Fake Site News accuses New Pro Life Movement of “liberal boilerplate.”

n an utter­ly shame­ful piece of char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion against Patheos blog­ger Rebec­ca Brat­ten Weiss, Fake Site News (the cred­u­lous call it Life Site, but we let them) made the utter­ly igno­rant claim that the goals of the New Pro Life Move­ment amount to lit­tle more than “lib­er­al boil­er­plate.” They are that sil­ly over there and I will not dig­ni­fy this with a link.

Now, it often falls to me to point out the obvi­ous. That seems to be my charism on this blog, so I am here to say that the goals of the New Pro Life Move­ment are, in fact, the Mag­is­te­r­i­al teach­ing of the Catholic Church. It’s true.

The New Pro Life Move­ment was found­ed by Ms. Weiss and anoth­er Patheos blog­ger, Matthew Tyson. You can read their goals here. So let’s go through them one by one; there are ten of them.

I

“We believe all humans have an absolute, inher­ent right to life, and we believe this right spans from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. And I’m sur­prised I should have to say point it out to Fake Site. But we call them Fake Site here, if not Dumb Site, for a rea­son. Indeed the Compend­ium of the Social Doc­trine of the Church says:

Pro­mot­ing human dig­ni­ty implies above all affirm­ing the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of the right to life, from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death, the first among all rights and the con­di­tion for all oth­er rights of the per­son.

And St. John Paul II writes in Evan­geli­um Vitae:

The Church declares that uncon­di­tion­al respect for the right to life of every inno­cent per­son—from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death—is one of the pil­lars on which every civ­il soci­ety stands.

And the Cat­e­chism (§2273) says: “The inalien­able right to life of every inno­cent human indi­vid­ual is a con­sti­tu­tive ele­ment of a civ­il soci­ety and its leg­is­la­tion.”

So yes, the right to life from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death is in fact Church teach­ing.

II

“We are com­plete­ly, total­ly, and with­out reser­va­tion opposed to the act of abor­tion.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. Here is the Cat­e­chism §2322:

From its con­cep­tion, the child has the right to life. Direct abor­tion, that is, abor­tion willed as an end or as a means, is a “crim­i­nal” prac­tice, grave­ly con­trary to the moral law.

So yes, the oppo­si­tion to abor­tion is in fact Church teach­ing.

III

“The per­va­sive sex­u­al harass­ment, vio­lence, and prej­u­dice against women is a pro-life issue by itself, and we sup­port every effort to put an end to these issues. We are com­mit­ted to the pro­tec­tion of women’s rights and equal­i­ty, the advance­ment of equal rep­re­sen­ta­tion under the law, and respect for women in all areas of our cul­ture.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes.

On sex­u­al har­rass­ment: The Com­pendi­um of the Social Doc­trine of the Church in §245 con­demns any form of “sex­u­al exploita­tion.”

In the wery same para­graph, the Com­pendi­um con­demns “every form of vio­lence.” “Where there is vio­lence,” the Church says (§488), “God can­not be present.” “Vio­lence is evil,” she tells us (§496), and goes fur­ther:

Vio­lence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our human­i­ty. Vio­lence destroys what it claims to defend: the dig­ni­ty, the life, the free­dom of human beings.

In par­tic­u­lar, the Cat­e­chism con­demns rape in §2356. Rape “is always an intrin­si­cal­ly evil act,” the Church says.

On equal­i­ty of women under the law, the Church’s Com­pendi­um tells us that God is “the ulti­mate foun­da­tion of the rad­i­cal equal­i­ty and broth­er­hood among all peo­ple, regard­less of their race, nation, sex, ori­gin, cul­ture, or class. In addi­tion, §145 says:

It is nec­es­sary in par­tic­u­lar to help the least, effec­tive­ly ensur­ing con­di­tions of equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for men and women and guar­an­tee­ing an objec­tive equal­i­ty between the dif­fer­ent social class­es before the law.

So yes, oppo­si­tion to vio­lence and harass­ment is in fact Church teach­ing.

IV

“We fear that by legal­iz­ing euthana­sia, we cre­ate a world that puts the elder­ly and ter­mi­nal­ly ill at risk. We also can­not encour­age a soci­ety that sup­ports the right to die and not the right to live..”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. The Com­pendi­um teach­es:

The first right pre­sent­ed in this list is the right to life, from con­cep­tion to its nat­ur­al end, which is the con­di­tion for the exer­cise of all oth­er rights and, in par­tic­u­lar, implies the illic­it­ness of every form of pro­cured abor­tion and of euthana­sia.

The Cat­e­chism (§2277) says euthana­sia is “moral­ly unac­cept­able.” In Evan­geli­um Vitae, St. John Paul II says euthana­sia is “opposed to life itself” (3). He con­tin­ues in §65:

Euthana­sia is a grave vio­la­tion of the law of God, since it is the delib­er­ate and moral­ly unac­cept­able killing of a human per­son. This doc­trine is based upon the nat­ur­al law and upon the writ­ten word of God, is trans­mit­ted by the Church’s Tra­di­tion and taught by the ordi­nary and uni­ver­sal Mag­is­teri­um.

So yes, oppo­si­tion to euthana­sia is in fact Church teach­ing.

V

“Mil­i­tary force is only jus­ti­fi­able when absolute­ly nec­es­sary to stop an unjust aggres­sor and pro­tect the lives of inno­cent humans. Fur­ther­more, in mil­i­tary con­flict, we believe in the use of pro­por­tion­ate force only. This means an absolute rejec­tion of killing civil­ians, tor­ture and exe­cu­tion of POWs, and the use of nuclear arms.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. This is called Just War doc­trine, and it has been around for a long, long time. Per­haps Fake Site News has heard of it.

In Evan­ge­lim Vitae 27, John Paul II prais­es “a new sen­si­tiv­i­ty ever more opposed to war as an instru­ment for the res­o­lu­tion of con­flicts between peo­ples.” And the Cat­e­chism teach­es:

2308 All cit­i­zens and all gov­ern­ments are oblig­ed to work for the avoid­ance of war.

 

2309 The strict con­di­tions for legit­i­mate defense by mil­i­tary force require rig­or­ous con­sid­er­a­tion. The grav­i­ty of such a deci­sion makes it sub­ject to rig­or­ous con­di­tions of moral legit­i­ma­cy. At one and the same time: the dam­age inflict­ed by the aggres­sor on the nation or com­mu­ni­ty of nations must be last­ing, grave, and cer­tain; all oth­er means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be imprac­ti­cal or inef­fec­tive; there must be seri­ous prospects of suc­cess; the use of arms must not pro­duce evils and dis­or­ders graver than the evil to be elim­i­nat­ed. The pow­er of modem means of destruc­tion weighs very heav­i­ly in eval­u­at­ing this con­di­tion. These are the tra­di­tion­al ele­ments enu­mer­at­ed in what is called the “just war” doc­trine.

More­over, the Church calls for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment in the Com­pendi­um §508–512. And in Gaudi­um et Spes 80 the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil teach­es:

Any act of war aimed indis­crim­i­nate­ly at the destruc­tion of entire cities of exten­sive areas along with their pop­u­la­tion is a crime against God and man him­self. It mer­its unequiv­o­cal and unhesi­tat­ing con­dem­na­tion.

So yes, just war doc­trine is in fact Church teach­ing.

VI

“We sup­port the absolute abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes, and Pope Fran­cis agrees. The Com­pendi­um 405, cit­ing Evan­geli­um Vitae, says:

The grow­ing num­ber of coun­tries adopt­ing pro­vi­sions to abol­ish the death penal­ty or sus­pend its appli­ca­tion is also proof of the fact that cas­es in which it is absolute­ly nec­es­sary to exe­cute the offend­er “are very rare, if not prac­ti­cal­ly non-exis­tent.

Not only that, but the Com­pendi­um says that those who oppose the death penal­ty have a “height­ened moral aware­ness.

So yes, oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty is in fact Church teach­ing.

VII

“Health­care is a right, not a prod­uct. One’s health should not be con­tin­gent on buy­ing pow­er. We believe that all cit­i­zens should have access to prop­er med­ical care, regard­less of class, sta­tus, or income. There­fore, we sup­port uni­ver­sal health­care and advo­cate for a pub­lic option.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. In §166 of the Com­pendi­um, the Church tells us that health care is a “human right.” A right, says the Church, not a con­sumer good. It is a “demand of the com­mon good.” The pref­er­en­tial option for the poor (§182) includes the right to health care.

So yes, the right to health care is in fact Church teach­ing.

VIII

“Pover­ty has a direct effect on qual­i­ty of life. We sup­port com­pre­hen­sive solu­tions to pro­vide a real­is­tic path­way out of pover­ty and we oppose any leg­is­la­tion that reduces wages, cuts ben­e­fits, or restricts labor rights.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. Indeed denial of a just wage is a sin that cries to heav­en for vengeance (CCC 1867). Here again is the Church’s teach­ing on labor rights, as pre­sent­ed in the Com­pendi­um:

The rights of work­ers, like all oth­er rights, are based on the nature of the human per­son and on his tran­scen­dent dig­ni­ty. The Church’s social Mag­is­teri­um has seen fit to list some of these rights, in the hope that they will be rec­og­nized in juridi­cial sys­tems—

 

[“In juridi­cial sys­tems”: You get that the Church is say­ing the state must guar­an­tee these rights?]

 

“—the right to a just wage; the right to rest; the right “to a work­ing envi­ron­ment and to man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es which are not harm­ful to the work­ers’ phys­i­cal health or to their moral integri­ty”; the right that one’s per­son­al­i­ty in the work­place should be safe­guard­ed “with­out suf­fer­ing any affront to one’s con­science or per­son­al dig­ni­ty”; the right to appro­pri­ate sub­si­dies that are nec­es­sary for the sub­sis­tence of unem­ployed work­ers and their fam­i­lies; the right to a pen­sion and to insur­ance for old age, sick­ness, and in case of work-relat­ed acci­dents; the right to social secu­ri­ty con­nect­ed with mater­ni­ty; the right to assem­ble and form asso­ci­a­tions.

 

[The state must guar­an­tee all these, says the Church.]

 

These rights are often infringed, as is con­firmed by the sad fact of work­ers who are under­paid and with­out pro­tec­tion or ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It often hap­pens that work con­di­tions for men, women and chil­dren, espe­cial­ly in devel­op­ing coun­tries, are so inhu­mane that they are an offence to their dig­ni­ty and com­pro­mise their health.

So yes, the rights of work­ers, includ­ing the right to a just wage, are part of Church teach­ing.

IX

“We believe that pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment, com­bat­ing cli­mate change, and car­ing for the world around us have a direct impact on our mis­sion to “pro­tect and sus­tain life from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death.” The NPLM sup­ports all efforts to reduce car­bon emis­sions, pro­duce clean and renew­able ener­gy, and reverse the dam­age that decades of indus­tri­al­iza­tion has done to our world.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. Has Fake Site News not heard of Lauda­to Si? The Com­pendi­um of the Social Doc­trine of the Church has an entire chap­ter on the moral neces­si­ty to pro­tect the envi­ron­ment. Pope Fran­cis applies this teach­ing of the Church to new chal­lenges (such as car­bon emis­sions, clean ener­gy, indus­tri­al­iza­tion, and so on) in Lauda­to Si. Tolle, lege, Fake Site.

So yes, our duty to the envi­ron­ment is in fact Church teach­ing.

X

“We can­not in good con­science call our­selves pro-life and ignore the per­va­sive gun vio­lence in our coun­try.”

 

But Alt, is that Church teach­ing? Yes and again I say yes. This is so obvi­ous I mar­vel great­ly that it should need defend­ing. Mur­der is a mor­tal sin, right? It is an offense against life? It is soci­ety’s busi­ness to stop it? I don’t real­ly need to cite Church doc­u­ments to estab­lish this, do I?

So yes, the Church is in fact against peo­ple being killed by guns.

Now, Catholics can, exer­cis­ing pru­den­tial judg­ment, dif­fer about how to go about achiev­ing these objec­tives. One could say, “I don’t know that I am on board with all of NPLM’s par­tic­u­lar solu­tions.” That’s fine.

But what one can not do is use “pru­den­tial judg­ment” as an excuse to say, “Well, I’m just going to dis­re­gard what the Church says about all these things oth­er than abor­tion.” No. Pru­den­tial judg­ment means: How do I best go about putting the teach­ing of the Church into prac­tice? It does not mean: Which Church teach­ings do I get to ignore?

And what one can not do is dis­miss the NPLM’s goals as “lib­er­al boil­er­plate” when they are, every last one of them, the Mag­is­te­r­i­al teach­ing of the Church. And you don’t get to insin­u­ate that some­one who sup­ports NPLM is some­how a dis­si­dent Catholic.

Fake Site News should spend less time writ­ing hit pieces against good and decent Catholics like Rebec­ca Brat­ten Weiss, and faith­ful­ly Catholic groups like the New Pro Life Move­ment, and more time read­ing Church doc­u­ments. Get on it, Fake Site.