This is an interesting video, and well worth watching.
I think Archbishop Chaput is correct when he says that the reason the Democratic Party has become the party of abortion is that Catholics within that party didn’t hold it accountable. However, I don’t agree with his prescription that they should have left the party.
Many people have left the Democratic Party over abortion, and the result has been that the party has become more, not less, pro abortion. This is the effect of distillation of viewpoints.
This distillation of viewpoints and the extremism it nurtures are what created a climate inside the upper echelons of the Democratic power structure that allowed something as monstrous as the HHS Mandate to come about. When you only talk to a few people who agree with you, you inevitably move toward hubris and its corresponding bad judgement.
What could have changed things is if, back in the day, the pro life people within the Democratic Party had stood up and refused to give on the issue. Instead, they compromised their pro-life views out of existence, or they left the party outright. What is interesting is how completely people become what they do. The longer those pro life people who stayed in the party compromised themselves, the more they believed that what they were doing is right.
They changed alliances — from Christ to the Democratic Party.
The Archbishop is correct when he says that we can’t reply on the Republican Party to be pro-life in twenty years. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that we can’t rely on them to be effectively pro-life now. I’ve seen the Republican Party kill pro-life bills using the same arguments and tactics as the Democrats have for decades. This wasn’t rogue Republicans. It was the Republican elected leadership.
Everything I’ve said about the Democrats is also true of the Republicans. The Christians within the Republican Party have compromised the Sermon on the Mount to the point that they’ve begun to treat the actual words of Christ the Lord as if they were a heresy.
Anytime you remind these outspokenly political Christians of the words of Christ concerning justice and compassion, their eyes film over and they tune you out. This is the indifference and hardness of heart Jesus condemned so absolutely, and it is being practiced in order to fit the Gospels to the Republican Party Platform.
They do this because this compromise of their faith is the only way they can avoid standing up against the in-the-bag for the corporations corporatism of their party. Along they way, they’ve started making excuses for Republicans when they kill pro life bills.
I can’t emphasize enough that we need to stand and fight within our parties to change things. You can not build a culture of life with half the people. It can not be done.
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