Today, something absolutely amazing happened that you probably won't grasp from your evening news which will underplay its significance if it reports it at all. A crowd sized somewhere between the Edward Kennedy funeral procession and Obama's Inaugural crowd (closer to the Inaugural crowd) lined and paraded from the Washington Mall down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Supreme Court. There was dancing in the streets people--and a few guys from Pennsylvania in knee socks and plaid kilts playing the bagpipes. I asked them if they did weddings.
It was impressive even to the most hardened skeptics. The streets closer to the Court were lined with a police force that looked more cheerful than vigilant, and some even were singing or whistling along.
A thoroughly ecumenical outpouring of something mystically powerful kept everything in line, peacefully marching in step beneath banners from every conceivable Christian and Jewish pro life organization you ever and never heard of. There were the Lutherans for Life, the Anglicans Priests for Life, Order of the Holy Innocents, The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) beneath their banner, lots of Franciscans, the pro-life groups of Parishs from many States, every catholic college you ever heard of (except I didn't see Georgetown there) and catholic high schools from everywhere.
An Italian banner suggested a contingent came all the way from Italy to participate in this year's March for Life in Washington. Entire families came- babies were wheeled in strollers, priests from parishes and orders came with their brothers, and sisters in habit dangled rosaries from their belts.
The occassional wierdness was overlooked in the spirit of joy- like the chubby guy with a hand-written sign that said "free hugs" (was he a plant from candid camera or what?)-there were the usual kooks who purport to know how God is punishing America.
The signs are getting cleverer- and it's not all de-limbed fetuses, while there was a large standing exhibit of that as well. Some of my favorites were : "The Audacity of Love" "Let my People Grow" "A Person is A Person, No Matter How Small- Dr. Seus" and a tribute to the millions of fathers who either didn't want their girlfriends or wives to abort or regret encouraging it later in the plethora of signs stating "Men regret Lost Fatherhood." There were lots and lots of those. A tear or two they brought with their signs.
The big sign stating "God is Pro Life" stopped me in my tracks and reminded me of the morning homily of Monsignor Jameison at the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle which was packed to standing room only with the overflow crowd from the packed Verizon Center Stadium. He noted that Jesus first came to the world as a Fetus/Embryo. Seems an obvious point but overlooked. In fact, we all did. Which reminds me of another favorite sign "Aren't you Glad Your Mother Was Pro-Life."
This in turn reminded me of a scene that I saw in Assisi, Italy. In a quiet green behind the Franciscan monastery portion at the lower end of the Saint Francis Basilica in Assisi there is a sculpture garden. In the sculpture garden there was, when I was last there, a very large gold ornate monstrance such as one sees holding the Blessed Sacrament exposed, and in it, instead of the Eucharist, was a curled fetus. It was heart-stoppingly poignant.
I found myself walking next to a Franciscan -the grey not brown robed kind, and said "You look like Father Groeschel!" to which he replied- "You are in good company because that is what Mother Theresa told me." She was surely looking on the day.
So what was the organizing principle of this ragtag lot from everywhere-even Italy? Not the DNC, the RNC, or any political action committee. I would have to say that it was the Holy Spirit itself.
And what do they think that they all were trying to prove by marching on the Supreme Court? I didn't see one sign that said "Overturn Roe" - There was a banner that said "Fr. Jenkins, Free the Notre Dame 88"- which is a reference to the folks arrested for trespassing during Obama's speech at Notre Dame. But that was the only remotely legal reference I saw walking on the whole walk.
Roe v. Wade essentially left the regulation of abortion up to the States (carving the famous tri-mester approach)-and some States have taken it seriously implementing things like parental notification laws, informed consent/counselling laws, late(r) term abortion laws and the like. There has been subsequent late term abortion federal legislation as well and opinions that followed Roe. So why march on Washington?
The March was meant to inspire one thought- Holy Moses, these people are a FORCE- and they are huge. They are serious, they are powerful and they mean business-not kidding-it's plain stupid to ignore this. The people who normally don't like over-federalization of anything from the right end of the spectrum (they hate federal bailouts and federalized universal health care, etc.) do want Federalization of strong anti-abortion measures. They don't necessarily know what shape they want that to look like, except they note that what we have now is insufficient as protection for the most vulnerable-the unborn, communicates a moral permissiveness that is culturally depraved and the States haven't succeeded in getting protections with their legislation because we have aborted over fifty million people now- a population larger than the size of Canada- an entire country within our borders.
The most recent election in Massachusetts might be read as a revolt against bank bail-outs or it might be read as a revolt against the abortion coverage double-speak in back-tracking in the health care agenda. There was more than one sign saying "Thank You Bart Stupack" But these were not "tea-baggers"- these are Rosary Warriers. They come from all economic strata, they are as diverse as an Oscar Meyer commercial (fat ones, skinny ones, kids who climb on rocks), and they are not out to make a name for themselves or get an interview with Glenn Beck or Rush. They are out to protect innocent unborn children - it is that pure. It is that simple.
Shouts from the high schools echoed back and forth to each other like a football cheer "We love babies, yes we do, we love Babies, how 'bout you!"
Why is Federalization of this particular area of regulation something that people think appropriate? There is a perception that the Supreme Court sets the culture by its precedent. It outlines and delivers a set of parameters of appropriateness in thinking about morality and it's boundaries. When an opinion issues from the Supreme Court speaking as the Supreme Court of the land it signals the morality of an issue in a way that state legislatures often do not. There is a perception that Roe stripped all protection from the unborn by decriminalizing the issue, and
so lowered the morality bar to make acceptable what was once unspeakable and horrific. This started the avalanche, it is believed toward the "culture of death" bemoaned of in the circles in which the folks marching today travel. Death became banal.
It might be academic whether the Court did this or the Court merely followed the culture.
The belief persists however, that the Court has a role in correcting it's course.
How that might flesh itself out is something that will take genius. And not a little more openness to that central organizing principle called the Holy Spirit.
One sign read "Sex In The City; Get Laid, Shred yourself and your child, Repeat."
When the Supreme Court said that it was just going to decriminalize abortion- because it is all just a private matter, it said something about the permissible morality of abortion that many people find shocking to the conscience. It said that, as a country, we think it's fine if people have differing opinions on whether it is permissible or not. Whether or not there may be practical reasons why criminalization is counter-productive to stopping an evil- there still has to be a way to still denounce evil as evil and still try to stop it. Obama himself has reminded us that "evil exists in the world." Surely, there can be fewer things more evil than nuking your own offspring.
This takes me to another favorite sign. It's one that is one of those "we hold these truths to be self-evident" signs that so states the obvious that it goes rarely stated- it simply said
"Thou Shall Not Kill."
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