Not a Normal Pro-Life Post.

When I was a philosophy student in college seminary, our professors stressed over and over again the importance of carefully defining the terms that we were using, so as to avoid confusion on what we were arguing, as well as being able to properly understand what we were supposed to be learning. While at times it was annoying, it proved to be crucial.

For the past month, my classmates and I have been traveling both doing a program for our seminary, as well as taking part in our individual retreats. Coming off of all of this travel and time on retreat, I’ve gotten back into the news of what has been going on in our nation, and seeing all that people are sharing on social media, and have discovered that many of us have a major problem, a problem that reminded me of my philosophy professors harping on us to define our terms.

We’ve screwed up properly defining our terms.

The term in question here is “pro-life.” When you hear the term “pro-life,” there’s a huge chance that you most likely think of someone who is against abortion, and you might even throw being against euthanasia into the mix just to make things interesting. In fact, I did a search on the meaning of the term “pro-life,” and this is exactly what the internet, in all of its wisdom told me: that being pro-life means to be against abortion and euthanasia. But, I’m writing a pro-life article, and I’m a Catholic…but I’m not going to write about abortion. *Enter confusion* You may ask yourself, how is that even possible?

That’s the problem.

In not properly defining our terms, there is a fundamental problem with the pro-life movement in the Church—well, at least the Church in America, which often times American Catholics, myself included, think is all there is. The problem is this: to some extent, we don’t really know what it means to be pro-life. To define what it means is a vast undertaking, and we seem to be taking the narrow way, focusing on a drop that rests within an entire ocean.

Okay, take a couple of deep breaths. Calm down, and go ahead and close that angry email you’re about to write to my Archbishop about me (and if you don’t mind, don’t save a draft of it, either, okay?) I’m not about to go on some pro-choice rampage or jump on the magic carpet of relativism for a ride outside of the realms of Holy Mother Church and her teachings. I’m not that stupid—so at least hear me out.

When we think of what it means to be “pro-life” we get caught up in thinking of it only in terms of being against abortion, and being against abortion is great. Fighting for those who cannot speak for themselves is a wonderful and worthy cause—but it isn’t really being pro-life, it’s being anti-abortion. If we add in euthanasia, we stand up for the elderly and their needing to be respected and cared for—also wonderful, but not entirely the meaning of being pro-life—that’s being anti-euthanasia.

Often times in the movement that we call pro-life, we use slogans such as “womb to tomb,” or “conception to natural death.” Yet, the problem here is that we in the current mainstream pro-life movement in America don’t seem to take the “to” seriously. That is, we focus on “womb” and “tomb,” on “conception” and “natural death.” We write letters, make phone calls, advocate, protest, and march in cities throughout the nation to stop the killing of innocent children in the womb, the elderly, and those who suffer, but other than that, where are we? Are those the only instances where there is a need to witness to the dignity of human life? Are those the only instances that merit the effort? Are those the only instances—the only people—worth fighting for?

Being a Catholic means being pro-life. Being a Catholic, however, also means being a Catholic before being an American. Calm down, I’m not about to host a flag burning. This is to say, that as Catholics, we are not swayed or led by particular political ideologies or party lines alone—that, instead, we are led by our faith, our formation in that faith, and by our consciences. In other words, when we go into that voting booth, we don’t go by ourselves. We ask the Holy Spirit to come with us, to help us make the best decision, to help us realize that when we stand at the pearly gates, there’s no special “pre-check” line for Americans, that God isn’t going to ask to see our voter registration information to see which party we belonged to, but that instead, He’s going to ask us how we glorified Him through how we loved others, how we served others, how we brought the light of His presence into the darkest corners of the world, how we stood up for Him when times were tough.

As I said earlier, for the past few weeks, my classmates and I have been travelling. One of the people we met in our travels opened my eyes quite a bit to the reality that lies before us. Our nation now stands at a point of great division. We just came through a rough political campaign season that put our nation on the forefront of international headlines, and made for some pretty hilarious SNL skits, too. No matter the headlines and skits, though, to be quite frank, for the Catholic, both candidates sucked—a lot. As one of the people we met so correctly stated, no matter the outcome of our election, the Church was going to have to pivot and stand up as a body of pro-life people. Yet, this only makes sense if we have a proper understanding of what it means to be truly pro-life.

To be pro-life, we must take the aforementioned “to” seriously. Yes, it is absolutely crucial to advocate against abortion and euthanasia, but this cannot be all that we do. We must stand up for the dignity of all people and of all human life, not only the elderly and the infants in the womb. We must stand up for the truth that all people have been created as beautiful children of God—a task that isn’t easy, but then again, no one ever said being a Christian was supposed to be.

Indeed, we join together and rejoice in seeing that our new government is placing new restrictions on abortion practices—but then, where are we after that? Why do we seemingly look away when human dignity is at risk in other situations? It’s almost as if we are either giving up or taking the easier route out—that we accept the one place where we can have some form of victory, one that is certainly worthy of celebration, but then we conveniently ignore the rest of it. But, this is not what it means to be pro-life.

To be pro-life, we must be pro-life for all:

-for the child in the womb who has a right to be born, no matter what. -for the elderly person who shouldn’t be put down like an animal because of their age. -for the sick person who is subjected to life in a world that has a fundamental misunderstanding of suffering—a world that tells them that the only way to have dignity is to ask a doctor to help them end their own lives. -for the men and women who daily face harsh discrimination because of their race, their religion, their gender, their sexuality, or their social class. -for the people who are starving to death and dying of dehydration while the countries who live in abundance boast in their riches. -for the women and men who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, who are fighting to get their lives back in order, and even for those who are not, because they don’t know how. -for the people suffering from mental illnesses, who are too often afraid to ask for the help they need, because a chemical imbalance in their brain makes them unfit in the eyes of our society. -for the people who sit in prison, the criminals, who are part of a system which punishes but does not rehabilitate, so that upon their release, the newly freed person will be sitting on their bed in their cell once again before it even has a chance to get cold. -for the men and women sitting on death row, because in a society as advanced as ours, we should realize that killing is not undone by more killing, that human beings, no matter what they have done, should not be subjected to ever increasing amounts of experimental, expensive cocktails of drugs that bring about a miserable and inhumane death. -for the homeless who are fighting to make their lives better, and for those who cannot.

…at least, we should try, because all of this, and so much more, is what it means to be pro-life. It is what it means to be a follower of Christ. Yeah, some of it is uncomfortable, but Christ did not found a Church on the sands of comfortability, He founded a Church on the foundation of the ever-enduring rock of the Truth.

If none of that made you uncomfortable, there’s a good chance it’s still to come.

We must be pro-life for the immigrants and the refugees, too—for the men, women, and children who leave everything behind, who travel with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and risk literally everything, including their very lives, to come to a nation built on the blood, sweat, tears, hopes, dreams, failures and successes of other immigrants and refugees. They are not coming to take our jobs. (Don’t pretend you actually want the backbreaking work that many of them do, anyways.) They are not coming to bring crime. They are not coming to attack us. They are coming because if they stay home, they will more than likely be killed for the simple fact that they happen to exist. Their homelands have become places of unimaginable violence, leaving them to literally run for their lives, something that, dare I say, anyone reading these words could not even begin to imagine.

So, why, then, we ask, don’t they get in line and come the legal way? I asked that question myself until my recent travels, because I met those people. We are so quick to ask that question, but we fail to realize that, even in the absolute best of scenarios, doing it “the legal way” can take a minimum of ten years. We don’t realize that to “legally” be a refugee, one has to go through a lengthy process that can take even longer. We don’t realize that in order to try to become a citizen, one has to fork over hundreds or even thousands of dollars, making it nearly impossible for those who flee for their lives, who more than likely aren’t carrying loads of cash on them. We don’t realize that here in America, we aren’t interested in taking anyone in unless we can benefit, that is, unless they have that money. So, the poor who die fleeing for their lives? Collateral damage, I guess.

Living in my beloved Commonwealth of Kentucky, I grew too comfortable with the rhetoric surrounding issues of immigration and the refugee crisis, especially in living so far from the reality of the border. But, once you meet these people, as I had the privilege of doing—once you hear their stores, the familiar rhetoric seems to fade away. Once you look them in the eyes and come to the realization that they share in your humanity—that they share in the same image and likeness of God as yourself—and that they are running for their lives, and that waiting upwards of one to two decades isn’t a viable option, paperwork doesn’t matter. When you see their eyes fill with tears as they tell their stories, it is as if you are looking at Christ Himself—and how can you turn Him away?

When you encounter these people, and you encounter Christ in them, no sea of political rhetoric can be enough to drown out the everlasting words of the Word Himself whom you have encountered. “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me,” but even more so, “what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” (Matthew 25: 40, 44)

The first of these verses is often used in the pro-life movement in our fight to rid our nation of the evil of abortion, and yes, the unborn are indeed among the least ones, for they have no voice—but so are the immigrants and refugees—so are the people who are terrified to even register at a parish for fear of being discovered. So are the dreamers, who were brought here as children, who agreed to have their information recorded for a chance to go to college in that nation that they grew up in and have come to love, only now to live in fear that they may be deported to a nation they’ve never known, putting their very lives at stake. As one of the people we met said, if we claim to be pro-life, yet are willing to let these people who need our help be deported back to a place where they will be killed within minutes of their arrival and do nothing to try and stop it, than we might as well start directing young women to the abortion clinic, because we don’t have a proper understanding of the sacredness of human life—is it harsh? A little. Yet, it doesn’t seem to be wrong, either—it shows the reality that all human life, no matter what stage, no matter political ideologies, no matter what, is sacred.

As a pro-life people, we rejoiced in learning that the new administration reinstated the Mexico City Policy, meaning that our money can no longer be sent overseas to hurt women through the act of abortion. We rejoiced in seeing our Congress move to instate a permanent ban on federal funding for abortion (which, no matter what the memes you post on Facebook say, is actually a thing. Also, Planned Parenthood doesn’t do prenatal care, or mammograms, they say they do because it makes them look good and because millennials are for some reason incapable of doing research outside of trending topics on social media). We could hardly contain our excitement and joy when the President called out the media for not covering the March for Life, the nation’s largest annual peaceful protest, or when the Vice President and his family became the first VP to speak at the March for Life rally. These were all truly wonderful things. They were answered prayers.

Amidst our rejoicing, though, we cannot—we must not—then be the same people who cheer when we learn of the possibility of torture being reinstated. We must not applaud when we hear that refugees will be turned away from our borders—we dare not pat ourselves on the back when we learn that some may be accepted, but only if they are Christian. We cannot sing praises when we hear of a wall that is to be built along our southern border. We cannot. We must not. This is not a political statement—it is a Christian statement, because all of these things are fundamentally against Gospel values.

Another part of my recent travels was to go to the border—to see the fence that is already there, part of a movement we as a nation made in the early 2000’s. It is a physical barrier that divides ourselves and our neighbors to the south—it is a barrier that cost hundreds of millions of dollars—per mile—to build. And guess what? It did not change a thing. Being there and seeing the hideous barrier looming over me, I was overcome with the feeling that evil was truly present. I thought of all of the people who had run from their homes in Central America and Mexico to save themselves and their families—who wanted to stay home but no longer could—who ran through the gunfire of the cartels and survived—only to come to this fence and for a moment, be met with utter despair that they may fail, only to make the bold effort to climb over it. Thank God they made it. Yes, it was illegal, but lives matter more than laws.

Now, people my age, and older than me, and younger than me—people who say that they are pro-life and that strive to be faithful followers of Christ are joining in the chant to “build that wall,” and my heart sinks. Division, my friends, is evil. We can spend billions of dollars changing that fence into a wall—we can make it as tall and as imposing as we want—we can have more border control personnel and pat ourselves on the back for creating jobs—we can throw as much money at that southern border as we want, but ultimately, none of it will work. I don’t think it will work because love triumphs over hate and good over evil, and when people are running for their lives, they will find a way to make it to safety. I feel safe betting that any of us, when placed in their shoes, would do the same thing.

I am proud to be an American citizen, and I am proud to belong to what I feel is the greatest nation on earth. But I am also proud to be the descendant of immigrants and refugees—men and women who came from Europe to Maryland and from Maryland to Kentucky and were always welcomed as Christ. In the spirit of those who have gone before us, we cannot be a nation that builds walls—we must be a nation that builds bridges. Imagine if we took all of that money, and instead of pouring it into the construction of a wall that will not work, we invested it into programs that could change people’s lives? What if we helped get the poor who live along the border out of poverty? What if we invested in fixing our broken immigration system, and made doing things the legal way an actual possibility? What if we invested that money in helping people in our nation overcome their drug addictions that are fueling the foreign cartels and causing the violence in these peoples’ homes to begin with?

Between the 1960’s and the 1990’s, a wall stood between East and West Berlin. Constructed by the Communist East, it was designed to keep their people in and keep the influence of the West—the influence of us, out. Studying the history, culture, and language of the German people, I learned of how the rest of the world mocked and ridiculed the East. How our nation was one of the leading forces to tear the wall down. Are we the new East Berlin? Is this how we want to be perceived by the rest of the world—as a nation that is terrified to let in anyone that is different, terrified to help people in need? Our nation was founded on the principles that all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; we were founded by immigrants and refugees for immigrants and refugees. Our nation may indeed build a wall along its southern border, but as a friend of mine shared in a photo of a sign she held, if a wall is built “we will raise our children to tear it down,” and, I suspect, just as the world rejoiced with the falling of a wall in Berlin, so, too, she will rejoice with the falling of a wall in America.

Now, lest I be called a “wackjob liberal” who is calling for completely open borders and the detriment of our national security—I’m not. Breathe. I’m not trying to stir up arguments—I’m trying to be a better follower of Jesus Christ. Before you freak out, I urge you to see what the Church in America has had to say about all of this. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has recently released several statements opposing the construction of a border wall, as well as opposing the ban on refugees entering our country. Those statements can be found by clicking on these links: Wall Statement Refugee Statement

As we continue in our lives, we must always remain cognizant of the words of the Lord in the Gospel: that we will have to give an account of what we did and did not do for the least among us, that is, what we did and did not do for His very presence, the presence of the One who was Himself a refugee at His birth, among us. We must follow Him, and we must be pro-life, and radically so, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, and every single moment in-between for every single person.

This may leave us asking ourselves, what can we do? What can I possibly do? Saint Teresa of Calcutta taught that if we cannot do great things, we must do small things with great love. So do small things. Get involved—be an active citizen. Write and call our elected representatives. Advocate for those who are less fortunate than us—for the dignity of all human beings. (You can find concrete ways of doing this through the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on their website, www.justiceforimmigrants.org.) Work to see the presence of Christ in all. Most importantly, though, pray. Pray especially for those whom we may disagree with. They aren’t evil. They are surely acting on what they believe to be best. Pray that they have an open heart to encounter the Lord present in the least among us. Be pro-life, and be it to the full.

In all things, may God be glorified.

Amen.