3 Ways to Restore and Promote Respect for Life

Last month, in my native State of Michigan, as well in Vermont, Kentucky, California, and Montana, pro-lifers failed to defeat proposals that would enshrine the killing of unborn human persons, or else failed to pass laws that would provide some measure of protection for the unborn. Roe v. Wade was reversed this year, but the decision’s fifty-year impact is now apparent in American voters, who are increasingly choosing the legalized slaughter of unborn children, whether directly at the ballot box or through their elected officials’ legislation.

Despite a noble effort by Michigan’s Catholic bishops, led by Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit, Proposal 3 was decisively passed, enshrining abortion on demand in the Great Lake State and providing no legal protections for parental consent regarding their minor children.

Archbishop Vigneron, Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, and their episcopal colleagues in Michigan tried working within the political process. Now they have begun an initiative to employ the gospel as well. Thus, despite losing a major political battle, the bishops are encouraging the faithful to realize that their strength is in our Lord Jesus Christ, and thus to be meek and “poor in spirit” with serene confidence (Matt. 5:3,5).

The archbishop has exhorted the faithful to mourn their loss at the ballot box, that we might be comforted and renewed in the Lord (Matt. 5:4). He is also encouraging the faithful to continue extending God’s merciful love to those most affected by abortion (v. 7), such as through the Walking with Moms in Need ministry at their parishes. “In response to the passing of Proposal 3,” he wrote, “we must step forward with no judgment, open arms, and effective resources to help women reject the ‘solution’ of death and empower them to choose life for their children.”

What else can we do?

Promoting “purity in heart,” among men and women, is crucial (Matt. 5:8). Finger-pointing rarely accomplishes much, but a good example can work wonders. If there were no sexual immorality, there would be far fewer abortions, and if every husband and wife treated each other with the love and respect that God prescribes, there would be none at all. Shunning destructive sexual behavior and honoring our spouses make for a tall order in a world that worships the former and mocks the latter—but, to recall the words of Pope Benedict XVI, Christians are called not to comfort, but to greatness. The greatness of chastity, conscientiously and joyfully lived, can cause conversions in our friends, neighbors, and family—and even if it doesn’t, it will vastly improve our own lives.

The killing of unborn children is designed to minimize the effects—and maintain the existence—of just the sort of self-centered, dysfunctional relationships that we as believing Christians must shun. As St. James soberly summarizes, “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death” (James 1:14–15).

To foster cultural reform requires changing laws, but it also calls for a transformation of hearts. So Christian men and women must “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6), trusting that the Lord Jesus will bless their faithful witness (6:33; Rom. 8:28). The renewal of premarital purity and chastity is indispensable to counteracting the culture of death and revitalizing marriage and family life in America.

Intimately encountering Jesus in the Eucharist is also crucial to achieve and sustain a world-changing chastity mandate, as any bishop will tell you. As Pope St. John Paul II might say (see no. 5), “opening wide our church doors” to adore our Lord will jump-start this movement for Catholics, and also provide a needed witness to non-Catholics on the power of our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist.

How can bishops inspire their flock to greatness in witnessing for the unborn? Again, a strong example can make all the difference. In promoting a Eucharistic Revival in America from 2022 to 2025, our bishops should remember that the Blessed Sacrament requires teaching and living “hard sayings” (John 6:60-61), meaning that Christ’s peace comes at a price in our world (see Luke 12:49-54). If the laity see their bishops as consummate peacemakers (Matt. 5:9; John 14:27), enduring persecution when Catholics in power reject the Lordship of Jesus that his peace demands (Matt. 5:10-12), they will be inspired to be heroes themselves.

In Christ’s day, the disciples were called to trust Jesus’s messianic claims, even though eating his body and drinking his blood would cut off his disciples from Old Covenant Judaism (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 17:14), and preaching the same subjected the Lord himself, following his Bread of Life Discourse in John 6, to execution because of his perceived heresy (Deut. 13:1-5; John 7:1). In our day, I submit, the equivalent “hard saying”—and episcopal doing—is disciplining pro-abortion politicians and others who commit public scandal (see CCC 2284-2287). Partaking of our Eucharistic Lord in Communion is a most sacred encounter, and those who do so in “an unworthy manner,” as St. Paul teaches, “eat and drink judgment” upon themselves (1 Cor. 11:27-30).

Some bishops may well have taken disciplinary measures, including forbidding such politicians to receive “honors” and “platforms”—e.g., holding ministerial positions in their parishes—“which would suggest support for their actions.” This is the right thing to do. But permitting wayward politicians to receive Holy Communion gives them the most prominent “honor” and “platform,” conveying to Catholics and non-Catholics alike that they have, in effect, the Church’s “Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” which thereby gravely undermines our bishops’ pro-life efforts.

Indeed, as a prominent non-Catholic once told Cardinal Raymond Burke, the absence of disciplining these politicians as regards reception of the Eucharist led him to conclude that Church teaching on abortion, in the end, accommodates opposing views.

Similarly, when politicians can receive Holy Communion every week, despite their obstinate scandal—for which canon law provides remedies (can. 915; see Acts 7:51)—should we really be surprised that only 17.3 percent of U.S. Catholics participate in Sunday Mass, and that only 31 percent believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist?

The bishops, who head the Church’s God-ordained leadership structure (Matt. 16:18-19, 18:15-18), have long called on politicians to defend the unborn through civil law, yet they themselves—in general—have refrained from applying Church law, whose purpose is to mercifully reprove public sinners and thereby also provide a faithful witness to Catholics in general and the world at large.

If the Church’s shepherds are willing to take a stand on the Eucharist when it requires their suffering—including, possibly, financial suffering—then rank-and-file Catholics and prospective converts alike will be greatly aided in understanding that receiving Communion is exactly the edifying encounter that our Lord Jesus designed it to be (John 6:53–58). Otherwise, in the final analysis, abortion really can’t be that bad, and receiving the Eucharist apparently doesn’t impact one’s eternal life or death, the teachings of Jesus Christ and St. Paul notwithstanding.

To sum it all up, there is nothing wrong with seeking to bring justice to the unborn through voting, activism, peaceful protest, and all the other mechanisms of the political process. But for us Christians, there is a higher calling, a transcendent way to achieve our goal, that we must not neglect—indeed, that we must prioritize. We’ll find it not in the things of this world, but in the things of God: in our willingness to be witnesses for his unchanging moral principles, no matter how unpopular in modern times, and in our renewed devotion to our Lord himself, as he has so generously made himself manifest to us, in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist.