts to “material cooperation”)?“Reply 2. An uninformed vote is an irresponsible vote, and so I hope that no citizen would ever cast an uninformed vote. In this election, there was no way an informed voter could not be aware that Senator McCain is pro-life and Senator Obama is pro-abortion, and those who chose to vote for Senator Obama, whether because of or in spite or his position on abortion, nonetheless voted for a pro-abortion candidate who has pledged his vigorous support for the Freedom of Choice Act which will abolish current legal restrictions on abortion in every state of the Union, including parental notification requirements and the existing “conscience clauses” which allow Catholic doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and hospitals to refuse to be involved in any way with abortions. For this reason, no matter what the intention of the voter, support for Senator Obama was necessarily material cooperation with his clearly stated goal to extend the private and unrestricted use of lethal violence against unborn children throughout this nation and to export the same abroad as part of our official foreign policy.”I really think this is where Fr. Newman hung himself, and forced the diocese to make a correction.
If you are going to discuss war and its global perspective compared to abortion, then you need to discuss the global perspective of abortion. The current number is 42 million abortions yearly worldwide. Yearly. Year after year after year. And it is likely an underestimate.So what war compares to this?
Dear Fr. L:Okay, I think I read this right, and if so you’re addressing a point that I wish people had made before the election. (If not, you’re yet another person who drove me MAD!) People want to claim the right to vote for an avouched pro-abort with a voting record and stated agenda to match because the opponent “was pro-abortion too”, but the opponent backed the Iraq war, which the questioner wants to make equivalent to abortion. Several basic problems: Catechism paragraph 2272 vs. 2308, the difference between being sorta kinda in support (with an anti-abortion running mate) vs. being full-steam-ahead in support, and the difference between 4000 in 8 years vs. 4000 a day come immediately to mind. I hope I’m stating the obvious, so I’ll stop now.
Obpoet,The point is that each abortion is an individual sin. You are right that abortion kills more people every year than war, but war kills more people per sin (not to mention the other destruction it causes).One thing I may not have made clear, is that I do consider abortion the most important issue, and give more weight to it than anything else. However, that does not mean it is the only thing I consider. If a small step will be taken to decrease abortion in this country, but huge step will be taken to increase some other evil, the great bad of the evil may outweigh the small good with abortion. Let me give you an example:I place my family before my country. However, if my country needed me to come to its defense I would, even though this would cause great harm to my family, but this does not mean I but my country above my family. Unfortunately, too many people on the right, insist that the only thing you can consider is abortion. I think it is enough to consider abortion first, and give it the priority.Finally, I know many people that agonized over who to vote for, and for many of them, when people like Fr. Newman, pretend the choice was clear as crystal, they get very upset. If any Catholic voted for either major party candidate, and did not feel like they needed to shower after leaving the voting booth, I would question the formation of their conscience.:)
Remarkable to read some of these comments, where the dictatorship of relativism seems to be in full force . . . “Ah, yea right, but . . . “No wonder the most pro abortion presidential candidate ever was elected!My Church is always in my daily prayers.
Father,Being a reserve Air Force officer and a faithful (I pray) Catholic, I’ve thought a lot about this topic.First, war is stupid and wasteful, but as I understand Church teachings, it can be good.My understanding is that a just war is a moral good, and one is obliged to support it. In the most basic hypothetical, the horde comes over the hill, one takes up arms to defend one’s family, property, and life. Defense is good and necessary while failure to defend is evil. To act as St. Francis and attempt a carries Christ’ message of love and peace is on another plane. This works well when one is alone and not when a head of a family.With modern weapons technology, ICBMs and other weapons of mass destruction, the issue of legitimate defense and just war is very complex. The predicate to the current Iraq War was the first Gulf War and Saddam’s failure to honor the agreements made with the US at its end. Was the nexus of Iraqi possession (believed) of WMD, Iraqi support for terrorism, and Iraqi intransigence with US agreements and UN Security Council resolutions sufficient to be seen as a threat to the US? Did the perceived threat justify a war?We get to see the pictures of soldiers and non-combatants in the press. We naturally empathize and conclude war is bad.On the other hand, abortion is simple. A mother’s circumstances might be emotional, financial, familial, or casual, but the calculus is easy. The most innocent of humans is ripped apart and disposed of. This is usually done out of convenience.We rarely get to see the pictures of these victims. The babies are fetuses and murders are procedures. The euphemisms help keep these images from the light of day and reduce their impact on some of us. Being a freedom-loving and libertarian people, we’re naturally equivocal and unalarmed about procedures. We see in both war and abortion, there are those who prey on others. While one person can kill thousands with a weapon, it takes thousands of mothers killing their babies to kill thousands. The thousands of mothers who kill are worse than the one killer. Their society is ill because they bring their predation into the public and make their culture toxic.By God’s grace, we have Our Lady of Guadalupe, who shows us the way to the end of barbaric rituals and way to Truth.
Father,Do you think Jesus would approve of arguments that say murdering 10 million one way is preferable to murdering 100 million another? He would, I think, condemn both and not engage in comparisons based on quantification. Relativism as an argument pitting one kind of atrocity against another is dangerous. I reject proportionality under that usage. It dehumanizes and can give the false impression that opposing “larger” horrors gives us a pass to be less committed to fighting “smaller” ones. Fortunately indeed, my war and environment examples are current hypotheticals. But if we do not make the right decisions politically, they may not be. We could eradicate ourselves out if we don’t act wisely. A nuclear holocaust is not out of the realm of possibility. God forbid, we pray, but the fact is the world is not so secure that we couldn’t bomb ourselves off the earth. As for our environment, the fact that that destruction takes place over a longer period does not eliminate the very real possibility that if we continue our current habits, we could reach a point where the earth will no longer sustain a human population. So both of these hypotheticals are surpremely vital considerations in political decisions. They could result in total annihilation. We need to take steps now to avoid having these terrifying hypotheticals become reality.
I just wanted to stop by and support your argument, Fr D – war is war. Whether it is waged on those able to defend themsleves or not. If we are to apply a hierarchy of sin to the action of war then, of course, logically, the killing of the unborn ranks higher than e.g. a war in Iraq.I stood against someone in a debate, recently (A Catholic Barrister, sadly) who claimed that the Church’s attitude to war and killing of innocent life in general has always been ambiguous. After all, she claimed, they blessed the ships that went to war to kill innocent people, didn`t they ? therefore, what’s the difference…I don`t know where you begin tackling this twisted logic. It is now so embedded. Intelligent people who no longer understand the need to defend virtue, who claim that abortion is in the same league as true warfare.Mind. Boggles.
Bernadette,Care to cite a source on the hierarchy of sin. Every manual of moral theology that I have ever read places war as the greatest sin under homicide, above abortion, but I would be willing to look at the Moral Theology text you got your information from.
Christopher,So if I understand you correctly, then you are saying abortion results in more sin than war, 42 million sins per year compared to how ever many hundred thousand or million sins per war. Sounds like abortion is the greater evil.Of course this country was founded upon war. And slavery in this country significantly curtained by war. An interesting dichotomy to say the least.
Ok…..I can’t even read all the posts….painfl…but from what I di read it seems to me thatmany if not all miss one crucial point…INTENT …..every abortion has the INTENT of taking the life of an innocent baby…and do’t even try o tell me it is for th health and safety of the mother,,,that is one pathetic smoke screen…with the medical technology we have today…..puleeze…..this is not to say every war is jut and the intent is always pure…bt at least it is mixed….and one does not go to war wit the INTENT of murder…but the INTENT to win.God is weeping for those babies..and perhaps more for thos trying so hard to find some justification for ripping tose tiny bodies from ther mother’s wombs….May God have mercy on ius all…
Marcus – even with a Democratic majority, there are not enough votes to override a presidential veto of FOCA. There are also some Democrats who are pro-life, so they would not go along with the override.Thus if we had a pro-life president – or a less rabidly pro-abortion one – FOCA would not become law.Under Obama, its chances increase.
Mr. Sarsfield,It surprises me to see your willingness to accuse Mr. McCain of rejecting the Church’s teaching on just war. Surely the most you can say is that he disagrees with Pope Benedict about whether the Iraq war meets the criteria of a just war?
Richard A,Sen. McCain is not a Catholic so he may not feel bound to the Church’s teaching on just war. By his actions and words, it is clear that he considered Iraq a just war. He said many times on the record that he thought the war was justified because of the WMD “evidence.”However, Sen. McCain did admit on the record that he did not read the National Intelligence Estimate the covered the caveats regarding WMD, before voting to go to war.
This is why the primary mission of the Church is the conversion of souls. Until minds;hearts are transformed by the cooperation with the grace of God, big money will rule in the abortion business,fueled by it’s partner pornography [which also begets other grave sins harming a healthy society].When a society sees no wrong in not protecting it’s most defenseless people,our children, it is no longer a sane society.Only conversions will bring the enlightenment that will stop the brutality of abortion.Allowing mothers to kill their own children is so evil,probably the gravest evil.It is the devil’s game.Only hearts that love Jesus can understand how seriously evil abortion is.Many saints have said that wars are possible in the hearts of men because of this silent,unseen war of abortion genocide.The sex industry produces hearts of stone. Only conversion produces good fruit for a society.
No Richard, McCain rejects the principles of Just War as set forth in the Catechism.
Well yes, Christopher – exactly my point, it doesn`t exist. The important word in the sentence is “if” we are to apply a hieracrhy of sin (which we may not). The arguments on the post here suggest that we can. I was responding by saying we can`t. War, as I said, is war – but if you take the “oh no it isn`t” comments to their logical conclusion, then war on the unborn is worse.(Read the comments properly before diving in)