An interesting comment made by Jesuit priest Mark Massa, who is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
The quote is an extract from an article in The Tablet of September 12.
As I always remind my own students, the opposite of Catholic is not Protestant, but rather sectarian: the church throughout the centuries has consistently sought to stay in the public conversation on moral and ethical issues, not marginalise itself against the larger society.
It seems to me that in making abortion not only the number one issue, but even the only issue in deciding whom to vote for, many US bishops have crossed the sectarian line into a profoundly un-Catholic position, a position more about cultural warriorship than about moral theology.
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Imagine a society in which the number of women deciding to terminate their pregnancy was decreasing year for year
Imagine a society in which adequate and comprehensive sex education for young people was a matter of course.
Imagine a society in which contraceptives were freely and fully available to everyone.
Imagine, most of all, a society in which a woman choosing to continue with a pregnancy could be sure of total support from society; in which having a child would not mean having to accept financial hardship, quitting a job or education; in which there was a comprehensive, professional, freely available support system of child care.
It strikes me that, rather than just clamouring for a (proven ineffective) legal prohibition of abortion, or protesting in front of clinics, people who call themselves 'pro-life' could better work for the practical realisation of such a society. Then they would truly be living up to the name they claim for themselves.
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