From the Bishops No person who is truly Catholic can take a position of “pro-choice” or vote for a law supporting the so-called right to abortion

Oct 10, 2008

At a Sept. 28 Mass which preceded a Eucharistic procession of 1,000 people to the state of North Dakota’s only abortion facility, Bishop Samuel Aquila of the Catholic Diocese of Fargo said Catholics who are “pro-choice” are “pro-abortion and participating in an intrinsic evil and promoting an unjust law.”

Bishop Aquila referred to Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae in noting that abortion and other intrinsic evils can never be justified by human law. He quoted the encyclical: “In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it’” (Evangelium Vitae 73). Bishop Aquila then expanded upon the quote. “In other words, if one is truly Catholic and truly faithful to the laws of God, to reason and to faith in Jesus Christ, he or she can never be pro-choice, because, if they are, they are pro-abortion and participating in an intrinsic evil and promoting an unjust law. No Catholic can take a position of pro-choice or vote for a law supporting a so-called right to abortion.”

 

Bishop Aquila countered three arguments that attempt to justify abortion. First, he said, the question of when life begins “is a matter of reason and science”, not faith or opinion. Life “begins at the moment of conception,” he said.

 

Second, the bishop said, some say that because we live in a pluralistic society that has many different points of view, people should be free to determine what they will believe and support. “Every human society recognizes that there are certain truths that can never be violated,” Bishop Aquila said. “We cannot use the lie of pluralism to justify intrinsic evils.”

Third, Bishop Aquila disregarded the excuse used by some Catholic politicians who say they do not want to impose their views upon others. “Whether they are voting on taxes, on health care, on immigration, whether they are voting on speed limits, they are always imposing their view by their vote. They are imposing their opinion. And where it becomes most egregious is when they do that by voting for abortion, voting for same-sex unions, voting for euthanasia…They are imposing evil on society and leading the culture into death and into eventual destruction. Any society that embraces intrinsic evils and supports intrinsic evils will one day fall. There are many societies and cultures in the world today that are at that point.”

Following the Mass, Bishop Aquila, carrying the Eucharist held within a monstrance, led an estimated 1,000 people through the streets of Fargo, N.D., in a procession from the Cathedral of St. Mary to the Red River Womens Clinic, the only abortion facility in North Dakota. On the sidewalk in front of the clinic, Bishop Aquila prayed with the people gathered on the street and blessed the building with holy water.

 

Bishop Aquila’s homily, “The dignity of human life is inherent and bestowed by God,” can be found in its entirety at www.fargodiocese.org/bishop/homilies&messages.htm#Homilies.

 

Printed with permission from the Diocese of Fargo.