Church Militant to Doug Kmiec: Gird Your Loins

Posting his rebuttal to Archbishop Chaput at the National Catholic Reporter.

The photo on the right is James Carroll. I haven't seen him in decades. When his face popped up, all I could think of was....WOW on the windows to the soul and that Linda Rondstat song...

You and I travel to the beat of a different drum,
Oh, can't you tell by the way I run,
Every time you make eyes at me...


Back to Kmiec..

It is argued by some that President Obama’s approach of using social and economic support to bolster the protection of unborn life is inadequate without a legal effort to reverse Roe v. Wade.

Some?

As in...... Archbishop Chaput's speech on February 8th?

This split in the American mind has two results. Here's the first consequence. The United States has a large and well-funded abortion industry. The industry has very shrewd political lobbyists. It also has a public relations machine that would make George Orwell's Ministry of Truth look amateur. In fact the industry runs on an engine of persuasive-sounding lies...

Here's the fourth don't. Don't create or accept false oppositions.

Dialectical thinking, and by that I mean the idea that most of our options involve "either/or" choices, is usually un-Christian. During the last U.S. election, we saw the emergence of so-called prolife organizations that argued we should stop fighting the legal struggle over abortion. Instead we should join with "pro-choice" supporters to seek "common ground."

Their argument was simple: Why fight a losing battle on the legal, cultural and moral front since - according to them -- we haven't yet made serious progress in ending legalized abortion? Let's drop the "divisive" political battle, they said, and instead let's all work together to tackle the economic and health issues that might eventually reduce abortions.

But as we look at recent American history, did Americans take a gradual, social-improvement road to "reducing" racism? No. We passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nor have I ever heard anyone suggest that the best way to deal with murder, rape or domestic abuse is to improve the availability of health care and job training. We make rape illegal -- even though we know it will still sometimes tragically occur -- because rape is gravely evil. It's an act of violence, and the law should proscribe it. Of course, we also have a duty to improve the social conditions that can breed domestic and sexual violence. But that doesn't change the need for the law.

Likewise, if we really believe that abortion is an intimate act of violence, then we can't aim at anything less than ending abortion. It doesn't matter that some abortions have always occurred, and some will always occur. If we really believe that abortion kills a developing unborn life, then we can never be satisfied with mere "reductions" in the body count.

The U.S. Catholic bishops have argued for more than 30 years that government needs to improve the economic conditions that can lead some women to abortion. But good programs for economic justice don't ever absolve Catholics from the legal struggle to end abortion. Protecting the unborn child is not an "either/or" choice. It's "both/and." We need to help women facing problem pregnancies with good health care and economic support; and we need to pass laws that will end legal abortion. We need to do both....

In his first week in office, President Barack Obama reversed the Mexico City policy, which had blocked U.S. federal money from being used to promote abortion in developing countries. His reason for signing the executive order was that it was time to put this "divisive issue behind us," once and for all.

There's something a little odd about rhetoric that tells that we're the "divisive" ones, and lectures adult citizens about what we should challenge, and when we should stop. In a democracy, we get to decide that for ourselves. So I'm glad that a Catholic prolife congressman promptly offered a bi-partisan bill, U.S. House Resolution 708, demanding the reinstatement of the Mexico City policy. An issue that involves the life and death of unborn children and the subversion of entire traditional societies can't be "put behind us" with an executive signature.

Do read his entire what not to do's. They're good reminders about our flaws and mistakes.

It's worth posting Archbishop Chaput's to-do list in it's entirety:

Here's the first and most important do. It's very simple: Do become martyrs.

I said it was simple. I didn't say it was easy. Be ready to pay the ultimate price.

Pope John Paul II very shrewdly chose St. Thomas More, a martyr, as the patron saint of lawyers and politicians. Thomas More and his friend Bishop John Fisher, both of them executed by the same king for their fidelity to the Catholic faith, are models of how far we should be willing to go for our beliefs.

In today's world, we may never be asked to pay the ultimate price. But we do see character assassination and calumny against good people every day in the public media. And we should be ready to pay that price too. We have some very good recent examples of heroism. Two months ago, Grand Duke Henry of Luxembourg rejected a bill legalizing euthanasia passed by his nation's lawmakers.

The Duke is the grandson of Grand Duchess Charlotte, the country's heroine in World War II, and the last person to receive from a Pope the Golden Rose, the highest papal honor available to a Catholic woman sovereign.

Of course, some politicians immediately demanded that Luxembourg's constitution be changed to strip the Duke of his power.

A similar fight arose in Belgium two decades ago when the late King Baudouin refused his Royal Assent to a bill legalizing abortion. His refusal was a formality, since the king had little real power. But it was an unprecedented public act by Baudouin, who was a deeply faithful Catholic man. The Belgian Parliament declared him unable to reign. Baudouin abdicated for one day, and the bill became law without his approval.

The lesson here is that nothing, not even our good name, should stop us from doing what we know to be right.

Here's the second do. Keep hope alive.

Cultivating a spirit of Christian joy is not an act of self-deception. It's a way to acknowledge that God is on our side, and that human nature, created by God and despite the damage of original sin, is also on our side. Nothing is more inspiring than happy warriors. I hope some of you will go on the web and check out some of the photos from the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. It's an event full of prayer, charity and confidence. Many of the marchers are young, joyful people who radiate a strong hope in the future - and not the shallow hope of political sloganeering, but the real Christian hope that emerges from self-sacrifice and the struggle to do God's will.

I've never in my life seen a joy-filled pro-abortion event. And I've always found that instructive.

Here's the third do. Be strategic.

Being sheep in the midst of wolves doesn't mean we can also be dumb as rocks. Thomas More was finally a martyr -- but he was also a very adroit thinker, and a shrewd, intelligent and prudent political leader as he tried to avoid execution. Prolife organizations are always outspent by pro-abortion forces. Our efforts are dwarfed by their money. We rarely have their access to friendly media, foundations and circles of power. But this can be a blessing disguised as a curse. It forces us to be creative, long-term thinkers and extremely resourceful with our modest means.

Being strategic means planning ahead, setting the agenda, working together and outsmarting our adversaries. To achieve these goals, we need a big dose of realism. We should never dream or whine about all the things we could do with the million Euros we don't have. We need to focus on the ten Euros we do have.

Two fishes and five loaves of bread, well invested - in other words, given to the Lord -- fed a multitude. History shows that guerrilla wars, if well planned and methodically carried out, can defeat great armies. And we should never forget that the greatest "guerrilla" leader of them all wasn't Mao or Che, but a young shepherd named David, who became a king.

Here's the fourth do. Use the best means for your message, especially the new technologies.

Today's new technologies are a mixed social blessing. But they're also cheap and extremely useful tools that prolifers can use very effectively. While the traditional mainline media, including the printing press, are losing influence, blogs, social networks, and YouTube channels are thriving. And they offer huge prolife opportunities.

Here's an example. Lila Rose is a 19-year-old young woman who just received one of the six prestigious Life Prizes awarded by the Gerard Health Foundation in the United States. Since the age of 15, armed with a little courage, a lot of ingenuity, an audio recorder and a small video camera, Rose has run several undercover investigations, including one that exposed racism and a statutory rape cover-up by Planned Parenthood. Her main tool was YouTube videos that became viral and were picked up by the secular media, forcing Planned Parenthood to apologize and fire some staffers.

Lila Rose and many other agile young users of the new technologies have shown that the new internet, if used well, can break through the wall of silence prolifers often face from an unfriendly media establishment.

Here's the fifth and final do. Remember that renewing the culture, not gaining power, is our ultimate goal.

Culture is everything. Culture is our "human ecology." It's the environment where we human beings breathe not only air, but ideas, beliefs and values.

Bill Clinton's presidential campaign strategist James Carville once coined a slogan that led his boss to the White House in 1992. To keep the campaign on message, Carville hung a sign in Clinton's Little Rock headquarters that read: "It's the economy, stupid!"
It's a clever phrase, and it got the job done - if the goal was the short-term exercise of power by Bill Clinton. But that's not what prolifers are about. Our real task, and our much longer-term and more important goal, is to carry out what John Paul II called the "evangelization of culture."
Many things in the developed world today promote a spirit of greed, despair and self-delusion. Our adversaries often have far more resources than the Church and the prolife movement can possibly marshal.

But cultural trends can be changed. And I'll prove it. Mainline media have been telling us for a decade that the American public is evenly divided between those who consider themselves prolife and those who describe themselves as "pro-choice."

This is broadly true. But the devil - or in this case, God -- is in the details.

A national poll done by Harris Interactive two months ago found that fewer than ten per cent of Americans support legalized abortion on demand as it stands today. Ninety-five percent favor laws ensuring that abortions be performed only by licensed physicians. Eighty-eight percent favor informed-consent laws - in other words, laws that require abortion providers to inform women of potential health risks and also about alternatives to abortion. Seventy-six percent favor laws that protect doctors and nurses from being forced to perform or refer for abortions against their will, Seventy-three percent favor laws that require giving parents the chance to be involved in their minor daughter's abortion decision. Sixty-eight percent favor laws against partial-birth abortion. And sixty-three percent favor laws preventing the use of taxpayer money for abortions.

These figures are very revealing. They show that prolife efforts have made real progress in improving people's awareness of the sanctity of unborn life. These good results may have been impossible just two decades ago.

We need to work to change the culture. And that demands a lifelong commitment to education, Christian formation and, ultimately, conversion. Only saints really change the world. And there lies our ultimate victory: If we change one heart at a time, while we save one unborn life at a time, the day will come when we won't need to worry about saving babies, because they'll be surrounded by a loving, welcoming culture.

Will I see that day with my own eyes? I can't hold my breath that long. But then I never expected to see a Polish Pope or the fall of the Iron Curtain either. We may not see that day in our own lifetimes, but the children of your grandchildren will. The future depends on our choices and actions right here, right now, today -- together.

No matter how tired you get, no matter how hard the work becomes, no matter who praises you or who condemns you, the only thing that finally matters is this: Jesus Christ is Lord, and he came to give us life, and life abundantly. Because of the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection, the future is ours. And the best is yet to come.

God bless you!

Is it me, or is Kmiec's rebuke a "gentleman's" warning that the Obama Administration has in mind for what is permissible in the public square:

At one time, the church fathers taught that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of the “unalienable right to life” in the Declaration of Independence, though it is not apparent that this would be the legal posture of the American church today except in aspiration and prayer. To this end, there are post card campaigns against FOCA in our parishes but none calling upon Congress to propose an amendment to the Constitution to eliminate any doubt that the unborn child is a person both scientifically and legally.

Should the bishops take up this bolder calling? In times past, as I say, this was the message of the church, as it testified alongside such towering Notre Dame scholars of the natural law as Charles E. Rice and the late Edward J. Murphy. For these men of faith, the message was quite simply: “no exceptions” (which is the title of a book by Dr. Rice explaining why even exceptions for the life of the mother could contradict church teaching -- absent some fancy ethical footwork under the “principle of double-effect.”). When it came to having human law and God’s law coincide, the church stood for the Human Life Amendment.

Today the church has strategically (might it be said, prudentially in light of the perspectives of other faiths?) chosen to take incremental steps to conform human law to God’s, and perhaps that means that all of us -- the church included -- need to more charitably assess efforts to promote the choice for life premised upon social and economic support. Such support, at a minimum, should physically and materially strengthen the community, and perhaps an economically recovered America will also be spiritually revived such that the Supreme Court will once again describe us, as it did pre-Roe, as a “religious people whose institutions presuppose the existence of a Supreme Being.”

One thing for certain, as Professor Murphy once wrote: “In a sense this is a very ‘religious’ society. There are all sorts of gods. . . . [T]he question for all of us is not whether we will be guided by an ultimate authority, but who or what that authority will be. Is it to be God? Or is it to be ourselves? Or the state? Or a political party? Or a race? Or an economic class? Or the stars? Or Satan? Or what? Clearly, each of us will choose, and the choice will be consequential.”

Consequential, indeed -- under God’s law, whether or not human law is made to coincide.

At one time, the church fathers taught that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of the “unalienable right to life” in the Declaration of Independence, though it is not apparent that this would be the legal posture of the American church today except in aspiration and prayer. To this end, there are post card campaigns against FOCA in our parishes but none calling upon Congress to propose an amendment to the Constitution to eliminate any doubt that the unborn child is a person both scientifically and legally.

Should the bishops take up this bolder calling? In times past, as I say, this was the message of the church, as it testified alongside such towering Notre Dame scholars of the natural law as Charles E. Rice and the late Edward J. Murphy. For these men of faith, the message was quite simply: “no exceptions” (which is the title of a book by Dr. Rice explaining why even exceptions for the life of the mother could contradict church teaching -- absent some fancy ethical footwork under the “principle of double-effect.”). When it came to having human law and God’s law coincide, the church stood for the Human Life Amendment.

Today the church has strategically (might it be said, prudentially in light of the perspectives of other faiths?) chosen to take incremental steps to conform human law to God’s, and perhaps that means that all of us -- the church included -- need to more charitably assess efforts to promote the choice for life premised upon social and economic support. Such support, at a minimum, should physically and materially strengthen the community, and perhaps an economically recovered America will also be spiritually revived such that the Supreme Court will once again describe us, as it did pre-Roe, as a “religious people whose institutions presuppose the existence of a Supreme Being.”

One thing for certain, as Professor Murphy once wrote: “In a sense this is a very ‘religious’ society. There are all sorts of gods. . . . [T]he question for all of us is not whether we will be guided by an ultimate authority, but who or what that authority will be. Is it to be God? Or is it to be ourselves? Or the state? Or a political party? Or a race? Or an economic class? Or the stars? Or Satan? Or what? Clearly, each of us will choose, and the choice will be consequential.”

Consequential, indeed -- under God’s law, whether or not human law is made to coincide.

Today's homework for Doug Kmiec:

1. Read numer 1 on Archbishop Chaput's list.
2. Gird your loins.

Don't miss the following comment posted on the National Catholic (Abortion) Reporter:

Submitted by Artemis3 (not verified) on Tue, 02/10/2009 - 13:22.

Mr. Kmiec, would you advocate lifting legal prohibitions of other forms of murder (defined as the taking of innocent human life) in favor of social programs? At the same time, would you advocate against social programs because they might not prevent murder? Though you are right that overturning Roe vs. Wade would not make abortion illegal, and though I would argue that the Church should indeed be holding to the high moral ground in calling for a human life amendment, we still have to overturn Roe. When that happens, which it will, we will have to work on both the social and legal fronts to protect the unborn in every state. You write as if favoring Obama's social programs necessarily entails giving up the legal fight. You seem to presuppose the truth of what is really an absolute falsehood: that people who want to overturn Roe are not in favor of programs to improve the lives of all, whether pregnant or not. That is disingenuous, as you know very well the Church not only runs countless hospitals, homeless shelters, pregnancy centers, food pantries, hospitals, hospices and every other institution of love and mercy one can name. Catholic people support these works of charity, with their hands, with their money, and with political advocacy. But your effort to persuade us to give up the fight for legal protection of the unborn will be in vain. We will continue to be engaged in that fight with our hands, our money and our policial advocacy, for every minimal restriction, for the total abolition of abortion, and for the recognition of the personhood and rights of all human beings of all ages. We invite you to join us.

And from another commenter:

Please Prof. Kmiec, please,

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 02/12/2009 - 13:14.

Please Prof. Kmiec, please, please stop. For the sake of all that is good and right and just, please stop.

Kmiec is not going to stop.

Don't you see the shot he has just fired across the bow of the White House?

He's stumping for a position and letting the White House know if they appoint him, he will use his post to silence the rights of Catholic Bishops to evangelize the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth.