The exodus of black Catholics is happening as the church advances an agenda that puts life in the womb above life in the ‘hood; above children who are already born and in need of health care, safe neighborhoods, good schools, spiritual guidance and parents who earn enough to make a way for their families.
Certainly protecting life in the womb is important. Black Catholics get that. (I have contributed to Texas Right to Life, but not to Planned Parenthood.) But the church’s fixation on abortion is crowding out nearly all other issues. Feed the poor? That can wait. Fix disparities in education and health care? Take a back seat. Deal with racism? Not our problem. The message to Catholic voters has been that it’s better to cast ballots for xenophobes or race-baiters who oppose abortion than back tolerant folks who support it. But this election cycle, the church took it up a notch with a campaign against gay marriage.
So a week before the Nov. 2 election, Catholic Action for Faith and Family sent out a news release with a directive from U.S. Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke that told American Catholics that we were duty-bound to vote, but we “never can vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion.”
It is a pity that the writer of the article seems unaware of the concern among many African Americans for the fact that their women form a disproportionately high number of those who go for pregnancy terminations. That is to say, black babies are more likely to be aborted than white – one estimate is five times more likely.
See here:
http://www.blackgenocide.org/black.html
I would argue, then, that a pro-life stance would be a help and protection to black communities, a help that they very much needed at the point where they were most vulnerable. Of course poverty and racism may be contributory factors to this tragedy – but whether you tackle the causes of poverty or the consequences, either way you are doing a good thing.
RE: “Feed the poor? That can wait. Fix disparities in education and health care? Take a back seat. Deal with racism? Not our problem.”
Right — because if there’s one thing we all know, it’s that the RC’s do absolutely nothing for the poor and healthcare.
???
HUH?
Oh wait — what the author *really* meant was “we need to support the State in ‘feeding the poor'” which being translated means “why aren’t they making it immoral to vote for a constitutional conservative as they are for those who support killing babies?”
The irony in all of this is that Archbishops Burke and Chaput have actually endorsed the social darwinism of the politicians who run around claiming they are pro-life. Diocesan newspapers quiz politicians about their “pro-life” (?) stances, but rarely, if ever, quiz them about Catholic social teaching on access to health care, a living wage, education and other such matters. Sorry, #1 and 2, but Ms Phillips’ concern is a very real one. What we are getting from some Catholic prelates these days is a tacit endorsement of Randian economic and social policy which bears a startling resemblance to the views of Margaret Sanger. It is a view of social relations as strongly condemned by the Church as abortion.
Why is pro-life the bedrock of all social issues? Well, Jesse Jackson himself–before he got the itch to be president running on the pro-abort Dem platform–called abortion in America genocide directed at Black Americans (and as someone who “hung with ” white liberals at the time I know he was definitely right). Why are Hispanics now the largest minority group in America–not just immigration caused it–Black abortion very much helped displace Blacks as the No. 1 minority.
On top of that anyone who has read some of Margaret Sanger’s (founder of Planned Parenthood) statements cannot doubt that her preferred route for Black and other minorities in America was self -genocide.
So if genocide is the issue–how can any other issue–like hospital care– be more important? Hospitals, by federal law, must take care of all those who come to their emergency rooms. They may not kill inconvenient, defenseless human life on its doorstep, as women may do so in our country.
“Xenophobes or race-baiters?” I must have missed those candidates. I doubt there were many of those on the ballot in Texas or anywhere else.
Health care, living wage, education–so a basic level of wealth. Aside from governmental intervention, there is one private institution that can help with this problem–lifelong marriage. Where men are absent from their responsibilities as husbands and fathers, state and federal governments can only do so much. Having governmental institutions pick up the slack when private institutions fail only works in the long run if those private institutions are repaired and nurtured. Nothing socially darwinian about that view.
2. Sarah, it’s nice that you and I can agree on something, and something quite substantive. I remember a very bright prof. of mine at BC telling us that mercy and justice are opposed and that justice is the higher value. Translate: charity demeans and that government aid is the superior means. He could not have been more wrong. Worse, this is not at all the role of government in Catholic Social Teaching–until you get to Liberation Theology, which has been discredited in the CST.
Dorothy Day, a personalist, got it right. The gospel does not call government to dole out the works of mercy, but each Christian individual. Sharing one anothers burdens is not the same as paying higher taxes to fund impersonal monthly cash cards.
Work is dignity.