Pope Francis contradicts Benedict XVI and John Paul II on abortion? Fake (Site) News!

tell you again: Give no cre­dence to Fake Site News. Nev­er give them cre­dence, but par­tic­u­lar­ly give them no cre­dence when they are bash­ing the pope. Nev­er give them cre­dence when they are bash­ing the pope, but par­tic­u­lar­ly give them no cre­dence when the author is John-Hen­ry West­en. A look at his absurd attempt, here, to claim that Pope Fran­cis some­how con­tra­dicts Bene­dict XVI and John Paul II on abor­tion, gives us one more exam­ple why.

But first, in Gaudete et Exsul­tate, here are the words Pope Fran­cis writes:

Our defence of the inno­cent unborn … needs to be clear, firm and pas­sion­ate, for at stake is the dig­ni­ty of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each per­son, regard­less of his or her stage of devel­op­ment. Equal­ly sacred, how­ev­er, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the des­ti­tute, the aban­doned and the under­priv­i­leged, the vul­ner­a­ble infirm and elder­ly exposed to covert euthana­sia, the vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing, new forms of slav­ery, and every form of rejec­tion. We can­not uphold an ide­al of holi­ness that would ignore injus­tice in a world where some rev­el, spend with aban­don and live only for the lat­est con­sumer goods, even as oth­ers look on from afar, liv­ing their entire lives in abject pover­ty.

We often hear it said that, with respect to rel­a­tivism and the flaws of our present world, the sit­u­a­tion of migrants, for exam­ple, is a less­er issue. Some Catholics con­sid­er it a sec­ondary issue com­pared to the “grave” bioeth­i­cal ques­tions. That a politi­cian look­ing for votes might say such a thing is under­stand­able, but not a Chris­t­ian, for whom the only prop­er atti­tude is to stand in the shoes of those broth­ers and sis­ters of ours who risk their lives to offer a future to their chil­dren. Can we not real­ize that this is exact­ly what Jesus demands of us, when he tells us that in wel­com­ing the stranger we wel­come him (cf. Mt 25:35).

So! says Mr. West­en. The pope thinks immi­gra­tion is just as impor­tant as abor­tion, does he? “The con­trast with Pope Bene­dict XVI,” he says “is evi­dent from Benedict’s 2006 remarks to mem­bers of the Euro­pean People’s Par­ty.”

Well, let’s check Bene­dic­t’s words, as quot­ed by Mr. West­en:

As far as the Catholic Church is con­cerned, the prin­ci­pal focus of her inter­ven­tions in the pub­lic are­na is the pro­tec­tion and pro­mo­tion of the dig­ni­ty of the per­son, and she is there­by con­scious­ly draw­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to prin­ci­ples which are not nego­tiable.

Well, let’s stop here. Since when is abor­tion the only offense against “the dig­ni­ty of the per­son”? To be sure, it is a big offense. But since when is it the only one? In Evan­geli­um Vitae, St. John Paul II (and he is quot­ing Gaudi­um et Spes), lists a whole bunch of “insults [to] human dig­ni­ty”:

• sub­hu­man liv­ing con­di­tions
• arbi­trary impris­on­ment
• depor­ta­tion [Here’s that immi­gra­tion issue.]
• slav­ery
• pros­ti­tu­tion
• the sell­ing of women and chil­dren
• dis­grace­ful work­ing con­di­tions

“All these things,” says Vat­i­can II, “and oth­ers like them, are infamies indeed.” And St. John Paul II thought it impor­tant to men­tion them in an encyli­cal about the right to life.

So where’s the con­tra­dic­tion when Pope Fran­cis men­tions the poor, those already born, euthana­sia, slav­ery, and human trf­fick­ing? This is a sim­i­lar list of offens­es against human dig­ni­ty, as far as I can tell. Do only the unborn have human dig­ni­ty? Is this what Mr. West­en means for us to con­clude? He does not say.

And since when is abor­tion the only non-nego­tiable issue? There are eight oth­ers, as I point­ed out here. Social jus­tice is one of them. The right to an edu­ca­tion is one of them.

So I can’t find the con­tra­dic­tion yet. But Mr. West­en quotes more Bene­dict XVI. One non-nego­tiable the for­mer pope men­tions is “pro­tec­tion of life in all its stages, from the first moment of con­cep­tion until nat­ur­al death.”

I am afraid I don’t see the con­tra­dic­tion. You see, there’s that part about “pro­tec­tion of life in all its stages.” Not just pro­tec­tion of life in this stage or that stage, but all stages. Thus Pope Fran­cis men­tions “those already born.” Pre­sum­ably those already born are in some stage of life, are they not? Pre­sum­ably the poor are in a stage of life? Pre­sum­ably the elder­ly are? Migrants are in a stage of life, right?

I don’t see where Pope Fran­cis is say­ing any­thing dif­fer­ent than Pope Bene­dict did, still less Pope St. John Paul II or Gaudi­um et Spes.

But Mr. West­en goes on and claims that Pope Fran­cis also con­tra­dicts Pope St. John Paul II’s apos­tolic exhor­ta­tion Chris­ti­fi­de­les Laici. There he writes:

The invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of the per­son, which is a reflec­tion of the absolute invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of God, finds its pri­ma­ry and fun­da­men­tal expres­sion in the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of human life. Above all, the com­mon out­cry, which is just­ly made on behalf of human rights—for exam­ple, the right to health, to home, to work, to fam­i­ly, to culture—is false and illu­so­ry if the right to life, the most basic and fun­da­men­tal right and the con­di­tion of all oth­er per­son­al rights, is not defend­ed with max­i­mum deter­mi­na­tion.

Right. Mr. West­en seems to want to say that “the right to health, home,” etc., are of less­er impor­tance than the right to life. That’s fine, except for two things, and one of them is that this bypass­es the point Pope Fran­cis is mak­ing, which is that the right to life is larg­er than the right to be born. So Mr. West­en is beg­ging the ques­tion. “Equal­ly sacred,” says Pope Fran­cis, “are the lives of the poor, “those already born, the des­ti­tute,” etc.

The sec­ond prob­lem is that, in the pas­sages in ques­tion, from Gaudete et Exsul­tate, Pope Fran­cis is not con­trast­ing the right to be born with things such as health care or hous­ing or employ­ment. He does not men­tion those at all, in fact, and men­tions only “the sit­u­a­tion of migrants” in the abstract, in the con­text of say­ing that their lives are “equal­ly sacred.” The pope is point­ing out that wel­com­ing the stranger is con­nect­ed to his human dig­ni­ty and his right to life. “They risk their lives,” he says, “to offer a future to their chil­dren.” None of this is at all in con­flict with what John Paul II says in Chris­ti­fi­de­les Laici. Indeed, it is con­sis­tent with the teach­ing of that same pope in Evan­geli­um Vitae. But even in CL, St. John Paul II, still quot­ing Gaudi­um et Spes, writes:

All offences against life itself, such as every kind of mur­der, geno­cide, abor­tion, euthana­sia and will­ful sui­cide; all vio­la­tions of the integri­ty of the human per­son, such as muti­la­tion, phys­i­cal and men­tal tor­ture, undue psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sures; all offences against human dig­ni­ty, such as sub­hu­man liv­ing con­di­tions, arbi­trary impris­on­ment, depor­ta­tion, slav­ery, pros­ti­tu­tion, the sell­ing of women and chil­dren, degrad­ing work­ing con­di­tions where men are treat­ed as mere tools for prof­it rather than free and respon­si­ble per­sons; all these and the like are cer­tain­ly crim­i­nal: they poi­son human soci­ety; and they do more harm to those who prac­tice them than those who suf­fer from the injury. More­over, they are a supreme dis­hon­our to the Cre­ator.

In telling us that the right to life is larg­er than abor­tion, Pope Fran­cis being con­sis­tent with John Paul II, whose words here give the lie to Fake Site News’s rush to con­demn and claim an exclu­siv­i­ty about abor­tion that the Church does not teach.

Nev­er lis­ten to Fake Site News. Lis­ten to the Church. Lis­ten to the suc­ces­sor of St. Peter.