ABORTION IS NOT THE PROBLEM
Richard
Salbato 4-15-1997
The promoters of the "Pro-Life"
movement are doing a great thing, and many of them are pure in motive and
action. The movement as a whole attracts good people from almost every
denomination, and this has given us Catholics some common ground in which to
work with our separated brethren, resulting (I might add) in quite a few
conversions.
However, there are many people who are for
"Pro-life" and yet are a great part of the real problem. Abortion is
death. Abortion is murder. But murder is the result of the sin, which is the
murderer. The murderer is the result of a society that brought us to this
point: a society that kills children for expediency.
We all know this, so why are some of the
"Pro-Life" people at fault? Many "Pro-Life" people are
priests, who think that it is not a sin to tell couples that it’s OK to live
with someone before marriage. Many think it’s not wrong to masturbate. Downplay
of sin in the confessional is a major problem today, especially for young
adults. Yet, even this is not the real problem. It goes much deeper than that.
We are picking leaves off the tree, but the root of the tree is still there.
THE ROOT
OF THE PROBLEM
At the start of World War II, no real
family in
The war took most of the men away, and
forced the young women (for the good of the country) to go to work in the
factories (Rosie the Riveter). The results of this were that single women, in
some cases, left home and took apartments near their jobs, and they became
independent of their families. They had their own money, their own job, their
own apartments, and they were single. This never happened before in all of
history; not to mention cars, television and the new American religion,
psychology, where sex is the new god. After work these girls were meeting in
coffee shops at the same time that our young boys were going by on their way to
war. It was temptation that could not be overcome, boys on their way to die,
women in the prime of their sexual maturing, lonely and seeking love. As a result of this, we now have what we call
the retirement of the “Baby Boom”, a period of time when more children were
born than at any other time in history.
Of course in those days men and women were responsible and when
pregnancy resulted they got married.
Many were not ready for marriage and these were not always good marriages. Some remained married anyway, but this led to
their children in the 60s not having respect for marriage. Some ended in divorce but not until after 25
or 30 years of marriage, when divorce became more acceptable to the American
society.
So, what are we saying? The problem is not
abortion, the problem is dating. Now, before you think this is crazy, read on.
Where in the six thousand year history of the world did parents allow their
children, before marriage, to date? By dating we mean for a boy and a girl to
be left alone without a chaperon.
"Well, this is the twentieth century!" Yes! It is the twentieth
century, and in all but about five countries in the world, no true Christian,
Jewish, Moslem, Buddhist, or even Pagan family allows their children to go on dates
without a chaperon.
Yes, even today in almost all the world. I have been in 32 countries over the past 20
years and only in
To a Catholic, it is even more critical.
We Catholics go to confession and promise to God (make a pledge to God)
that we will "avoid the mere occasion of sin". What does it mean to "avoid the mere
occasion of sin"? Anything that might tempt you to sin must be
avoided. This pledge to God was so important to the early saints that any
temptation that came even into their mind was driven out with mortification,
sometimes by whipping their bodies into submission. For a parent to allow their
children to break that pledge to God is a major sin in itself.
Today even very good and holy families do
not see the problem before their own eyes. "My children are good. I can
trust them." Hogwash! You would not even trust yourself, at 30, 40, 50,
60, 70 or 80 years of age, to be alone with the opposite sex without great risk
to your salvation and your reputation. The problem is dating. No girl ever got pregnant in front of her
mother.
CONDONING
"They would sneak out if we didn’t
let them date." Yes, today that might happen, but at least you are not
part of the problem. You, as parents, are not condoning the action. How many
young pregnant girls are there today that do not in some way blame their parents
for being too permissive? We see little girls, not more than two or three years
old, dressed up like little fashion dolls with skirts no longer than their
underpants. Ten-year-old girls, in mini-skirts, going on dates is common today.
Television has become the baby-sitter.
What impact has television had in our society? In 1942 in
NOT
We go to Mass and the reader walks up to
the platform in a skin tight mini-skirt. The Extraordinary Minister passes out
communion in a mini-skirt. Even in the Catholic Schools, parents hem up the
uniforms so their little babies will not feel out of place in this new age. At
AUTHORITY
In the law of God, there is a chain of
command. This does not make one better than the other, but it is required for
the social order of things. This chain (starting from the bottom) is: children,
mothers, fathers, grandfathers, elders, judges, presidents or kings, priests,
bishops, and pope. As you see, priests are higher than kings in the order of
authority. This order is from God. This is what makes for a social, harmonious
society. This order starts in the home. The wife obeys the husband, the
children obey the mother, all obey the elders of the
extended family. When all is done with love, it works very well.
Without it, however, (even without love)
all society falls down. This idea that children have equal rights with parents
is something out of science fiction. At a very young age (one or two) children
start with the "No!" or "I don’t want to." Since when does
a child have the right to say "No"? Can you say "No" to
your boss at work? Can you say "No" to the police? Can you say
"No" to the law? The minute children can say "No", all
control is gone. The result is anarchy, anarchy in the home. It has come to the
point, in some homes, that the children run the parents. In some homes the
parents are actually afraid of their children. If you think children have equal
rights with parents, then Murphy’s Law is waiting for you. For that lack of
respect will go on into all their lives. If you are a man of authority, you
must also be a man of example, which means doing what you ask others to do.
HAPPY
CHILDREN
Happy children are those who have order in
their lives. They cannot give that order to themselves. They must learn self
discipline, but that only comes from an outside discipline first. Children want
many things, but they must learn to pay the price for what they want and for
their mistakes. They must learn the value of giving instead of always taking.
This is not natural to children. A child is born a taker. It wants and
wants and wants, but never gives. Christian love is contrary to nature. Let’s
repeat that. Christian love is contrary to nature. It is beyond nature,
and therefore super-natural. The natural thing is to do what the animals do. If
they want to go, they go. If they want to sleep, they sleep. It they want sex,
they have sex. Man is always going against nature. He builds houses to
counteract nature. Fire, heaters, air-conditioners, dams, and even clothes are
beyond nature. They are against nature.
Why, then, do we allow people to talk us
into this stupid idea that "it is just natural for people to do this or
that"? "It’s human nature." Yes! And it’s natural to be naked,
so why don’t you go naked? The natural thing is to always try to feel good.
What feels good must be good. Right? Well, cocaine
feels good. Heroin feels good. Come on, people, wake
up. I am not talking here about Natural Law, which is God’s law written on our
hearts where we know something to be wrong, even if our fallen nature craves
it.
WHY ABSTAIN FROM SEX
What God has made let no man consider bad.
Therefore, sex is good, right? Yes, but let us hold some of God’s good earth in
our hands. Look at it. From this soil all good grows and feeds the world. This
soil is the life blood of the world. It is good. Now, let us throw it on the
rug of our living room. Now it is dirt. What was soil (in place) has become
dirt (out of place). The same is true about sex. Sex is very natural; in fact,
it is more than natural. It is super-natural.
The very last of all God’s creations was
woman. After woman God stopped the process of creating out of nothing. He
reserved the woman for the last because she was the best. She was the crowning
point of His creation. Why? Because God created in order to show His love and
to be loved by those He loved. Even the creation of the ones He loved had to be
out of love. Even the creation of those, who would be in the image and the
likeness of God, who could never die, who would (like God) have free will, must
be by a two-way love. She would become the instrument by which He and the woman
together would create humans that could never die, humans that could love, and
love requires free will.
God gave to woman something sacred and
holy that He did not give to man. He gave to her a tabernacle of creation.
The womb of woman, unlike anything else in the universe, greater even than the
angels, is the tabernacle where God and woman cooperate together in the
creation of eternal beings. God and His creation process enter into the
tabernacle, and there He remains creating and forming the saints, the martyrs, the entire reason for all of creation.
This is why man is the servant of the
woman, the protector, the provider, the caretaker. In scripture everything that
is holy to God must be veiled. The
HOW IT
OUGHT TO BE
Let’s consider a man or woman properly
trained by family, priest, Catholic school, or even extended family. Maybe it
would be even better to take a man, one who was not brought up in the proper
family or church but who saw the light at a later date. This is not hard to
imagine since anyone new to the Church has access to all the great saints
regarding moral theology. Let us assume he writes in his diary a letter to his
other self.
My dear best half,
I don’t know if you exist, and I guess it
doesn’t really matter. All is in God’s hands. Somehow, though, I know that you
do. I may never meet you, and if that is the case I blame myself. In my early
life I did not wait and prepare for you. I knew nothing about God and His
tender guiding hand in our lives. Through an education in physiology I was
taught to do whatever felt good at the time. I was never taught how to love.
Maybe because I didn’t wait, you went off and married someone else. Since God
pre-ordains our lives, this would be wrong, and I would be to blame for messing
up your life also.
But now, over the past 21 years, I have
remained pure for you. I now now that if I was to even date a girl I would be
committing adultery against you, even though I haven’t met you yet. I work out
and lift weights. I watch my diet and stay thin. But no one has ever seen me
even in a close-fitting shirt. I work out for you and no one else.
How will I know you when I see you? Well!
I now know that the physiologists were wrong about having things in common. It
is opposites that attract. We will probably have nothing in common except
faith. Like me, you will be a daily communicant. Unlike me, you will be very
quiet and shy. Unlike me, you will be slow and detailed and exact in all that
you do. Unlike me, you like indoor activities. Unlike me, you will be fun and
everyone will like to be around you. In God’s providence, everything that I
lack, you will make up for. My lack of prayer will be your strength.
When we meet we will know. We will never
be alone together because the attraction will be very strong. We will never
touch even one finger to another, because this would violate the oath we make
at confession, "to avoid the mere occasion of sin".
And when we say to each other, "I
do", and you lift your veil, I will touch you for the first time. And when
we complete the marriage on the wedding night, I will (for the first time in 21
years) put on cologne. I will prepare somewhat like I prepare to go to
communion, with great fear, anticipation, and knowing that I must now give all
of me without reserve. I will stand before you unashamed as in the
Rick
Salbato, Managing Editor
Unity
Publishing, Inc.