There's an interesting debate going on in the combox at Jimmy Akin's site, under the heading "Why Doesn't the Church Bar Pro-Abort Politicians".  Many people are trying to figure out the strategy of relative silence on the issue being employed by the U. S. bishops.  Many believe it's a pragmatic approach of balancing short-term gains versus long-term losses.  Others believe that the bishops have lost their moral standing.  Finally, there are those that believe the bishops are taking a protectivist approach, shielding their dioceses from potential attack from political opponents.

My take on it is this:  I think we're talking too much about "practical actions" and "pragmatic solutions" without taking into account a very real fact of our Church - it has NEVER been popular!

It would have been easier to say that Jesus was just another god, rather than raise the ire of the Roman emperors.  That didn't happen.

It would have been easier, once Christianity was accepted as a religion, to have gone along with Arianism.  After all, that was what some of the Roman emperors preferred as a good interpretation of Christianity, and also would have been acceptable to many Jews.  That didn't happen.

It would have been easier to have just gone along with King Henry VIII, than to lose Church property and the lives of many religious.  If that had happened, than Sir Thomas More would not be known as St Thomas More.  But that didn't happen.

So why, then, is it acceptable now to take the easier, more logical, more pragmatic approach of NOT speaking out against our politicians?  Maybe if we had 30 or 40 years ago, abortion on demand would not be the law of the land.

But that didn't happen.

Tags: abortion bishop politician pro-choice pro-life