You can't argue with pro-choicers
Being pro-choice is a bit like having worms. Or, if you prefer, pro-choice is to the mind what worms are to the body.
With worms it doesn't matter what you eat, it does not nourish your body because the worms gobble it up, so to speak.
With pro-choice, no arguments, however good, will change your views because the pro-choice ideology sucks them out of your mind by reducing them to "that's your opinion."
This means that trying to have a reasonable discussion about how we should behave is pointless with a person whose bottom line is, "It is my choice, I insist on getting what I want."
It's like trying to explain to a toddler why he should not have chocolate before dinner - reasoning is defeated every time by, "I want it".
It is very hard for ordinary people to accept that we cannot reason directly with pro-choicers, we don't know how else to approach them.
As a result, on the issue of life, for example, we keep trying to make what we believe is a reasonable case. We point out that "it is a baby", "it's heart is beating", "abortion ends a life", and so on.
But pro-choicers know all that already. And the more honest or brazen ones admit they know it. Leo Varadkar admits it. But they still insist, "killing her baby is a woman's choice, and making it legal is our choice".
Judgmental
We need a different approach. First, however, we need to check how into choice we ourselves may be.
Pro-choice ideology justifies so much that's wrong in society today: missing Sunday Mass, casual sex, drug abuse, divorce, IVF, and so on, all are seen simply as a matter of choice. And please don't be judgmental.
Pro-choice is in the air we breathe, so it is hard not to be affected by it. Can we confront it?
One approach is to expose how irrational the notion is, that it's a heap of contradictions with morality reduced to "might is right": the powerful get their way, even in a referendum, while the weak pay for it.
The other possibility is by calling people to conversion. That includes many Mass-going Catholics whose thinking about right and wrong has been corrupted by choice ideology.
Jesus set the pattern. First, he proclaimed the gospel, "the kingdom of God is at hand". This was the attraction, eternal salvation, heaven, was on offer, a free gift to those willing to pay the price, so to speak.
But to accept the gift people had to change, they had to bring their lives into line with God's commandments, his guidance; they had to repent, he said.
Objective morality
In other words, they had to recognise objective morality and want to be guided by it, to live in harmony with reality. This is the only cure for worms in the mind, for pro-choice ideology.
Unfortunately the Church has greatly neglected the preaching of repentance for decades. This led many people into indifference to God, and others to the false belief that salvation has nothing to do with how they live.
The Church needs to make the preaching of repentance a top priority once again, and to do so immediately.
It is not enough to say that certain things are wrong. Priests, parents, teachers have to point out that whoever does these things commits sin, is a sinner who may have cut him or herself off from God and from salvation.
Only through repentance, a gift from God to those who ask for it, can we be restored to divine life and union with God.
In turning from sin we turn to God, which is what Jesus meant by "believe in the gospel". There lies true freedom, happiness, salvation and the cure for worms in the mind.
With worms it doesn't matter what you eat, it does not nourish your body because the worms gobble it up, so to speak.
With pro-choice, no arguments, however good, will change your views because the pro-choice ideology sucks them out of your mind by reducing them to "that's your opinion."
This means that trying to have a reasonable discussion about how we should behave is pointless with a person whose bottom line is, "It is my choice, I insist on getting what I want."
It's like trying to explain to a toddler why he should not have chocolate before dinner - reasoning is defeated every time by, "I want it".
It is very hard for ordinary people to accept that we cannot reason directly with pro-choicers, we don't know how else to approach them.
As a result, on the issue of life, for example, we keep trying to make what we believe is a reasonable case. We point out that "it is a baby", "it's heart is beating", "abortion ends a life", and so on.
But pro-choicers know all that already. And the more honest or brazen ones admit they know it. Leo Varadkar admits it. But they still insist, "killing her baby is a woman's choice, and making it legal is our choice".
Judgmental
We need a different approach. First, however, we need to check how into choice we ourselves may be.
Pro-choice ideology justifies so much that's wrong in society today: missing Sunday Mass, casual sex, drug abuse, divorce, IVF, and so on, all are seen simply as a matter of choice. And please don't be judgmental.
Pro-choice is in the air we breathe, so it is hard not to be affected by it. Can we confront it?
One approach is to expose how irrational the notion is, that it's a heap of contradictions with morality reduced to "might is right": the powerful get their way, even in a referendum, while the weak pay for it.
The other possibility is by calling people to conversion. That includes many Mass-going Catholics whose thinking about right and wrong has been corrupted by choice ideology.
Jesus set the pattern. First, he proclaimed the gospel, "the kingdom of God is at hand". This was the attraction, eternal salvation, heaven, was on offer, a free gift to those willing to pay the price, so to speak.
But to accept the gift people had to change, they had to bring their lives into line with God's commandments, his guidance; they had to repent, he said.
Objective morality
In other words, they had to recognise objective morality and want to be guided by it, to live in harmony with reality. This is the only cure for worms in the mind, for pro-choice ideology.
Unfortunately the Church has greatly neglected the preaching of repentance for decades. This led many people into indifference to God, and others to the false belief that salvation has nothing to do with how they live.
The Church needs to make the preaching of repentance a top priority once again, and to do so immediately.
It is not enough to say that certain things are wrong. Priests, parents, teachers have to point out that whoever does these things commits sin, is a sinner who may have cut him or herself off from God and from salvation.
Only through repentance, a gift from God to those who ask for it, can we be restored to divine life and union with God.
In turning from sin we turn to God, which is what Jesus meant by "believe in the gospel". There lies true freedom, happiness, salvation and the cure for worms in the mind.
