In our last comment on the upcoming Supreme Court decision (re: the Dobbs case that may overturn Roe v. Wade), I spoke of the need for the spiritual vigilance called for by the Gospel: “…we watch, we wait in hope…and we pray.”

We are now on the cusp of that new decision – some say it will come down this very week – and I’d like to ask all our Catholic Action allies to focus on where we go from here if Roe is actually overturned. 

We should take into account three stark realities to help us focus our minds and avoid the danger of a kind of deadly passivity about the reality of abortion in our culture: 

1. Abortion in any form – surgical, chemical, or medical – is a crime against humanity. Period. No amount of explanation can sanitize it, and nothing in our Church’s teaching gives even the slightest justification for it. Under no circumstances is a Catholic ever to embrace, endorse, promote, or even agree with it. Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter, The Gospel of Life contains the clearest statement our Church has ever issued on the Catholic attitude toward abortion:

“The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end. It is in fact a grave act of disobedience to the moral law, and indeed to God himself, the author and guarantor of that law; it contradicts the fundamental virtues of justice and charity” (Gospel of Life, 57).

As most already know, the overturning of Roe will not outlaw abortion as such. The new battlegrounds will be the states, and that means we will still be obliged to oppose abortion in any form in our local community and state houses. 

1. The lack of legal protection for innocent unborn members of our society has opened a Pandora’s Box of evils that victimize the born members of our society: primarily our children. We must face the brutal facts fearlessly.

Fifty years after the legal protections for innocent life were removed, we are now witnessing a literal open season of moral and physical violence on children: drag queens are allowed to dance half-naked in front of children and read them stories in public. Grade school children are gunned down by young fanatics from broken families who are off their meds and who have been propagandized for years by the communist-style indoctrination of government schools. Hedonistic sex ed has had such a corrosive influence on kids that adolescents are now having their very genetic identities annihilated by transgender activism. 

Brutal fact: Explicit evil has achieve a supremacy in our culture that we have never seen before, and its victims are primarily kids. 

1. We are in the midst of a vast war. Whether we want to admit it or not, a cultural and spiritual war is upon us, and it is no longer possible to remain neutral to its advances. Everyone is or will be affected by it in time, which means we no longer have the twin luxuries of denial or complacency in the face of it. 

The proper mindset for fighting a war is first to open our eyes and see the enemy clearly. The three traditional enemies of our souls – the world, the flesh, and the devil – are now reduced essentially to one: the devil. Satan himself is walking upright and proudly in our society, and we must see him for who he is and not call him by any other name. 

Our Baptismal oath to “reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises” still applies. 

Likewise, we must recognize that the battle – in spite of its negative cultural manifestations – is primarily a spiritual battle, and Catholics must be on the front lines of the fight. We cannot just “watch and wait” any more. We must gird our loins and put on the armor of God (Ephesians 6) with all the implications for spiritual combat these imply. 

In fact, only the Church can gird us for the type of spiritual warfare we are involved in. The Church gives us the correct teaching to sanctify our minds in the Truth of Christ; the Church gives us prayer and the sacramental life to heal us from battle wounds and to strengthen our hearts for battle; the Church fortifies us with grace and the example of the saints to teach us that the ultimate goal is not worldly happiness but the salvation of our souls. 

This is a way of saying that even when Roe is overturned, we must not develop a false sense of security in some vain belief that the killing will stop or that we won’t have to worry about it anymore. One pointed battle will be over, yes – and for that we will be extremely grateful – but new stages of the war in the defense of life, marriage, and family will just be starting. The soldier of Christ has no cause for complacency or passivity today. 

Yet, we are not without encouragement. In the face of all the warfare, Our Blessed Lord promises us that the devil will not have the last word in these fights: 

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world” (John 16:33).

Your friend in Christ,

Thomas J McKenna

President and Founder

Catholic Action for Faith and Family
http://www.catholicaction.org/

P.S Make sure you join us in our ongoing spiritual exercises and submit your intentions for the 3 Holy Masses invoking St. Anthony.