“We can’t just simply say we’re against abortion. No, we’re pro-life. We’re pro-child. And we’re pro-woman.” - Bishop Joe S. Vásquez

Learn how you can help & "walk with" women in your community who are pregnant or parenting in difficult situations! https://t.co/saXwWAEq8C pic.twitter.com/LuOMnLjUQo

— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) October 3, 2024

PabloSerna said:

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Our God is the God life. It's not playing politics, it is bearing witness to the truth. They want to limit the message by de-humanizing this point. So, again- politics is what you are playing into. We know what we started, go back and look- it was always "Pro Life" it was never "Anti-Abortion." You are actually playing into their game, IMO.

ETA: NPR article on it.

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PabloSerna said:

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I'm pretty careful not to speak that way, because the message of life IS what will end abortion.

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The Banned said:

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Quo Vadis? said:

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PabloSerna said:

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I'm pretty careful not to speak that way, because the message of life IS what will end abortion.

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I disagree, and I would think any thinking person would as well. Culture is downstream of legislation regardless of how much we like to pretend it's the other way around. We didn't try to convince everyone of the evils of slavery and work towards voluntary manumission, we criminalized it and then sought to change hearts and minds; and it worked.

What you are talking about seems to be the "seamless cloth" facade of progressive Catholicism. The one that states that littering is as grave an evil as terminating a pregnancy. I do not ascribe to that belief system.

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Maybe I missed it, but did the bishop suggest we don't work to outlaw abortion? If he did, that would be very wrong.

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Zobel said:

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Can't be pro-life if you're not anti-abortion.

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Zobel said:

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It's not wordplay on my part. The equivalent here would be someone saying "it's not that I'm anti-murder, it's more that I'm pro-life." It's absurd that we even need to deal with this.

Abortion is a great evil and the Church has always taught against it. The Church is anti-abortion. There's no need to equivocate.

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PabloSerna said:

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Zobel said:

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It's not wordplay on my part. The equivalent here would be someone saying "it's not that I'm anti-murder, it's more that I'm pro-life." It's absurd that we even need to deal with this.

Abortion is a great evil and the Church has always taught against it. The Church is anti-abortion. There's no need to equivocate.

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Those are your words.

Our church is trying to "build a culture of life from womb to tomb" - USCCB Respect Life ministries.

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Quote:

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From the beginning, the living Tradition of the Church - as shown by the Didache, the most ancient non-biblical Christian writing - categorically repeated the commandment "You shall not kill": "...you shall not kill ... you shall not put a child to death by abortion nor kill it once it is born ... The way of death is this: ... they kill their children and by abortion cause God's creatures to perish."

As time passed, the Church's Tradition has always consistently taught the absolute and unchanging value of the commandment "You shall not kill".
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Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an "unspeakable crime".
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...No word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth.

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The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined.

responsibility likewise falls on the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws, and, to the extent that they have a say in the matter, on the administrators of the health-care centers where abortions are performed. A general and no less serious responsibility lies with those who have encouraged the spread of an attitude of sexual permissiveness and a lack of esteem for motherhood, and with those who should have ensured-but did not-effective family and social policies in support of families, especially larger families and those with particular financial and educational needs. Finally, one cannot overlook the network of complicity which reaches out to include international institutions, foundations and associations which systematically campaign for the legalization and spread of abortion in the world. In this sense abortion goes beyond the responsibility of individuals and beyond the harm done to them, and takes on a distinctly social dimension. It is a most serious wound inflicted on society and its culture by the very people who ought to be society's promoters and defenders.

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Christian Tradition - as the Declaration issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith points out so well -is clear and unanimous, from the beginning up to our own day, in describing abortion as a particularly grave moral disorder. From its first contacts with the Greco-Roman world, where abortion and infanticide were widely practiced, the first Christian community, by its teaching and practice, radically opposed the customs rampant in that society, as is clearly shown by the Didache mentioned earlier.

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The more recent Papal Magisterium has vigorously reaffirmed this common doctrine. Pius XI in particular, in his Encyclical Casti Connubii, rejected the specious justifications of abortion. Pius XII excluded all direct abortion, i.e., every act tending directly to destroy human life in the womb "whether such destruction is intended as an end or only as a means to an end". John XXIII reaffirmed that human life is sacred because "from its very beginning it directly involves God's creative activity". The Second Vatican Council, as mentioned earlier, sternly condemned abortion: "From the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care, while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes".

The Church's canonical discipline, from the earliest centuries, has inflicted penal sanctions on those guilty of abortion. This practice, with more or less severe penalties, has been confirmed in various periods of history. The 1917 Code of Canon Law punished abortion with excommunication. The revised canonical legislation continues this tradition when it decrees that "a person who actually procures an abortion incurs automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication". The excommunication affects all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and thus includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed. By this reiterated sanction, the Church makes clear that abortion is a most serious and dangerous crime, thereby encouraging those who commit it to seek without delay the path of conversion. In the Church the purpose of the penalty of excommunication is to make an individual fully aware of the gravity of a certain sin and then to foster genuine conversion and repentance.

Given such unanimity in the doctrinal and disciplinary tradition of the Church, Paul VI was able to declare that this tradition is unchanged and unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops-who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine-I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.


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The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom.

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...laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual...Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good...

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Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize

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Particular attention should be drawn to the seriousness of abortion and euthanasia, without neglecting other aspects of life which from time to time deserve to be given careful consideration, as occasion and circumstances demand.

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Absolute respect for every innocent human life also requires the exercise of conscientious objection in relation to procured abortion and euthanasia.

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PabloSerna said:

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When did this become a progressive vs "insert name" movement?

It is about the bigger picture and that is what Bishop Vasquez and the USCCB Respect Life ministry is emphasizing. Is it import to understand that? Maybe not. At least know that they are not playing politics with it, they are staying true to the message of the gospel.

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Quo Vadis? said:

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PabloSerna said:

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When did this become a progressive vs "insert name" movement?

It is about the bigger picture and that is what Bishop Vasquez and the USCCB Respect Life ministry is emphasizing. Is it import to understand that? Maybe not. At least know that they are not playing politics with it, they are staying true to the message of the gospel.

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This is the seamless garment tripe I'm talking about. All traditional Catholic beliefs are part of a "bigger picture" and shouldn't be focused on; and all new cutting edge heresies are burgeoning revelations that need to have their own particular synod and Vatican approved council to study.

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PabloSerna said:

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The Banned said:

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PabloSerna said:

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Zobel said:

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It's not wordplay on my part. The equivalent here would be someone saying "it's not that I'm anti-murder, it's more that I'm pro-life." It's absurd that we even need to deal with this.

Abortion is a great evil and the Church has always taught against it. The Church is anti-abortion. There's no need to equivocate.

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Those are your words.

Our church is trying to "build a culture of life from womb to tomb" - USCCB Respect Life ministries.

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And here is where you lose me. Are you saying the Church is not anti-abortion?

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"We can't just simply say we're against abortion. No, we're pro-life. We're pro-child. And we're pro-woman." - Bishop Joe S. Vsquez

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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It's not politically toxic to say "anti-abortion". Both sides of the issue are at least somewhat "anti-abortion", in that no one thinks abortion is awesome and should be encouraged. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone genuinely "pro-abortion"

The politicized terms are pro-life and pro-choice, and each group tries to paint the other as anti-life or anti-choice.

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