I am blessed to have some extremely pious, devoted and intelligent Catholic friends. One of them is Mary Hammond, whose recent Facebook post clearly articulates the Truth of a truly pro-life point of view that I have been trying to write but which has eluded me.
With her permission, I am copying her words here. Thank you, Mary, for letting me do this, and thank you for your heart-felt words.
Who Is Worthy?
When last October, Fr. Pavone answered my objection to Donald Trump's anti refugee and anti immigration stance with his view that American babies dying in American clinics should come before Syrian babies dying from bombings or drownings because abortion of the most vulnerable was the greatest evil, he unwittingly defined my entire objection to his brand of "pro life" and opened a new avenue for pro euthanasia advocates to follow.
Why? Because he created a "class" of persons set apart from the rest.
The Church does tell us we need to defend those who are most vulnerable, or the weakest. But in her wisdom she did not create classes of these and rank them for us. What does the Church say?
"CC 2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being."
Father Pavone and "the old guard pro life" have most of the sentence correct. It's that sticky last part he eliminates from the discussion: "like any other human being".
One of the concerns of anti euthanasia activists is that euthanasia will be used to clear out, if you will, those persons defined on a secular basis of being no longer able to contribute meaningfully to society. Which really means nothing more than they will not be working and paying taxes.
But secular aside, Catholics should be more concerned with the creation of classes in society by some pro life activists - the reason being is God does no such thing.
It is theologically incorrect to state that unborn children being aborted in America are deserving of more help and attention than unborn children being bombed or starved in Syria because abortion in the womb is worse than being bombed in the womb. Does God make these distinctions? No. Does the Church really, actually, make that distinction? No. Father Pavone makes that distinction and he is wrong.
And his view can also over take the anti euthanasia movement if supporters of Pavone's peculiar theology apply it to euthanasia.
God is not petty. He does not operate on some weird value system making one unborn child more deserving of help than another unborn child based on which type of unjust death they are dying.
One wonders if, in the March For Life, mothers holding signs really believe their born children are not as worthy of life defense as the unborn child. When pregnant, do mothers view their older children as less deserving of assistance than the child they are carrying?
Are older people with cancer more deserving of life defense than the 40 year old in a serious car accident and on life support? Secularists would say no. The 40 yr old might recover and go back to work. What would the old guard pro lifer say?
If we logically follow Fr. Pavone's thinking we can say Jesus was most deserving of love, care and attention before he was born and it was all downhill from there- He was no longer worthy of our attention.
His importance, His value, if you will, lessened when He reached an age where He could heal people and multiply loaves and fishes by Himself. Presumably Fr. Pavone would have found Christ adequately vulnerable and worthy of his attention when Christ was dying on the Cross. We won't know of course until he decides to comment fully on end of life issues.
But does God really think this way? I think we would be hard pressed to find any Christian faith of any denomination, much less the Catholic faith, who has such an insulting view of God or accuses God of such minimalist care.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Mary Hammond
Copied here with permission.
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