Here is a news flash: the Catholic Church can simultaneously walk and chew gum. The Church can work for social justice and stand for the right to life of the preborn. There are many critics of the Catholic Church’s unyielding stance against abortion. Jackie Calmes, who recently posted an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times is one of them. She states:
The U.S. church hierarchy isn’t exactly playing single-issue politics. Opposing gay rights as well as contraception also remain the bishops’ preoccupations, at the expense of attention to poverty, social and racial justice, and nonviolence. Those latter issues are the ones that “my” church emphasized during my first 18 years, including 12 years in Catholic schools. Then came Roe vs. Wade in 1973, and the peace-loving church turned culture warrior. [emphasis added]
The Extent of Catholic Charity in the World
According to a 2017 article by Catholic Harold called The World’s Biggest Charity, the Catholic Church operates to support the most people in need.
The Church operates more than 140,000 schools, 10,000 orphanages, 5,000 hospitals and some 16,000 other health clinics. Caritas, the umbrella organisation for Catholic aid agencies, estimates that spending by its affiliates totals between £2 billion and £4 billion, making it one of the biggest aid agencies in the world.
Furthermore, the figures above do not include local parishes that are themselves small-scale charitable organizations.
Real Catholic Social Justice
The foundation of Catholic social justice is the Life and Dignity of the Human Person. Human life is sacred. All moral societies must have this at their core. The “preoccupation” Calmes rails against is the same foundation of everything she claims her “peace-loving church” once stood for.
With the sanctity of the human person established, the Church builds on this foundation with the following:
Call to Family, Community, and Participation
Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
Redefined Catholic Social Justice
Catholics, like Calmes, seek to redefine Catholic social justice to make it align with concepts on social justice as understood by those on the pollical hard left. This means a view of Catholic social justice that focuses solely on race, poverty, and non-violence while ignoring the Catholic doctrines and dogmas that serve as its foundation, for example, supporting abortion as a means of assisting poor mothers. The focus of this group is typically to help “the living” who suffer and to ignore or overlook the most vulnerable—the preborn.
Furthermore, Catholics who seek to divorce the “Catholic” from Catholic social justice will also do the same with the Church’s teaching on sexuality. Calmes shows her hand in this when she “did not” throw the “single-issue” moniker at the bishops and juxtaposing this with gay rights and contraception. The foundational Catholic teaching on human sexuality, like Catholic social justice, is the life and dignity of the human person.
How to Simultaneously Walk and Chew Gum
In conclusion, those who hold a consistent life ethic that seeks to help both the living and preborn are labeled “culture warriors” who willfully ignore the “least of these.” (Matthew 25:40) Catholics like Calmes see such Catholics as zealots who are unfaithful to “the peace-loving church” of her youth. Such a mischaracterization of faithful Catholics reveals her ignorance not only of Catholic social justice, but also of the impact of the Catholic Church on “the least of these.” If Calmes did her homework, she would find that the Catholic Church can indeed simultaneously walk and chew gum. Her blindness demonstrates her bias.
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