America, the Church, Abortion and Tyranny

Today at Mass the sermon dealt with the occasion of Christ walking on the water toward the boat tossed about by the wind and waves; the disciples in the boat were terrified and thought that Jesus was a ghost. Jesus assured them that it was He and they should not be afraid. The ever daring Peter, on the invitation of Jesus, stepped out of the boat and walked towards Jesus; as usual, Peter's daring was not sufficient to overcome his fear and Jesus had to save him from sinking into the sea. "Oh you of little faith", Jesus said to Peter, "why did you doubt?"

The pastor giving this sermon used this event to encourage his parishioners to pray to God with confidence that he will answer their prayers. In particular he asked them to pray that the financial position of the parish, which over the years had come to a point where the weekly collections were not sufficient to pay all expenses. Of course this sort of appeal is made from time to time in any church. The pastor mentioned that in the recent past the church had lost 400 elderly parishioners who passed away, many of whom had been loyal contributors. It came to mind that our particular parish did not have a good number of young couples with children.

As I sat thinking about this after the sermon, many things came to mind. Historically Catholic immigrants coming to America gravitated toward the Democratic Party while Protestants gravitated towards the Republican Party. In the past nearly 100 years the progressives, those who tended to seek reform on a secular basis dominated the Democratic Party; many of the Catholics adhered to these reforms which were close to the ideals of Catholic teaching. During the 1960s and 1970s many Catholics within the church and the Democratic Party were drawn to the false promises of feminist progressives that abortion would bring about freedom from the burdens of childbearing while not limiting the pleasures of sexual gratification.

At first the Church vigorously fought against the killing of babies within the womb, but like Peter, the difficulty of maintaining a posture of determination, without God's help, has led them slowly to sink into the waves. To be sure there are many within the Catholic Church who see abortion as a great travesty; the Catholic Church condemns abortion unequivocally.
But in practice one seldom hears from the pulpit the urgent calls of a Wilberforce appealing to his listeners that abortion can only bring about a false sense of freedom while being a horror in itself with surely a certain retribution. As I sat in the pew thinking about this we were asked to pray silently for help in some personal difficulty; a strange urge came upon me to scream out for the protection of the unborn.  I did not act upon this impulse.

It is long past the time for the Catholic Church and other churches not to fear losing parishioners and their donations by not taking a much more firm stand against abortion.  But this would mean, certainly within the Catholic Church, admonishing Catholics not to vote for politicians at any level who are pro-abortion. Since the Democrat party has for all intents and purposes eradicated all members who would consider running for political office as pro-life candidates, one can only wonder whether many church leaders would have the courage to make such a stand.

A majority of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008. Obama and the Democrats are hell bent on bringing to fruition the drive of the progressives for the last hundred years to convert, transform, change America into a socialist, if not a Marxist, state.  If America is to survive it will be only if the churches bring back people to the awareness of the existence of God who loves them and wants them to lead a fulfilling life, but only He, God, knows best how this is to be accomplished.  Without God's help America will be doomed.

Leaders in our government, leaders in our churches, must, as the leaders of the American Revolution in 1776 did, push back and defeat the Obama Democrats and the Left. But the fight, the battle, will be against the evils of abortion which drives these forces on the left. We need a Wilberforce who understands this and will have the courage and the tenacity and the love of God and the dependence upon His grace to bring about the renewal of America through the fight against this great evil of our time.  And it may be a woman.