Your life is comfortable.
You want for nothing.
You go about your day... Starting with coffee or some other morning ritual, you wake up and start going about your daily duties. For many, it's going to work or getting the kids ready for school.
Grocery shopping.
Laundry.
Dishes.
The monotonous, hum drum reality of daily life.
I want you to stop for a moment. Consider something for a second. You have heard it before, perhaps many times. Here it is again:
We are in the midst of an immensely vast spiritual battle.
Read it again.
Stop thinking about that list of to-dos over there for a minute.
Read it again.
To us, who lack nothing and obtain all that
we desire... it doesn't feel like it.
How often do we consider the atrocities that are happening worlds
away from us?
How often do we consider the atrocities that are happening down the road from us?
Before I go further, I would like to point out that in this blog post I am talking, among other things, about the ideology behind abortion. I am not seeking to venture into the "reality" of abortion. That is to say, I realize that the vast majority of women who actually seek abortions are not doing it to exercise their “right to choose”. Their decision to abort often comes from a place of desperation; they see no other alternative to their difficult and usually tragic circumstances. My post is going to seem harsh because I am attacking the rallying cry of pro-choice advocates: "My body, my choice". I do not wish to cause further pain or anguish to any women who have procured an abortion. The reality of abortion is absolutely heart wrenching. Therefore, please read the following at your own discretion.
We talk about abortion so often that many of us have become numb to the word. Let me remind you a little bit about what it means.
A woman finds herself pregnant and in such a deplorable situation that she feels the only option is to kill the child in her womb.
Or, a woman finds herself pregnant and decides that she would not like to sacrifice her lifestyle in order to raise a child for 18 years.
The circumstances are different, but the result is the same. The woman and her zygote/embryo/fetus/pre-born person enter into the facility, but only one comes out alive. Although occasionally, neither come out alive.
Abortion, not SARS CoV-2, is the atrocity of our time. It is silent, undercover, but 638,169 babies were killed in the United States in 2015 alone. Who would these poor innocent babes have grown up to be?
The ideologies driving the abortion industry today are even more insidious than the ideologies that once drove Nazism.
Hitler was a visible, flesh-and-blood entity. It was clear, to those outside of his sphere of influence, that what he was doing was unspeakable. How in the world did he manage to come into power and retain it for over a decade while committing indescribable crimes against humanity?
It's fairly simple: He offered a solution for Germany's problems.
How did he go about it? He eliminated all those deemed unfit for the party's vision of the Aryan race. Obviously how it all played out is more complicated, but that is the root of why his campaign was "successful" for 12 years too long. He was charismatic, outspoken, and hard times were definitely changing under his rule. Progress is good... right?
It's tempting to tell yourself "if I was there and saw all that going
on, I would have done something about it!" Would you though? It's easy to say that because of your retrospective view.
The German people did not just wake up one day with anti-Semitic propaganda
plastered all over the place. It started subtly, so as to normalize their beliefs into the subconscious of the public.
It advanced further through shutting down the free press. More on that later.
The Nazi goal was to create a unified Germany. Under the party's conditions, of course. The ideology effectively valued the "good" of the community above the good of individuals - by claiming that some individuals were not persons at all.
Sound familiar?
Look at abortion. One reason why it's more insidious than Nazi ideology is that it puts the "good" or even just the "preferences" of
the mother above the fundamental right of the child: the right to live.
It doesn't even have the somewhat more
beneficent aim of utilitarianism: the "greatest good for the greatest
number".
The ideology of abortion holds the foremost premise that the woman's autonomy of choice has precedence over the most fundamental right of the fetus (and, in fact, of all people) which is the right to continue living.
The vast majority of people today feel (because to them "feeling" is more important than "thinking") that any given person's preferences should be the determining factor in any given situation. Relativism, my friends. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times.
Originally, I stated that abortion is the atrocity of our day. That being the case, relativism is the fons et origo of this scourge upon mankind.
After a little research into the history of moral relativism, I'm appalled to discover that its source is none other than my beloved field of anthropology. Of course, I am not surprised. The golden rule of anthropology is that diversity exists among human cultures and one may not impose one's values upon any given culture. If we are viewing other ways of life as we would a precious, ancient artifact, then of course this makes perfect sense. We do not want to disrupt the integrity of the piece. As an academic discipline - meant to study and understand these cultures - there is a place for relativism. As long as it's taken with a grain of salt.
When it comes to issues of morality
(think arranged marriages, female genital mutilation, cannibalism, abortion,
assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc), relativism has to be shut down.
There is so much confusion regarding absolute moral truth. Feelings get in
the way of objectivity. Feelings are the golden calf of our times. That’s why
everybody is offended about everything, and why companies go above and beyond
to rectify “offense”. The one and only commandment of our day is this: Thou
shalt not hurt anyone’s sensibilities, intentionally or unintentionally. This webpage is a good starting point for those who don't understand why relativism is an inferior philosophical worldview.
The pervasiveness of relativism is a fundamental reason why organized religion is so abhorred and maligned in secular society. Catholicism is one of the few remaining institutions that upholds absolute moral truth, rooted in God. Every single “rule” within the Catholic religion can be traced back to the premise that God exists. Everything from “you should wait to have sex before marriage” to “you should only receive Communion if you are Catholic” can be traced back from premise to premise to the fundamental principle that God exists. If you reject that premise, then you reject all that follows. The implications, however, are eternal. So you better be damn sure you’ve made the right choice. See below:
Figure 1: Pascal’s Wager
Credit: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P20/pascals-wager
Let's go back to the thread now and think about the implications of the phrase "my body, my choice". If it's your body, then shouldn't you be able to kill it as well? It is only a matter of time before euthanasia becomes popularized in the Western world. Look at the alarming rate of suicide in the United States.
This is how relativism has served us. No one is wrong, as long as they are following their hearts. If they want to kill their babies, okay. If you want to kill yourself, hey go ahead. We never cared for you much anyway. What about if they wanna kill the guy standing next to them on the train? Well, why not?
GOD is the arbiter of life and death.
Killing in all of its forms – homicide, suicide, assisted suicide, abortion, and euthanasia - are severe transgressions against the inherent dignity of the human person.
I’m writing today to implore you not to allow the fluffy political arguments of the day cloud your vision regarding this issue. Those who do not wish to abolish abortion outright have blood on their hands. If you vote in this way, you too have blood on your hands. This is not strictly a political post. I’m not writing to push a political agenda; I’m writing with the hope that the Holy Spirit will change hearts, save lives, and – most fundamentally – save souls.
Earlier I touched upon the subject of the free press. In Nazi Germany, the "Nazi Propaganda Ministry" took control of all media including "newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio" (source). They literally paraded in the streets destroying and burning any books that threatened Nazi beliefs.
Imagine if they could have gotten their hands on the Internet.
It has recently struck me (I know, I'm slow). Facebook - and Twitter, while I'm at it - is the perfect tool for pushing ideology and squashing critical thought. Anyone can censor or ban anyone else on these platforms - not from the site, but from their own pages or feeds. If one disagrees with a certain ideology, one can mute it instead of confronting it. Additionally, one can "follow" any number of outlets that agree and line up with ones' chosen ideology. Personally, I enjoy following a few leftist and international outlets to keep myself current with the zeitgeist.
As it stands, these social media platforms are essentially reinforcing
peoples' preferred worldviews while also tricking them into thinking they've
had real interactions that make a difference. The truth is, arguments on the internet often do nothing more than reinforce the beliefs of both parties involved. Adding to that, social media is the source of news for
many - dangerous if you consider how much power these companies hold to silence
whatever they see fit. Why should we put our trust in them? They are biased humans, too, and journalism nowadays is becoming more blatant about which "side" they're on.
All of this to say... We're idiots if we think we're immune to propaganda. We are more susceptible to it now than at any other time in history, because of the way social media functions. Given the pandemic, it's a perfect storm for ideological censorship. People are holed up in their houses with only the Internet for human interaction. It has never been easier for individuals to wall themselves up into ideological echo chambers that reinforce their own mistaken beliefs while also protecting them from the harshness of real truth-seeking debate and discussion in the face of someone they disagree with.
Whatever semblance of free thought remains in Western culture is
deteriorating at record speed. I see it in political arguments on social media.
I see it even in my own beloved Church - a place that, as a idealistic, naive
baby Catholic, I believed upheld capital-T Truth and was impervious to the
swaying trends of culture. This year, sadly, the veil has been lifted from my eyes.
The division and hatred in the world today is the work of Satan.
It is not the work of white people, or black people, Trump-lovers, or Biden-supporters, pro-choicers, or pro-lifers.
Satan always divides, he always accuses.
He is laughing right now as the world around us literally burns. He knows that he already lost the war, but that won't stop him from reveling in the destruction caused by his spirit in us.
Do you know what he hates? He hates it when we retreat, disconnect from the divisions in our feeds, and work on our own hearts. He REALLY hates that.
The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
– St. Vincent de Paul
What we need to do is refine ourselves. It is the only realm over which we have any semblance of control. Stop... STOP pointing your finger at anyone outside of yourself.
We are in the midst of the battle. Right now, at this very moment. Even among the vast pile of laundry and dishes needing to be done.
Take up your rosaries. Fast regularly. For Catholics, Confession, Holy Mass, and Adoration will give you the supernatural grace you need to fight the good fight. Learn from my stupid mistakes - the devil is much cleverer than we are if we don't have Jesus within our hearts. The surest and quickest (and easiest) way is through the Sacraments that Christ himself established when he walked the earth.
Get off of social media, at least for a little bit. Our prayers and penances will be like fire to our souls, cleansing
us, purifying us, making us more like our Lord. If we begin to love, in the proper sense of the word, imagine how the world will be transformed. Our Lady promised that her
Immaculate Heart will triumph.
Christus vincit
Christus regnat
Christus imperat
