By Tom Klocek

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.” —Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Quoting sacred Scripture to try to support abortion — the latest tactic by the Left — is almost as laughable as Vice President Kamala Harris declaring “the border is secure” while watching hundreds of illegal immigrants freely cross into Texas in broad daylight. It makes as little sense as the Democrats claiming that they support the Constitution.

Their appeals to Scripture to try to justify their pro-death stance are like the tactics of the media when they edit someone’s comments or take a few words totally out of context to skew opinion away from the truth. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), many of them claim to be practicing Catholics. Last June, 60 of these so-called Catholics declared that they “are committed to making real the basic principles that are at the heart of Catholic social teaching” (Statement of Principles, June 2021). However, their selective knowledge of Scripture and their apparent lack of familiarity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) make it obvious that they either know nothing of Catholic social teaching or they just flout it. Like the pharisees of old, they claim righteousness while by their actions deny God and His precepts.

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and they said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘we see,’ your guilt remains.” (John 9:39-41)

Recently, Nancy Pelosi, responding to criticism from her bishop who told her not to receive communion until she publicly repented of her pro-abortion stance, quoted the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, where Jesus discusses the judgment of the nations. Pelosi claimed that she and her party were doing their part to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, give water to the thirsty, etc. These are all good activities that relate to life, but, as Pope St. John Paul II noted, “It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all inalienable rights are founded and from which they develop” (Evangelium Vitae, 101). She also conveniently forgot Jesus’s closing phrase: “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me.” Who, if not the baby in the womb, would we identify as “the least of these”? Pelosi claimed pro-life people ignored this passage when in fact they believe that final statement should drive the issue. Pelosi then goes on to bring up the issue of privacy. Since she seems to like Matthew, perhaps she isn’t familiar with the Gospel of Luke, especially where Jesus says: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”

Now we learn that California’s Governor Gavin Newsom has paid for bulletin boards in Ohio and other states, claiming that California will help women who want to get an abortion. One of the signs reads, “Ohio doesn’t own your body, You do.” Actually, it’s God who owns our bodies. “Life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself” (Pope St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 25 March 1995, 9). Some of Newsom’s billboards include a quote from Mark 12:31: “Love your neighbor as yourself, there is no greater commandment than these.” I would think that a pregnant mother’s nearest (and most important neighbor) is the baby in her womb. Or is Newsom telling these women that they should commit suicide, since he’s encouraging them to kill their babies (“as yourself”)? I know that sounds extreme, but follow the logic of his argument and that’s where it takes you. Such is the deranged logic of abortion.

All of these show the heretical perspective of these self-proclaimed devout Catholics. That they are Catholic is based on their baptism, but from a practical sense, they are not. As St. Augustine said: “Many call themselves Christian, but they certainly are not! They are not what their title signifies – not in their life, not in their morals, not in their faith, not in their hope, not in their charity” (St. Augustine, Sermon on 1 Jn 4:4).

One obvious omission of their reliance on Scripture is that they make no reference to the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). The Fifth Commandment says, “You shall not kill.” Of course, that might make people think of other commandments that they regularly violate, such as false witness (#8) or the commandments against covetousness (they regularly encourage people to covet other’s successes and wealth) that drive divisiveness. Of course, that is what they want to do — divide the population so that everyone can feel offended and justified in their “pain,” which the government can then resolve.

As for their knowledge and adherence to the Catechism, they show that this part of their Christian formation is also seriously lacking. Abortion is gravely “contrary to the moral law.” In other words, an intrinsic evil (CCC 2271). “One may never do evil so that good may result from it” (CCC 1789). Abortion is contrary to the common good that “concerns the life of all”: respect for the human person, social well-being and development, and peace (CCC 1906).

And then there’s the pro-abortion senator/pastor from Georgia who denigrated members of the military by quoting from Luke, “You cannot serve God and mammon,” implying that military people are serving only something other than their country and its citizens. It is our military who are actually doing God’s will by serving their neighbors. The military, like police and firefighters, put their lives at risk for the sake of our safety and freedom. As Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And how do Democrats show their love? By advocating the killing of innocent babies in the womb.

Obviously, their consciences, the natural understanding of good and evil, have been numbed and corrupted by decades of moral relativism and “wokeness,” much of which they perpetrated. Moral relativism, which declares that we each make our own truths, is a lie and destructive and must be opposed. Following that logic, there would be no need for any laws, as we could do whatever we pleased. But everyone knows that would not work. We all know there are limits. They are written into our hearts by God.

The condition of our country and its slide into depravity are the result of such a malformed and distorted understanding of God and His laws. We need to turn back to God and the Judeo-Christian principles on which our nation was founded. We need to turn from this culture of death to a new culture of life. We need to build our consciences to properly recognize the moral reality of right and wrong and act on them, turning away from the moral relativism that is leading us astray.

“In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged” (Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 16).