As we approach the thirtieth anniversary of St. John Paul II’s landmark encyclical Evangelium Vitae, it is instructive to reflect on the current breadth and depth of the culture of death referred to in that remarkable document. That culture has certainly been graphically exposed during this chaotic election year. The Harris-Walz platform unequivocally supports absolute reproductive freedom, even if it means allowing abortions very late in a woman’s pregnancy. Far too many Democrats celebrate abortion and are determined to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.
Kamala Harris, described by President Biden as “having the moral compass of a saint,” has been a strident supporter of unrestricted abortion rights throughout her entire political career. Both she and her running mate Tim Walz also favor permitting babies of botched abortions to be left to die after birth. Walz and Minnesota lawmakers changed the state law that required medical personnel to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant” after a failed abortion attempt. According to the modified law, medical personnel must only “care for the infant who is born alive.” There is no longer a requirement to provide life-saving health care to this helpless infant.
This revised Minnesota law illustrates how the culture of death continues to evolve and deepen, while always spreading its malignant influence.
Catholic progressives often echo the “seamless garment” thesis once championed by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in the 1990s. The Cardinal called for a “consistent ethic of life” and a broader attitude about respect for life. Thus, abortion is only one of many life issues that also includes capital punishment, war, extreme poverty, and environmental degradation. This philosophy has been revived in recent years, with many liberal prelates, including Cardinal Robert McElroy and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, proclaiming its merits.
Some Catholic supporters of Harris point out that while she may not have the right attitude about abortion, her message bears a similarity to Jesus’s ministry because of her sincere concern for the poor and those excluded by society. Behind the façade of these sophistic arguments, however, is the moral truth that abortion ignores in the most radical way the dignity of the human person at the inception of his or her existence.
Adding to the confusion is Pope Francis himself, who sometimes links the abortion issue with other social justice concerns. He has conflated ecological and pro-life issues because of their common root, stating that “the same indifference, the same selfishness, the same greed, the same pride, the same claim to be the master and despot of the world leads human beings on the one hand to destroy species and plunder natural resources and, on the other, . . . to no longer respect the right to human life from conception to its natural end.”
And, in a recent interview, he apparently affirmed the moral equivalence of the evil of abortion and the exclusion of migrants: ““Both [Harris and Trump] are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies…” However, while there is never a good reason to take an innocent human life, there may be morally sound reasons why a country cannot accommodate every migrant who seeks to cross its border (cf CCC 2241).
A different perspective is presented in Evangelium Vitae, which introduced the phrase “culture of death” to describe a sub-culture that is quite willing to endorse abortion and euthanasia. As the philosopher John Finnis has pointed out, the Pope’s strong language refers to a systematic and shameless willingness to treat some human beings as non-persons, to choose and intend to kill these human beings, and to legally protect and publicly promote those choices.
In the case of abortion, some individuals deliberately choose to bring about the death of a human being within the womb. Medical personnel who perform abortions exhibit a readiness to act or refrain from acting for the purpose of destroying a human person, while many others ensure that these actions can be executed with impunity. The result of such “systematically programmed threats,” is a broad and sinister “conspiracy against life” (EV 17). That conspiracy is grounded in an immoral impulse, fundamental to the abortion culture, to endow certain individuals with “absolute power over others and against others” (EV 20). Unfortunately, some persons become the absolute possession of other persons. Those who share in this perversity, including politicians who craft and ratify liberal, taxpayer funded abortion laws, must bear a measure of culpability for its disastrous consequences.
This systematic willingness to choose and intend the death of powerless victims that constitutes the culture of death makes the pro-life question unique among the full spectrum of ethical issues. Some individuals may have deficient ecological values or endorse an illiberal immigration policy, but they neither support the intentional termination of human life nor promote a bleak subculture that does so. They do not condone or rationalize these direct acts of violence against another human being. Contrary to the consistent ethic of life philosophy, it is perfectly valid to elevate the anti-abortion issue and give it the pre-eminence it deserves, because the intrinsic good of human life is directly and immediately at stake.
Defenders of the stance promoted by Harris-Walz are often unwilling to acknowledge that the lives being terminated are those of human persons. They also hasten to point out that very few abortions occur in the late stages of pregnancy. In her debate with President Trump, Harris herself disingenuously declared, “Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion—that is not happening.” However, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that .9% of abortions occur after 21 weeks (the threshold for a premature infant’s survival outside the womb with medical care). And since there were 1,037,000 abortions last year in the United States, the .9% rate translates into over 9,300 abortions after the fetus is viable.
Even those who erroneously contend that the fetus is not a human being in the early stages of development (despite its unique human genome and active potency to know the truth and to make free choices) must acknowledge that every year thousands of babies are intentionally executed in this gruesome procedure.
There are multiple factors contributing to this burgeoning abortion sub-culture, this callous indifference to human life. But, according to John Paul II, at the heart of this tragedy is “the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism” (EV 21). In an aggressive secular society, many of those who profess belief in God are practical atheists because they live “as if God did not exist” (EV 22).
The loss of any intimation of the provident Creator’s wise design leads countless people to conclude that the life of a child in the womb is expendable. John Paul II explained that when we lose sight of the mystery of God, we also lose sight of the mystery of our own being and forget that life is a gift of the Creator who infuses the spiritual soul at the moment of conception. Along with this negation of transcendence, the secular mentality disdains “repressive” Christian morality and its ascetic character. On the contrary, practical atheism “breeds individualism, utilitarianism, and hedonism” (EV 23).
Hence, moral reasoning is based on pragmatic utility rather than respect for natural laws anchored in the foundation of our immutable human nature. The sanctity of human life is no longer an absolute moral value, since people assume for themselves the creative power to construct and affirm their own values. They create their own “moral truths” which were once attributed to God, and deny God His dominion over life.
An explicit attack on the right to life represents a direct and ominous threat to the entire spectrum of human rights. This is the moral vision of Evangelium Vitae, an encyclical that brightly illuminates the way out of the deep recesses of the abortion culture and its desolate nihilism.
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Abortion and immigration are moral equivalents (perhaps) only if an immigrant who puts one step over the border is machine-gunned down ‘in situ’ for doing so. But even there lies an essential difference. Immigrants of a certain age make a conscious decision to violate the laws of the country they invade. Unborn babies are wholly defenseless and have nowhere to hide from the physician’s scalpel and suction machine. So Francis’ moral equivalence holds no water at all (the same goes for Paglia, McElroy, Cupich and their ilk).
Thank you professor for a great article.
The Devil was a murderer fron the beginning and a liar the father of lies, and deceives many. Those who promote abortion are deceived by Satan. Our battle is not with flesh and blood but with the evil spirits in the heavens, therefore we need to put on the armor of God and stand firm in Truth. (Eph.6)
Your comment reminds me that there is a widespread handicap of a blind-spot in people’s vision and allegiance. And a deafness surrounding. While we are helping rescue those entrapped by the Devil we can not be helping them propagate the results, the mechanisms, the confusions, the deliberate obfuscating, the void of witnesses and truth, the tunneling of a way of looking at things all the time, the captioning of neat quotations.
But will you hear and see where others do not, Samuel? What would you do?
‘ Prayer and fasting are the weapons of love that change history. They defeat our one true enemy: the spirit of evil who foments war, who was a “murderer from the beginning.” Let us devote time to prayer and rediscovering the saving power of fasting! ‘
https://x.com/Pontifex/status/1843282632429212006
We read: “Catholic progressives often echo the ‘seamless garment’ thesis once championed by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in the 1990s.”
The REAL “seamless garment” is the thread connecting the contraceptive culture to abortion, to homosexuality, to civil unions, to gay “marriage,” to the non-biological reproduction of the anti-binary LGBTQ subculture/religion, to gender theory, to transgenderism—all within the foggy fact-unchecking of our politicized discourse. Politics is downstream of culture–the “culture of death.”
When ASKED in a televised moment whether he had ever violated the young man, the mentioned Cardinal Bernardin responded that he had “never violated my vow of chastity.” The seamless garment of redefining chastity as applying only to men with women…and the media didn’t even blink. There are no binaries, only polarities to be harmonized.
Spinello stresses that St. John Paul II pointed to TRANSCENDENCE; the seamless garment is a denial of ANY “other”, let alone the binary of The Other. Hence, the politics of amorphous socialism, and maybe even the theology of a malleable “Holy Spirit” with the unilateral edict enabling the blessing of “irregular” couples—an inclusive cover story for also/especially blessing homosexual couples, as “couples.”
Should the Synod on Synodality now DECIDE whether it, too, is part of the seamless garment that surrounds us like a body bag? OR not? Will the non-synodal, oblique, and fatal Fiducia Supplicans go unchallenged? OR, does synodality go with the flow–water under the bridge? After all, isn’t the perennial Catholic Church only about “building bridges”…
Meanwhile, the gradualist “culture of death” even aborts what surely is meant by “time is greater than space” (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013). Is transcendence still greater than both time and space?
Yea verily, are we reminded of the 2018 Youth Synod….?
For the first time, the secretary-general, Cardinal Baldisseri, had inserted the term “LGBTQ” into a Church document–the Instrumentum Laboris, whilst Archbishop Chaput then spoke and respectfully objected in writing–to such a reorientation of the Church now toward (any) politicized category, in place of a more just and fundamental understanding of human “persons” and the Body of Christ. https://fsspx.news/en/news/fracture-synod-bishop-speaks-out-against-use-term-lgbt-20353
Baldisseri summarily rejected this reasonable and needed editorial correction. But, at the synod itself, all of the 18 roundtables then unanimously (!) “demanded” (as reported in at least two different news releases) withdrawal of the Baldisseri insertion, and so it came to be.
Why not the same scenario, now synodally, for Cardinal Fernandez’s merely editorial misstep (in Fiducia Supplicans)? No loss of face, just an editorial fix in a “couple” of words….if for no other reason than restored Church unity.
I have lost track of the news article and link, where Pope Francis was describing how 1999-2000 he was present helping to sort things for a synod “including this and excluding that”. Would seem he has substituted “synodality” for that process?
What it brings to the front also, is, he was willing to reveal that part of his memory of those times but he hasn’t indicated how close in, Martini was, whether at that moment or around that time or with HIMSELF through the period in general.
It was in 2001. Here is the report September 26 2024, CRUX NOW.
This comment of mine right now doesn’t quite fit Spinella’s discussion above but I wanted to suggest a context to you Beaulieu.
If you research the various offerings over the past 9 years by the Pope and others on “what synodality is” you will find a mess of things that merely repeat principles and practices of faith at will with other odd things thrown together with them that are meant to impart something.
Petrine-Marian, harmony, Holy Spirit, inclusion, participation, mission, walking. In more recent time the wording has become more and more sophisticated. To write the essay on those items here would be very lengthy.
One “outside” thing is a favourite of the lodge, vox populi, vox dei. The particular expression was not used so far; rather another expression was given and presented as ancient and venerable – Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari debet (that which touches upon all must be approved by all). See the second link, NC REGISTER, Ed Pentin, Permanent Synodal Church — A Progressive Jesuit Cardinal’s ‘Dream’ Come True.
The various offerings on “what synodality is” or “what makes synodality”, are evolving and await pronouncements from the Pope. Since it is open-ended they have to try and find the “right successor”. The Pope also said at the opening the past week that it is an annunciation to you from your angel and you must listen to the angelic voice and not resist.
But the idea that faith is encapsulated in synodality is not the faith.
Also, that the faith is encapsulated in a synodalism that is evolving, is not the faith either.
Synod is an ecclesial mechanism for specific purposes. There is no spirituality to it beyond its function upon being appointed for the purpose.
You can find errors in the various offerings on “what synodality is”. In the same Pentin article, the People of God is restricted to those who are baptized. Which is erroneous.
‘ “ In 2001 I was at the Synod of Bishops. I was collecting the material and arranging it. The secretary of the synod would go through it and say to take out this or that item that had been approved by vote of the various groups. There were things that he didn’t think were appropriate, and he would say to me, ‘No, there’ll be no vote on that, no vote on this.’ It was not understood what a synod was, in short,” he continued.
“Another issue is whether only bishops or also priests, lay people or women can vote. In this synod, this is the first time women can vote. What does this mean? That there has been a development to live out this synodality,” Francis said.
“And this is a grace from the Lord, because synodality has to be achieved not only at the level of the universal Church, but also in the local Churches, in parishes, in educational institutions. Synodality is a value of the Church at all levels. It has been a very good journey. This involves another thing, the ability to discern. Synodality is a grace of the Church. It is not democracy. It is something else, and it requires discernment,” he said. ‘
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2024/09/in-meeting-jesuits-in-asia-pope-francis-says-synodality-is-not-democracy
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/permanent-synodal-church-martini-dream
Edit: Spinello not “Spinella”
John Paul II was the first to call ours a culture of death. Expediency within a secularized culture places life on a scale of priorities, the weight of what provides sensual material goods outweighs the value of human life especially when that life is compromised. Either by health. Or by vulnerability.
Saul Alinsky worked closely with Cdl Bernardin – it’s not difficult to determine who got into whose head [Alinsky so influential a personality that he enthralled Vatican hierarchy including Paul VI], although we know Alinsky was a master salesman for the humanitarian Marxist approach we read in Rules for Radicals [Ewtn featured a masterful study of the deceiver].
Alinsky convinced Bernardin that the class defamation tactic worked in acquiring funds. Laden the wealthy with guilt by pressure tactics, unfair accusation and the donations role in. Guilt assuaged at a price – the distortion of priorities.
Essayist Spinello details the revival of the seamless garment ideology that features universal principles centered in a conceptual greater good rather than specificity. Spinello notes the importance of jumbling abortion with several other contemporary issues: climate, equal justice, respect for all regardless of their morality. Universal concepts of a greater good trump the individual’s rights. Now isn’t that the overall direction of our everlasting discussion club the Synod on Synodality? If that can’t be perceived, check in with a good ophthalmologist.
The pro-life movement could do better than to enter into a discussion about what the embryo or fetus is: whether it is a clump of cells, a blob of tissue, a person, a pre-person or whatever else.
The focus is better placed on the intent with which every abortion is performed: the intent to kill which is an ingredient of the crimes of murder, conspiracy to murder and attempted murder.
The Supreme Court of the United States held in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022) page 244 that a person who, intending to kill only the child in the womb, accidentally kills its mother is by transferred malice guilty of murder.
The House of Lords in the UK held that a person who, intending to kill, is guilty of murder if he injures the child in the womb and the child is afterwards born alive, and after live birth dies of the injury. – Attorney-General’s Reference No.3 of 2004 [2007] UKHL 31.
The born alive rule 21 was explained by an English court in R v Sims (1601) Goulds 174; 75 ER 1075 as a rule of evidence: “… for if it be dead born it is no murder for non constat (it does not necessarily follow) whether the child were living at the time of the batterie or not; or if the batterie was the cause of the death, but when it is born living, and the wounds appeare in his body, and then he dye, the batteror shall be arraigned of murder, for now it may be proved whether these wounds were the cause of the death or not, and for that if it be found, he shall be condemned.”
Every State in the Union has a law against criminal attempt, or at least against attempted murder. This, together with the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution which prohibits disparity of punishment, should be advanced in any legal argument going forward.
The culture of death is driven by the death cult that is the Democratic Party.
Think about it.
Democrats favor killing children in utero. At any time. For any reason. By a variety of decidedly horrific methods.
Dismembering them alive. Searing the skin off of their bodies. Severing their brain stems in the bases of their skulls.
And so, entire generations of individuals are canceled out of existence.
Roughly one-third of all our offspring in this country over the past fifty years, in fact.
Incredible.
And for the lucky children who escape that hideous death?
Democrats are in favor of sterilizing and mutilating them in order to — of all things — “change” their “genders.” Without their parents’ permission, if necessary.
Again, more generations of human beings erased. Millions upon millions of precious, unique, irreplaceable individuals. Each one representing his or her own universe of potentialities.
But that’s not all. Not even close.
Legalizing drugs; gay “marriage”; the sexualization of children; the green new poverty; the open border fentanyl conduit; the denial of the biologically determined sexes — everything the Democratic Party advocates is aimed at denying life and promoting death.
It’s not even debatable.
Death is the Democratic Party’s central tenet.
And the American bishops have said almost nothing about it in all those years.
It’s hard to believe that they are actually Catholic.
Excellent points brineyman, excellent points!
A Catholic Convert from Freemasonry is the French abortionist Maurice Caillet. He has claimed to have been a pioneer in France of the “dissect the baby in the womb” standard procedure, requiring the counting of all body parts removed.
The link between Freemasonry, Satanism, and abortion has been made by Caillet in online videos. He has also published books.
John Paul II was the first to call ours a culture of death. Expediency within a secularized culture places life on a scale of priorities, the weight of what provides sensual material goods outweighs the value of human life especially when that life is compromised. Either by health. Or by vulnerability.
Saul Alinsky worked closely with Cdl Bernardin – it’s not difficult to determine who got into whose head [Alinsky so influential a personality that he enthralled Vatican hierarchy including Paul VI], although we know Alinsky was a master salesman for the humanitarian Marxist approach we read in Rules for Radicals [Ewtn featured a masterful study of the deceiver].
Alinsky convinced Bernardin that the class defamation tactic worked in acquiring funds. Laden the wealthy with guilt by pressure tactics, unfair accusation and the donations role in. Guilt assuaged at a price – the distortion of priorities.
Essayist Spinello details the revival of the seamless garment ideology that features universal principles centered in a conceptual greater good rather than specificity. Spinello notes the importance of jumbling abortion with several other contemporary issues: climate, equal justice, respect for all regardless of their morality. Universal concepts of a greater good trump the individual’s rights. Now isn’t that the overall direction of our everlasting discussion club the Synod on Synodality?