An old friend from the pro-life movement has been tossing
Catholic stuff at me, attacking “social justice warriors” – or SJWs, an acronym
that reduces six syllables to five and obscures what you’re saying, but it’s an
insult.
I’m a pro-life SJW, and so are the Catholic leaders whose
words are being abused by the cultural warriors of the right. There are three
fundamental documents that the right abuses: Humanae Vitae, Familiaris Consortio, and The Gospel of Life). All three incorporate a social justice
approach. The first time the documents are censored and abused it might be just
careless. But when anti-abortion chanters with bulldog brains repeat the careless
errors, that seems stupid. And when they persevere after hearing the truth,
that seems dishonest.
Humanae Vitae
Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical Humanae Vitae. It’s odd listening to people talk about Paul VI;
some people describe him as a neglected leftwing prophet of social justice;
others describe him as a persecuted rightwing prophet of personal morality. Was
he schizophrenic, or a convert from one side to the other? I think he was, more
simply, consistent. And I note that Humanae
Vitae makes three arguments about contraception, not just one. He asserted
that sex and babies are connected, and the connection is noteworthy. He said that
women have wombs, and that’s special; John Paul II repeated that at length in
his “theology of the body.” But he also decried the looming threat of global
population control. He did not limit his perspective to issues of personal
morality; he saw a social and political dimension, and challenged us to see
that too.
Global population control was and is racist. The funding and
propaganda comes from Europe and America; the targets are Africa and Asia and
Latin America. And global population control has always included immigration
restrictions: if you can’t depopulate the whole world, you can at least protect
Europe and America from the rising tide of color.
It is dishonest to use the teaching of Pope Paul VI, quoting
pieces out of context, refusing to notice that his arguments include opposition
to population control. He puts abortion in a SJW framework.
Familiaris Consortio
St. John Paul II wrote the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, on the Feast of
Christ the King in 1981. It includes (see FC, 46) a list of the rights of
families. That list includes the right of a family to migrate – in search of a
better life.
Evangelium Vitae, The
Gospel of Life
The focus of this encyclical, published by St. John Paul II on
the Feast of the Annunciation in 1995, is abortion. However, the Pope is unambiguous
about the context in which he sees abortion. (See EV 3.)
“Today this proclamation is especially pressing because of
the extraordinary increase and gravity of threats to the life of individuals
and peoples, especially where life is weak and defenseless. In addition to the
ancient scourges of poverty, hunger,
endemic diseases, violence and war, new threats are emerging on an
alarmingly vast scale.” [Emphasis added.]
He continues: “The Second Vatican Council, in a passage
which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes
and attacks against human life. Thirty years later, taking up the words of the
Council and with the same forcefulness I repeat that condemnation in the name
of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of
every upright conscience: ‘Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type
of murder, genocide, abortion,
euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of
the human person, such as mutilation,
torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself;
whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman
living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution,
the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere
instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these
things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and
they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the
injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.’(5)” The footnote
refers to Gaudium et Spes, #27.
[Emphasis added.]
It is not honest to refer to these documents while
deliberately and forcefully rejecting a “seamless garment” approach. You can
denounce SJWs, OR you can claim to be following the teaching of the Catholic
Church. But you can’t do both.
