CAT: Abortion and So-Called "Lebensunwertes Leben"

“Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me; my LORD has forgotten me.’ Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Isaiah 49:14-15).

This was the first reading which we heard in Mass this week. Oddly enough, the first few times I read over this—or heard it—I mentally rendered the second sentence, “Can a mother forget her infant, by without tenderness for the child in her womb?” Perhaps this is because the tragic topic of abortion has been weighing heavily on my mind of late. In part, this is because of legislative actions being taken at both the state and the national level on this issue right now. On the other hand, the debate has been raging—largely within Catholic circles, though a few non-Catholics have taken interest too—over the recent Live Action stings, and whether or not their tactics—lying to Planned Parenthood employees—are justified or not.

On a national level, the House of Representatives has done the right thing and passed legislation to remove federal funding from Planned Parenthood. This is good, though it is unlikely that much will come of it this time around, since the Senate is for all intents and purposes a partially owned subsidy of Abortion, Inc—and the President is a wholly owned one. More locally—and more likely to see success—is the Texas sonogram bill, which has cleared the house and which the governor has promised to sign. It seems to me that the only real obstacle to this legislation is that the house and senate versions need to be reconciled—one version contains “the usual” exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, the other does not—which should prove to be a very small obstacle at that.

In following the debates of these two bills, I have heard a number of arguments from both sides. The most powerful of these are quite possibly the non-verbal variety, of happy children and of their parents who, when faced with what they first thought to be adversity in an unexpected pregnancy, made the heroic choice of keeping their children; or of equally happy families made possible by the choice to adopt coupled with the choice to carry a child to term by a mother intending to place the child for adoption.
A stronger argument for life can hardly be made than the joy brought into the world by the birth of a child, indeed the joy brought to the lives of the child’s parents. The only stronger argument is that the child is a human person from the moment of conception—a true argument, though often which the proponents of abortion will skirt. The joy of these families which are formed when a woman says “yes” to her child’s life is practically tangible; it cannot be ignored.

It is perhaps for this reason that many of the remarks of the pro-choice factions are now focusing on the potential that this life may come into the world as a joyless one. A similar argument, inextricable from this argument of the misery of the child’s life (or of the parents’) is the Lebensunwertes Leben (“life-unworthy-of-life”) argument. This is certainly a long-standing argument within the pro-choice movement, having its roots in its intellectual prehistory (e.g. with Thomas Malthus), and indeed with the very founding of Planned Parenthood. Margaret Sanger was not shy about stating and stating quite bluntly that some live were better off never coming into being, let alone being allowed to continue. Sanger herself frequently made statements about how certain “undesirable” populations should not be allowed to “breed.” It was she who said that the most merciful thing a large (or poor) family can do for one of its children is to kill him.

Of course, the argument is often not phrased quite so bluntly (nor so honestly). However, it is a form of this argument which is being trotted out, and often in terms of a life potentially full of suffering (or other “complications”).. We are hearing of, for example, the “unfortunate” case in which a poor women who become pregnant chooses to keep a child which she cannot afford. In discussing the sonogram bill in Texas, Miss Jessi Devenyns of the Daily Texan writes that

If a woman is determined to have an abortion, the likelihood of her changing her mind because she is now forced to listen to her baby’s heartbeat and gaze at in on a fuzzy screen is slim. If, however, she chooses to keep her baby after having her mandated sonogram, there may be complications either later in the pregnancy or after birth....There are always serious negative consequences associated with the proposed law. If a pregnant woman was convinced by the sonogram to keep her child, she may not be able to support it and the child could end up in foster care. The foster care system is maintained by federal taxpayer money, and if there is suddenly an influx of children from unwanted pregnancies into the system it will create a greater burden on an already overstressed system.

This is what the apologist and keen social observer Mr Mark Shea has called the “Just enough of me, way too many of you” argument for abortion (or, indeed, euthanasia, population control, eugenics, etc). The general idea is that such a child will do nothing save make his mother miserable, so that she will forever regret her decision to carry him to term (though not, apparently, her decision to engage in the marital act, thereby conceiving him to begin with). It is telling (and even more chilling) that one of the primary arguments leveled against the sonogram bill is that viewing a sonogram might cause the woman to change her mind and keep the baby—as if this choice for life is itself a bad thing. Such rhetoric does, however, suggest that the ultimate choice is not, in fact, simply up to “the woman, her doctor, and her god” (or some combination of these with her family).

This is effectively the old “life unworthy of life” argument, but in new clothes. Rather than being called “unworthy of life,” it is presumed that any child being born in these circumstances will be so miserable that it would be better for him (or, more frequently, for her) that he never be born. It would at the very least be better for the mother or perhaps the parents taken together that the child not be born. This, at least, is the reasoning behind appeals to the possibility that a woman who chooses to bring a child to term would be making a mistake, and that she would regret this mistake later in life. More troubling still is that such language actually borders on admitting that the unborn entity is, in fact, a separate human life, and that he is nevertheless denied its rights in favor of the mother’s (or even his) potential future sorrows or regrets.

Leaving this particular point aside for a moment, it is worth noting the sheer numbers involved. Whereas the pro-choice side has been able to produce quite a few testimonies—rarely of women who regret keeping their child, but rather mostly from women who state that they do not regret their abortions—the pro-life side has thousands or even millions of testimonies to the contrary. I have seen dozens (if not more) post-abortive women who have later regretted the decision at any given rally for life. A few more attend the various prayer-vigils held for life around the country. There are more still who come to the local crisis pregnancy centers distraught, seeking counseling for abortions past, sometimes while struggling with a new unplanned pregnancy. As one counselor stated at the pro-life rally in Austin two years ago, Planned Parenthood and their ilk are free to claim that women don’t suffer from abortions, because they haven’t really seen that suffering. It is quite often the crisis pregnancy centers which are left to “pick up the pieces” of emotional baggage from an abortion, often years after the fact.

Regret—or, more properly, remorse—is a thing which is ultimately either experienced or suppressed in a person who has what Professor J Budzisewski calls “guilty knowledge.” In his What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide, Dr Budziszewski writes that

Remorse may fade, but it may also grow. In some people it increases gradually, with age and maturity; something which did not bother me in thoughtless youth may bother me a great deal when I have had greater experience of life. In some it lies fallow for a while, then suddenly appears. I thought I had left it behind, but I had not; it enters my mind all at once, raw, unbidden, demanding service. The reappearance may be periodic—say on the anniversary of the deed. Or it may be occasional, when I come across things that remind me of it. A birth announcement. A letter from my parents. A scent of perfume, or of antiseptic.
But the most dreadful way that remorse grows is by repetition of the deed, and the bitter fact is that although our efforts to dull the ache by not thinking about it may work after their fashion, they also make repetition more likely.

In his first lecture to the Catholic Longhorns for Life, given in the spring of 2007, Dr Budziszewski told the audience gathered that he had witnessed this time and again when talking to men as a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center. His wife, who volunteers more regularly, had witness this even more among women, and often in manners missed by the “scientific” studies. How so? The women being interviewed would often try not to admit remorse, or to suppress it. On the other hand, a “pregnant silence” (pardon the pun) would often lead to a pained confession. “Have you experienced an negative effects of your abortion?” “No.” Silence, silence, silence. “Well, except for the usual.” This is how many a conversation has gone.
Alas, remorse itself is but one thing experienced by those with guilty knowledge. Budziszewski calls remorse one of the five Furies of the conscience, and the smallest and weakest Fury at that:

Remorse is the least of the Furies. No one always feels remorse for doing wrong; some people never do. Yet even when remorse is absent, guilty knowledge generates objective needs for confession, atonement, reconciliation, and justification. These other Furies are the greater sisters of remorse: inflexible, inexorable, and relentless, demanding satisfaction even when mere feelings are suppressed, fade away, or never come. And so it is that conscience operates not only [as teacher and accuser]…but also in a harrowing third [mode]: The avenger, which punishes the soul who does wrong but who refuses to read the indictment.

Conscience is therefore teacher, judge, or executioner, depending on the mode in which it works: cautionary, accusatory, or avenging.

How the avenging mode works is not difficult to grasp. The normal outlet of remorse is to flee from wrong; of the need for confession, to admit what one has done; of atonement, to pay the debt; of reconciliation, to restore the bonds one has broken; and of justification, to get back in the right. But if the Furies are denied their payment in wonted coin, they exact it in whatever coin comes nearest, driving the wrongdoer’s life further out of kilter. We flee not from wrong, but from thinking about it. We compulsively confess every detail of our story, except the moral. We punish ourselves again and again, offering every sacrifice except the one demanded. We simulate the restoration of broken intimacy, by seeking companions as guilty as ourselves. And we seek not to become just, but the justify ourselves.

Catholics will no doubt recognize the Furies listed by Dr Budziszewski—at the time an evangelical Christian—as the same elements found in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Indeed, they will also recognize the wisdom of what he says—witness, for example, the tell-all diaries and broadcasts (e.g. Jerry Springer, Oprah, etc), the full-page ads taken out by post-abortive women saying “we do not regret our abortions; the rhetoric of choice, which at times addresses whether or not an unborn child is in fact human but more often looks for excuses to kill him anyway, whether for concern of the environment or for the poor; the post-abortive women who encourage their friends, to the point of pressuring them, to also get abortions.

Most importantly, perhaps, many of the most militantly pro-choice decry any admission of guilt, regret, or remorse from women who have procured abortions (let alone from any man who might pressure her to do this). They try to treat it like a mere ploy by pro-lifers, despite the admission of said remorse by even a few still pro-choice women.

It is worth taking a moment now to say something about those who are affected by a decision to “choose life.” There are two sets of people to consider here: the parents who choose life, and the children themselves who are allowed to live. The argument used by proponents of abortion is that these parents and especially these children will be more miserable as a result of this decision, that they will regret it at least as much, and possibly more than, those who choose abortion. The children themselves will be miserable enough that it would be better that they had not been born, and the parents would be similarly less well-off.

As for the children in this case, there is a reasonably easy index which can be used to gauge whether or not they think their lives are worth living. After all, if the actual survivors of abortion—those whose parents chose life as well as those whose parents didn’t and yet who survived anyway—find their own lives worth living, then it is hardly an act of compassion on the part of the proponents of abortion to tell them otherwise.
The philosopher Professor Peter Kreeft has suggested a reasonably good index of the “happiness” of life, and one which is quite self-determined. Suicide is the ultimate indicator of whether a person thinks that his life is still worth living, and, as it turns out, it is no more prevalent among the poor than among the rich (see the report by Emile Durkheim, which found virtually no correlation between economic class and the prevalence of suicide; the report is summarized here). It is, in fact, arguably more prevalent among the rich, at least in-as-much-as, according to the World Health Organization, the suicide rates are relatively higher in wealthy countries than in poor ones. As Dr Kreeft put it,

I was dumbfounded to read a cover article in Time devoted to the question: Why is everything getting better? Why is life so good today? Why does everybody feel so satisfied about the quality of life? Time never questioned the assumption, it just wondered why the music on the Titanic sounded so nice.

It turned out, on reading the article, that every single aspect of life that was mentioned, every single reason for life getting better, was economic. People are richer. End of discussion.

Perhaps Time is just Playboy with clothes on. For one kind of playboy, the world is one great big whorehouse. For another kind, it’s one great big piggy bank. For both, things are getting better and better.

There is a scientific refutation of the Pig Philosophy: the statistical fact that suicide, the most in-your-face index of unhappiness, is directly proportionate to wealth. The richer you are, the richer your family is, and the richer your country is, the more likely it is that you will find life so good that you will choose to blow your brains apart.

There is, in other words, little to indicate that being born to poor parents makes a person more likely to find life to be not worth living. Of course, the real motives for ending this so-called “Lebensunwertes Leben” are often a been more sinister; recall Miss Devenyns’ statement that “The foster care system is maintained by federal taxpayer money, and if there is suddenly an influx of children from unwanted pregnancies into the system it will create a greater burden on an already overstressed system.” In other words, I’ll pay for your abortion, but not your child care. This is usually the sentiment of the dead-beat dad who, having sired a child, does not want to accept the responsibility to care for him, albeit now transposed onto the role of the taxpayer. Moreover, the majority of abortions occur in middle-class and upper-class families, which can certainly afford to raise the child; for them, abortion is largely a matter of convenience, whatever excuse they might otherwise give.

What of the parents—be it a single mother or a pair together—who say “yes” to life? A handful perhaps do then convince themselves that this was the wrong decision, though of course there is a very long wait for those seeking adoptions, implying that there are no shortage of good families who would be happy to raise the child as their own. A woman who chooses to carry her baby to term is not necessarily choosing to raise the child as well. In a sense, the woman who carries her child to term can bring the joy of a child to the home of parents who otherwise would not know this joy, via the act of adoption.

As for those women (or couples) who choose to bring the child to term and raise him themselves, they may certainly suffer a few set-backs in the short term. Parenting does, after all, offer a chance to take up one’s cross daily. But the suffering or frustration which comes with raising a child—whether he was initially intended or no—does not take away from the joy which could only have been brought into the household by that child, the joy which comes of receiving the child as a unique gift bestowed on the parents, whether as a surprise or the answer to long-prayed petitions. That there are many people who remain selfish even as parents does not detract from the many more who selflessly embrace the trials of parenting, and so are rewarded by the countless more joys which they experience as a result.

Limited as my exposure is to mothers who have faced so-called “crisis pregnancies,” every one of them whom I have met has said that she had no regrets in choosing life. Those I know who have worked more closely with these women have told me time and again that although making the choice for life was often uncertain, they somehow knew that it was the right decision, and that they have had both peace of mind and joy of life as a result. I have no data to cite comparing the eventual attitudes of couples who accepted their children as gifts—planned or otherwise—and those who would accept children only on their own (“pre-planned”) terms. I would venture to guess, though, that the parents of unplanned children are at least as much at peace with their decision to bear and raise those children as those whose children were supposedly planned and “wanted” to begin with. Indeed, I would venture to say that the “unplanned” or “unwanted” children who were humbly embraced as gifts brought perhaps more joy to the lives of their parents than those children who were “added” to the family as a sort of decorative afterthought: “wanted,” “planned,” and relatively convenient. Which is not to detract from the lives of these latter people, many of whom are my friends; rather, it is worth noting that the unplanned “surprise” children are just as capable of bringing joy into the world as the planned ones.

All children can and indeed will bring certain trials into the lives of their parents—this is something which Christians especially should accept. After all, even Our LORD brought with Him certain trials to the lives of his parents (see The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, and of Saint Joseph), and He was without sin, being perfect, God. But even non-Christians who have themselves been parents can acknowledge that all children bring with them certain trials and sorrows. This is a part of the responsibility of parenting. To demand that every child be “planned” or “wanted” (or, to put it bluntly, that every child be convenient) is to steel oneself against this reality of raising children. To accept lovingly even the unplanned child is to acknowledge that being a parent means putting another ahead of oneself—as, indeed, is done in a truly loving marriage—and to prepare from the onset for the trials of parenting. But it is also to accept the wonders and joys of parenthood, which even in this vale of tears surely outweigh the trials.

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Originally published on the Catholic America Today site.

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If you found this post helpful, you might also like:
The Shame of Silence: Men and Abortion
35 Years of Roe and Doe
Motives, Compassion, and Abortion
Speaking Up, If Painfully
My Reflections on Nancy Keenan's Speech
35 Years of Roe and Doe
Social Services and Blood Money
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Love or Power

I read Dr Dietrich von Hildebrand's Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love a few weeks ago. The central point of the book is that procreation is the purpose of marriage, whereas love is its meaning; this point is further extended to the marital act. As Dr von Hildebrand writes:

Love is the primary meaning of marriage just as the birth of new human being is its primary end....Two human beings can also turn to face one another, and in touching one another in an interpenetrating glance, give birth to a mysterious fusion of their souls. They become conscience of one another, and making the other the object of his contemplation and responses, each can spiritually immerse himself in the other. This is the I-thou relationship, in which the partners are not side by side, but face-to-face.

Of all terrestrial communions, conjugal love is the most pronounced form of an I-thou relationship. The beloved person is the object of our thoughts, sentiments, will, hope, and longing. She becomes the center of our life (as far as created goods are concerned). He whose heart is filled with such conjugal love for his beloved lives not only with his beloved, but for his beloved.

Sex has as its purpose the begetting and ultimately the birthing of children, and marriage has as its end this and the further rearing of those children. But the meaning of both is love. This is turn may require some sacrifices, and it certainly requires the free git of one's whole self, meaning both now and for as long as the other spouse still lives.

Does not every love carry with it the great risk of suffering? In attaching our hearts to a person, do we not run the risk of enduring terrible sufferings, through misfortunes that may happen to our beloved or separation from her when she dies? Should we then abstain from love in order to prevent the possibility of great sorrow?

He whose life is dominated by the intention of avoiding any possible cross excludes everything that gives human life grandeur and depth. He will never know real abandon--never know real, deep happiness. Remaining in a mediocre self-centeredness, he will never be able to do anything without a certain reserve; he will always provide for a possibility of retreat.

It is worth taking a moment to contrast Dr von Hildebrand's vision of marriage with our culture of death, which demands that the meaning and purpose of sex be either power or pleasure. If the former, then it is a monstrous rape, and if the latter, then it is but a momentary rapture. In either case, there must be no long-term consequences or other consequences of the intercourse. Marriage is but a union meant to allow access to each other for the purpose of pleasure--and sex the expression of something short-term and fleeting though enjoyable and repeatable--as well as the convenience of sharing income, etc.

In such a culture, contraception is a must--and abortion as a back-up plan in case that fails. Pregnancy is a blessing only if it's intended, and intended only if (and for so long as) it's convenient. Especially telling is the frequent reliance on the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape--horrifying as this crime is--as the justification of abortion, despite the relative dearth of actual pregnant rape victims. If the pregnancy is unintended, then it becomes a symbol to every self-respecting radical feminist of the patriarchal power of men invading on the sovereignty of the woman's body. Since the pregnancy resulted through sexual intercourse, the association is established that every unintended pregnancy is the result of a rape, however willing a participant the woman was during the actual deed.

So long as sex is treated as merely "fun and games, until somebody gets pregnant," it will to that same extent be denigrated as a symbol of patriarchal power. Every encounter becomes a potential rape, if only after the fact, fraught with the tensions thereby raised. Will he still love her tomorrow, and will she remain faithful to him in return? How can love flourish amid such doubts, such deceptions? All the risks of sorrow and suffering which come with true love are present, but without the the deepest joys. The shallow pleasures are kept, but not any real lasting happiness--a miserable state indeed. As C.S. Lewis has said, the devil loves to take everything we have and give us nothing in return.

It doesn't have to be this way.

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If you like this post and want to read more, here are some related posts:
Contraception and Discernment (Nicene Guys)
Quote of the Day: Archbishop Fulton J Sheen on Children
The Sanitary, Sterilized Life
Reflection on a Rib (Nicene Guys)
What is the Purpose of Morality? Marriage, Chastity, and Sexual Morality (Catholic America Today)
Love and Responsibility (Book Review)

CAT: Some Thoughts about Violence in Christian Fiction

A friend recently sent me a link to this article by Mr Alex Wilgus in Relevant Magazine and asked for my thoughts on the matter. Should Christians use violence in fiction--or art, poetry, musics, etc? Mr Wilgus seems to conclude that the answer is no:

The question isn't whether or not these films use violence responsibly. It is: How do you wake someone up to the madness of the human condition after sitting through Kill Bill and Bruno? One could argue any of these films use violence “well,” but it’s impossible to get away from the fact that everybody is doing it. Extreme content is a drop in the bucket these days, and it must escalate in order to break through the audience’s toughening skin....Violence, once the weapon of the illumined artist to combat the forces of complacency, has become complacency itself. Like the tolerance a user builds against a drug, the modern media denizen is significantly less affected by extreme content than in Percy's and O’Connor’s eras. They were writing in times when people’s moral codes were more fixed, and generally all of America subscribed to some definition of homogeneity. This is no longer the case. They needed to be shaken up by the Gospel; we need to be calmed down by it.

Before I can address this question myself, I would like to set up a definition for what constitutes "violence." The author, for his part, sets up his definition for violence as follows:

Every once in a while there seems to be a new attack from one side or the other, but what is not commonly done is to try and figure out what violence in art is meant to do and if it is even effective in its work. I’m using the term “violence” in this article to describe a broad range of extreme material, including explicit sexuality and coarse language.

So violence is "extreme material," be it sexual, mental, or physical in natural. Fair enough--but should this be used by Christian writers in their works of fiction? In his essay The Perversity of Recent Fiction: Reflection on the Moral Imagination, published in Redeeming the Time, Dr Russell Kirk--himself an accomplished writer of ghost stories--suggested a rubric which seems to me to be a good rule of thumb. He suggested that we avoid what could be called gratuitous violence: violence which has no place in the story itself, leading to neither development in plot nor character.

“Not long ago I picked up a romance by a woman writer whom I have often praised, one whose writings have displayed a high if melancholy fancy; she writes fantasies, often set in imaginary worlds, of considerable power. But in the most recent book of hers occurred one scene of fornication and another of peculiarly disgusting violence, neither essential to plot or character: it was as if (what often occurs) the editors of the firm publishing her books had told her that such episodes are no de reiqueur, if a book is to sell tolerably well. For boys and girls fourteen years of age? Oh, quite.”

It is worth noting that here Dr Kirk does not condemn all violence in fiction, but only gratuitous violence.

Continue reading at Catholic America Today.

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If you enjoyed this post, here are some related ones:

C.S. Lewis on Art, Artists, and Good Work (Quote of the Day)
C.S. Lewis on the Importance of "Good Work" in "Good Works" (Quote of the Day)
The Idiocy of Iconoclasm
Rediscovering the Saints
Religion or Relationship
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TMM: Concrete Good and Concrete Evils

In response to my last two posts about Live Action and the problem with lying--and the dangers of consequentialism--my friend Mr Nathanael Blake offers up a post to the extent that there are concrete goods and that not much else matters. One problem with this line of reasoning is that there are concrete evils as well (murder, but also lying), and that in resorting to these particular evils, we give up a piece of the moral high ground. We are in essence selling a piece of our souls to gain ground in this battle:  this will not profit us in the long run.

He charges that Catholics are "paralyzed"  by our adherence to the Natural Law*. This isn't a just charge. We've already begun to reap the good which comes of the actions which we have been able to take so far. Defunding Planned Parenthood would be great--I will welcome that day--but there are plenty of other eager abortion mills who would step in to take their place. The goal here is to save lives and to save souls, both of which have been readily accomplished by such programs as 40 Days for Life. Our hands are anything but tied by adherence to this particular moral standard. In expressing reservations about Live Action's methods, Mr Joe Hargrave had this to say: 

Moreover, I think the extent of my opposition to abortion can be explain in the following way: I would actually have less of a problem with the destruction of Planned Parenthood’s property, crippling their evil work indefinitely, than I do with the deceptive campaign of Live Action. The right to life trumps the right to property, after all, and someone who uses their property, their advanced equipment and facilities, to commit mass murder has lost their absolute right to it as far as I am concerned. I wouldn’t consider sabotaging the machines and implements of death, or otherwise rendering the abortion mill inoperative, to be the least bit immoral.

 If lying is within the realm of moral actions because the end result is good, then why not justify worse sins? A dead abortionist kills no more children, and neither for that matter does a maimed one. The same is true of the mother--kidnap her and lock her up until she delivers, and the child's life will be saved. I'm certain that Mr Blake does not advocate these types of violence against abortionists (or against women who plan to use their, ahem, services). However, in advocating violence against the truth for the sake of a good end, he stands on a slippery slope. This is not to say that no firm footing may be found, but I have yet to hear somebody satisfactorily explain just where said footing is.
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*Which makes me wonder just what the good Catholic folks at CatholicVote (not to mention Professor Christopher Kaczor) would have to say, given that many of them (though not all) have written in support of the tactic used by Ms Lila Rose (herself a Catholic). Their general stance seems to be that it's only lying if the other side has a right to the truth, and in this case Planned Parenthood doesn't. I can agree in principle with the former clause (lying requires that the other party has a right to the truth), but I'm a bit more hesitant on the latter. There's a difference between a member of the gestapo seeking me out and demanding to know whether (and where) I've hidden any Jews, and my seeking him out to tell him that I've hidden them under my barn with the intent of sealing him in once he's down there.

The Distraction of Live Action

A friend of mine writes by way of comment on my last post about Ms Lila Rose and the the morality question of lying:

I really like this commentary JC, it was very enlightening for me. At the same time though, I must pose to you the question: When the media (which serves the pro-abortion agenda) and the government (which also has largely served the pro-abortion agenda) fail to do their job - either unintentionally or deliberately (I'd argue the latter, especially in the case of the media) - in investigating the practices of the abortion industry (or any industry, for that matter), how then can the criminal actions of Planned Parenthood and their kind be made known to the public (who is funding said organization(s))? Is it fair to keep the truth from the taxpaying public? It would seem that without the actions of LiveAction, the truth about these appalling violations of the law that go on inside of these abortion mills would never be discovered, or at least not for many years. I'm not saying that I necessarily think it was right at the end of the day (I'm also not saying that I necessarily think it was wrong either), but I think that this is a fair question to ask.

To be fair, it is entirely possible that good results will come of these actions, and I do welcome these good ends, even though I disapprove of the means. It is also entirely possible that she or someone else will be able to offer a convincing justification of lying (in this case), e.g. under Just War Theory, etc. Until this latter happens, any good which comes of these stings is basically good being brought out of evil.  However, I would certainly like to join with Reginaldus of The New Theological Movement for commending whatever good intentions Ms Lila Rose may have during all of these operations. We can always hope that by God's grace good ends will come of this situation, whatever are the means.

With that said, it's worth considering that if Planned Parenthood is ultimately defunded as a result of this, that will be a very good result--but for the wrong reasons. Yes, if they are helping prostitution rings which use underage girls (or prostitution rings in general) or other forms of sexual predation (which we knew about before this whole Lila Rose sting operation; see for example, Planned Parenthood's legal problems in Kansas) then they deserve to be prosecuted and to lose their federal funding. But even if they did not do this, they would still be a wicked organization in the (witting or unwitting) service of Moloch, an organization whose success depends on the sacrifice of the unborn. This is why we want to see them defunded; this is why they must ultimately be closed down. The cover-ups for prostitution, rape (statutory and otherwise), racism, etc--these are horrific too. But they are only the icing on the cake in comparison.

As for how the public would become aware of all this: I suspect we would continue to gain awareness slowly but surely without the aide of the sting operations. This is in large part because of the conversions of hearts: the Bernard Nathansons and Abby Johnsons of the world. These people and others like them had genuine conversions--as best I can tell--because they were won over by truth.  These conversions may be sparked from such things as new technology--sonograms--or the constant presence (and slow, imperceptible effect) of the peaceful prayer vigils.  They were hardly prompted by the shock value of a few videos gained through sting operations which employed lies (or, at the very least, extremely strict "mental reservations").

I will agree with Mr Joseph Bottum of CatholicVote and with others who assert that we are at war with the Culture of Death. The tactics of Lila Rose may win use a few immediate battles, and I welcome the victories (though not the methods used); but the war is fought on a deeper level than this. These tactics can win battles, but they could ultimately cost us the war, or worse, they could ultimately lead to a merely Pyrrhic victory.


That is to say, we may successfully defund Planned Parenthood--a victory in the short term, and a huge one at that.  But in so doing, we will have forfeited the high ground regarding truth, and so will pay for our victory in the loss of likely conversions.  The war which we're fighting is over abortion, it is true:  but it is a spiritual war in addition to being a merely social-cultural one.  Yes, we need to win the social-cultural front of the war, and defunding Planned Parenthood in this way might help us to do that.  It also risks the backlash that people will associate the wrong of Planned Parenthood entirely with the fact that it is greedy enough for profits to cover-up a prostitution ring involving minors, and that the abortions themselves were no wrongdoing.


What this will not do in the least bit is help us to win the war of the more important front, which is the spiritual front.  That abortion is among the worst forms of murder--it deliberately takes an innocent human life--I do not deny. I do, however, deny that the worst effect of abortion is the death of the child's soul. This effect is horrible, but worse than this is the effect which this has on the perpetrators' souls. We do not know what happens to the baby upon death:  we can only speculate; he is, at least, free of any actual sins, and bears only the stain of original sin into the next world. We need not speculate the effect of abortion on the soul of the abortionist and his willing accomplices (including the mother and/or any who were involved in the making of this decision). Our Catechism and the Tradition of the Church--as repeated by the fathers of the Church--say enough on this.  It is a grave offense, and thus is almost certainly a mortal sin, the punishment of which is damnation if unrepented.


Saving lives is important, and we should work to do whatever we can to do this.  But there is one thing more important, and that is saving souls.  Lying will not accomplish this.  We need look no further than the pro-abortion reactions, which will be repeated by not a few people who otherwise might have been ready to hear the truth. The fact is that the argument is already being made that Lila Rose used deception to obtain these videos--so why not use deception in the editing or in the representation of what is said on the videos, too*?  As Mr Mark Shea has noted in a similar context, this becomes an uphill battle to prove the honesty of the videos' content since "you are setting yourself the task of trying to get me to trust that somebody who approves of lying is not lying to me."

In ceding that section of the moral high ground, we are trading triumph in the long-term war for a few more immediate victories.  To paraphrase Mr John C Wright, patience and vigilance are among the weapons we must use in our war, since our real enemy in this one is an immortal foe. Planned Parenthood and their ilk are his minions in this war, willing or unwilling; but our real enemy is the devil himself, and Moloch his lieutenant. The best weapons against the prince of all lies is truth, because we cannot defeat him with his own instrument. 

Moreover, contra Mr Bottum, this war is fought not only in the battlefields of politics, economics, and the culture, but primarily from the convents and monasteries, the churches and the alters.  Our greatest weapon is prayer and the grace of God, and our greatest triumphs are the conversions of hearts to God's love, minds to His truth, and souls to His Faith.  This cannot be truly accomplished with the tools of the devil--lies, violence, etc--but only be practicing these things to which we claim to hold.  "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).
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*For the record, I don't believe these particular charges.  I think that what she caught on tape is true and not edited in a deceptive manner.  But then, I'm already more-or-less on her side in wanting Planned Parenthood to become a thing of the past.

Lying for the Common Good?

The ever-diligent Mr Mark Shea asks the musical question concerning the recent "sting" operations by Ms Lila Rose and her Live Action organization:  "Can you lie for a good cause?"  In response to (and general agreement with) the rather weighty article by The New Theological Movement on the same topic, he writes:

I hate to say it, because my loathing for Murder Inc. is so deep, but I basically tend to agree that it is wrong to take even a butcher down with lies.

That said, I wonder if some moral theologian could make a reasonable (as distinct from sophistical) case for videos like these under the same sort of logic that allows for feints, ruses and similar strategems in Just War theory.  We, for instance, misled the Nazis on our Sicilian invasion plans and they bought it.  We did not owe them the truth and it would have been foolish not to deceive them (see, for instance, The Man Who Never Was).  Can some similar logic be applied here?  Part of me wants to think so.  Part of me smelleth the scent of the familiar rat of “ends justifies the means” rationalization of evil.  After all, if it’s okay to lie for a good end here, why not millions of other lies too for all sorts of other good ends? That certainly worked well for that successful system dedicated to Future Good known as Communism. (links in original)

I haven't perhaps put enough thought into this question to have made a good and well-developed conclusion myself.  However, at the gut-level I tend to agree more with Mr Shea (and Reginaldus of The New Theological Movement), and with Prof. Christopher Tollefson, than I do with Mr Joseph Bottum and others who justify these kinds of operations.

Lying is not merely incidentally wrong, or a sort of "gateway sin" which leads to more an bigger sins (though it can do that too).  Rather, I agree with Saints Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, both of whom held that it is an intrinsic evil, that it is wrong of itself and not only because of the effects which it has on others.  On the other hand, The Catechism of the Council of Trent, citing St Augustine, tells us that "'He who conceals the truth and he who utters falsehood are both guilty; the one, because he is unwilling to render a service; the other, because he has the will to do an injury.' We are not, however, at all times, obliged to disclose the truth" (emphasis mine).

I think that the morality or immorality of Live Action's tactics therefore hinge on the application of this passage.  It seems to me that there are several things which would permit the withholding of the truth.  First, is all deception necessarily a lie?  And if not, does the distinction matter morally?  Second, supposing that there is not a significant distinction between lying and deception, is there some circumstance in which lying--"not...disclos[ing] the truth"--is a morally neutral action? Finally, if we must conclude that Live Action's tactics are immoral, then there is one final question to be asked:  did they have a moral option which they might have chosen but rejected in favor of the immoral option?

I contend that there are some forms of deception which are not lies per se.  It is fairly common practice within certain academic programs (including at times physics) to allow students to draw heir own wrong conclusions in the course of a lesson, in order to then dispel their misconceptions.  This can be useful in such fields as physics, where people often enter a class not knowing the difference between velocity and acceleration (change in velocity per unit time), or (for that matter) between velocity and speed.  A racecar drives around a racetrack at constant speed:  what is the acceleration?  When I ask my class this, they almost inevitably say "zero" or "there is no acceleration," which is not correct.  However, the question plays on a common misconception and very deliberately leads them to a wrong conclusion:  this is a form of deception, albeit a very simple one; it is also emphatically not a lie.  Another obvious example of a form of deception which is not at the same time necessarily a lie is the actors in a play or movie.  If they play their parts well, we are quite convinced that the characters could be real (though we often know that they are not).

Anotehr form of misleading which does not count as a lie per se is what is known as "mental reservations.  On this subject,  The New Theological Movement has this to say:

Fr. John Hardon’s “Modern Catholic Dictionary” defines mental reservation as, “Speech in which the common and obvious sense of one’s words is limited to a particular meaning.” Uttering a word or phrase that can be interpreted in two ways, one being true and the other false, the speaker qualifies which interpretation he intends in his own mind, without giving any further indication of that qualification in his speech.

It therefore follows that not all forms of deception are necessarily also lies.  But does this apply in the case of Live Action's "sting?" I answer that it does not, because there are some critical differences between the scenarios I outlined above (and other similar scenarios) and Live Action.  For one, when we see actors performing, we generally know that it is a performance, with few exceptions.  I would even go so far as to suggest that such pranks as those on "Candid Camera" and other similar shows fall into this category, because the prank is usually revealed to the victim on-camera, rather than (in the case of Live Action) days or weeks later when it is broadcast.  There is, in other words, a difference in kind and not merely degree here.  Similarly, when my students tell me that the acceleration of the racecar is zero, I generally spend the next few minutes of class explaining why this is not the case.

As to "mental reservations," Reginaldus of The New Theological Movement notes that

We must note that even mental reservations are only to be employed in limited cases – ordinarily, we are not permitted to make use of even broad mental reservation. In fact, the whole theory of mental reservation was developed as a pastoral response to situations in which a person is unwillingly questioned by others – in order to maintain the secrecy of some sensitive information, the man could answer ambiguously when questioned. The Live Action project is doing something very different – they are not passive victims, but are most active in putting themselves into these situations in which they end up not merely making use of mental reservations, but actually lying. I think we can all see the difference between using discreet language when Nazis show up at the door of a German household harboring Jews during World War II and the undercover work of Live Action – the German household did not put themselves into the situation, Live action has sought it out.

Live Action's deception does not therefore fall into the category of "morally different from a lie."

Ah, but perhaps the case can be made that not all lies are necessarily immoral.  I tend to disagree with this statement. Citing Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that*

"'A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving.' The Lord denounces lying as the work of the devil: 'You are of your father the devil, . . . there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.' Lying is the most direct offense against the truth. To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error. By injuring man's relation to truth and to his neighbor, a lie offends against the fundamental relation of man and of his word to the Lord." (Paragraphs 2482-2483).

Thus, lying is not a merely amoral acts, which can be good or bad depending on the circumstances; rather, it is an actually immoral act.  Whatever are the consequences, the intent is to contravene the truth.

I must turn at last to the final possibility:  having admitted that the deception carried out by Live Action is immoral, can this action nonetheless by justified?  That is to say, were Lila Rose et. al presented with an unavoidable choice of two sins, in which they chose the less grave?  This is the scenario under which their sting operation would be morally justifiable, though not necessarily moral.  This is a scenario under which such things as "feints, ruses, and similar strategems" can be justified under Just War Theory (along with "mental reservations"; it is also the scenario under which Just War Theory itself operates.

Essentially, did Live Action have a choice between two evils only, in which they chose the lesser evil?  This argument might be made if Live Action had the choice between lying and doing nothing at all.  That is to say, lying to Planned Parenthood is a sin, but it is a lesser sin than the sin of omission resulting from having the ability to do something to prevent a great evil--abortion--from being perpetrated and choosing instead to do nothing.  The problem with this argument is that in this case (and in most cases), there is heavy reliance on a false dichotomy.  The choice is not "lie or do nothing."  There are in fact many other things which can be done to fight Planned Parenthood and their ilk, and (more importantly) to reduce the number of abortion committed.  There are crisis pregnancy centers and maternity homes in need of volunteers, to say nothing of soup kitchens and food pantries; there are rallies for life, the possibility of taking legal action to defund Planned Parenthood or further regulate (and hopefully eventually to ban) abortions; there are debates, panel discussions, conferences, and other educational outlets to set-up, participate in, attend which help to educate the public about the evil which is abortion.  There are such organizations as the Gabriel Project, the sidewalk counselors, and the prayer vigils (both on-site and offsite), each of which does its own part large or small to fight abortion.

All of these things have come together to slowly turn the tides in our country against abortion.  The prayer-vigils, in particular 40 Days for Life, have been especially powerful in bringing about real conversions of hearts and minds. The availability of such technology as the sonogram has been an additional boon to the pro-life movement. None of these things relies on the act of lying, but each is ultimately based in the truth, that every human life is loved, cherished, every one is precious to God.  These are all based in the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.  None requires doing evil that good may result.  To be fair, the undercover sting videos can lead to good results--e.g. more regulation of the abortion mills, defunding Planned Parenthood, increased awareness that these people are predators and hawkers of a deadly service--though few of these results have actually been realized as yet.  I have heard of few (ok, none) real conversions of hearts resulting from these sting operations--only the praise from certain elements of the anti-abortion movement, and of condemnation of pro-lifers in general and Live Action in particular from the pro-abortion side.  We have yet to see if any good will really come of these videos, but at what cost? It is best to have the truth on our side, because it is that truth which shall set us free (see John 8:32).

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*It's worth noting that the Catechism is using a slightly different definition for deception than I am, in that mine is a broader definition, since the way in which I was earlier using it encompasses such things as acting and otherwise misleading (as in a lesson at school which brings out misconceptions); perhaps "mislead" is a better word for this broader definition.

Jest for Pun

The expert thief avoids the authorities
Because he is a master of elusion.
A playwright's lines seem vaguely familiar
Since he is a master of allusion.
The brewer's apprentice didn't strain the hops,
So he submitted a rough draught.
The inn's rooms were too well-ventilated,
So the guests slept through a rough draft.
The Chinese moralist extols civic virtue:
He prefers a state of Confucian.
The hemophiliac bruises easily--
He is often in a state of contusion.

(I had a long an boring group meeting;
This helps to maintain my detention span).

Religion or Relationship: A False Dichotomy

One of the things which never ceases to amaze me is the number of sincere Christians who are down on what they call "religion."  This is especially true for the non-practicing Christians, which is not surprising; they may or may not think that their faith is particularly important, but they evidently do not see it as a thing which ought to be joined to community in any way.  Some simply don't like the sacrifice involved in going to church on Sunday, however small that sacrifice of time may be; for those Christians who do want to be good followers of Christ and yet who dread going to church, I can do little more than suggest a reflection on Matthew 16:24.

Oh, but there are plenty of sincere Christians who do attend some sort of church services and yet who decry "religion" with all it obligations:  the rituals, the morality.  I've known plenty of Protestants who complain about the rituals (and often the morality), and more than a few Catholics who bemoan the morality (and sometimes the rituals).  "Why can't we just have a relationship with God?" they ask, though not in so many words.  They are quick to set up a dichotomy:  there are those who have religion, and those who have a true "personal" relationship with God.  As one Protestant commentator put it, "When you are ready to do 'business' with an Almighty Sinless Creator God and you 'break your vows' with your religion, then, and only then will you be open-minded to the truth contained in the scriptures!"

The problem is, religion and a relationship with God is not an either-or proposition:  it's a both-and.  That is to say, a right relationship with God will involve religion, including the rituals and the morality (not to mention the theology!).  That's not to say that the rituals and morality and theology are the sum total of a religion, but they are are important components of it.  When asked what was the greatest commandment of the Law, our LORD replied that

"The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these" (Mark 12:29-32)

Of equal interest is that when the Scribe who had addressed our LORD replied that he did in fact keep these commandments, Jesus replied that "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 12:34).  But the morality is nothing other than right relationships between a man and himself, others, and God; the ritual is nothing other than a form of worship of God; and the theology is nothing more nor less than the "science" (that is, the understanding, the contemplation) of God and His Church.  In short, these two greatest commandments, which are the sum of the whole law and which when followed place us "not far from the kingdom of God" are also the very basis of religion.

Much of the ritualism and morality of religion is established in the Old Testament as a part of the Old Law. It was revealed gradually to the Jews through Moses and the prophets (to say nothing of Noah and of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and they diligently observed these rituals to the day of Christ's coming.  For His part, our LORD did not abolish religious practices:  though He condemns the pharisees for their hard-heartedness and for their pride and insincerity (see, for example, Matthew 23:4-7), He also commands His followers to be obedient to them (for example, Matthew 23:2-3). Moreover, Christ states that

"Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-20).

Moreover, the Apostles and their followers continued to worship with the Jews in the Temple (and the synagogues) after the Resurrection (see Acts 2:46-3:1 fore example). This behavior is hardly befitting a group who believed that religion and religious ritual got in the way of a relationship with God. Indeed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that

'The New Law practices the acts of religion: almsgiving, prayer and fasting, directing them to the "Father who sees in secret," in contrast with the desire to "be seen by men." Its prayer is the Our Father....Adoration is the first act of the virtue of religion. To adore God is to acknowledge him as God, as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists, as infinite and merciful Love. "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," says Jesus, citing Deuteronomy' (CCC Paragraphs 1969 and 2096).

Many of those who talk down on religion attempt to score cheap emotional points by appeals to their own interpretations of the origins of the word itself: and these are obscure origins. Perhaps it does come from Cicero's re-legos (to re-read): more loosely, to study and contemplate and commit to heart. Indeed, to do this with the Scriptures, with the historic Creeds, with the beautiful prayers composed over 2000 years of Christianity and another 1000 years of Judaism--this can hardly mean to ignore a relationship with God. To contend that this is so is to contend that God does not speak to us through any of these things, a fit stance for an atheist but hardly for a Christian! Do not the Scriptures contain the very words spoken by Christ and recorded for us by His apostles and other early disciples? Do not he creeds further clarify Who He Is? Does not Tradition--both written and oral--which has been preserved for us the truth revealed to us by our Lord to His apostles, both in His earthly life and through the inspiration of His Holy Spirit? It was Saint Jerome who told us that the ignorance of Scripture was the ignorance of Christ: which is hardly the basis of a stable relationship with Him!

Perhaps instead it comes from re-ligare, that is, "to bind again." This certainly lends itself to cheap jokes about religion being a mere "return to bondage," but then, why not be bound to that which is holy? The oath of an honest man is binding in that he who gives it binds himself to him to whom it is given. Religion is a sort of oath to God, by which we bind ourselves to Him; which is vastly different from saying that we place ourselves in bondage. Indeed, it is only by binding ourselves to God that we are able to become free of bondage to sin (see Romans 6:6). To use an analogy, Ulysses bound himself to the mast of his ship so that he would not be lured away by the temptations of the sirens' call, and so lose his life; we in turn bind ourselves to Christ so that we will not be lured by temptations to sin, and so lose ourselves. Ulyssess' act of binding himself guaranteed his safety and ultimately his freedom: and our act of binding ourselves to Christ allows us to do the same*.

Moreover, to "bind again" is an especially fitting definition of religion, because our first parents loosed their binds with God--they "cut ties" with Him--by sinning in the garden. Thus, religion is our attempt to restore those ties with God--or, more appropriately, it is His way of restoring that bond with us. Yes, we need a relationship with the LORD our God, but we need that on His terms, and not only on our own. And His terms are, in the end, religious terms. Religion, then, is ultimately no more and no less than right relationship with God, and also with men for His sake. It does not impede the relationship with God, nor does it hinder our ability to "do business with" Him; rather, it enhances this relationship because it places the relationship in the context established by God through His divine revelation.
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*Of course, Ulysses wanted to hear the sirens' song, whereas we want to be free of it at last; and we are not driven to insanity by it, though, St Paul does warn us that we may be made to appear as fools for the sake of true wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:1-16).

TMM: Ramblings about Missionary Zeal

I once read a quote--I cannot remember it exactly, and I've forgotten the source (I think it was Mr Piers Paul Read)--which said something to the extent of that the pagans of Rome, of Europe, and beyond were not converted to Christianity by the mere exercise of the domestic virtues.  The point of that statement was, if I recall, that merely being a good husband or wife was not enough as regards our calling as Christians to evangelize.  The Roman pagans and barbarian infidels were not impressed by the mere fact that a husband did well to provide for his family, or that a wife was able to prepare good (and timely) meals for the family or keep the home in good running order: because the pagans were able to do this as well.

What the pagans were lacking, and what the early Church had, was a missionary zeal.  Where were the real martyrs for Jupiter, or the virgins for Venus (ironic as that would be)?  Where were the men and women who risked all to evangelize in the name of Rome, or of the household gods, or of Odin and Thor?  What impressed the pagans of old were the sacrifices of the early Christians, not in the form of holocausts burnt but in the form of what they were willing to give up for their God, and what they were willing to risk, not only to share the Gospel with each other but to share this good news with strangers in strange land, not to mention even with those who would seek to persecute them.

The Church certainly needs this zeal amongst her members.  Some (though not all!) among us are called to do these things.  But it is not only our zeal for evangelization by which we should be known.  As Saint John the Apostle tells us,

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy.  For whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world: and this is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:1-5).

That is to say, in the words of the common though somewhat trite hymn, they'll know we are Christians by our love.  We're all called to die to sin, to take up our crosses daily (see Matthew 16:24), and to follow Christ. However, not all of us are necessarily called to do so in the extreme manner of literally leaving all we know behind to die in a strange land while trying to spread the Good News; nor to die persecuted at home for trying to live it. Sure, there will be suffering for all who follow the LORD truly--beginning with the little suffering of trying to resist temptations--and it is true that we are all called to evangelize by nature of our Baptism; that by joining the Church we are signing up for God's army and not merely His social club.

But whereas the old pagans were evangelized by seeing that we were more stoic than they, the new ones wish to see that we are more happy.  That is to say, the old pagans were surprised by our ability to bear suffering, while the new ones want to see that we live more fulfilled lives.  The two are, in some sense, opposite sides of the same coin.  We should be better able to bear suffering, because our lives have a purpose:  we know that God made us "to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next" (Baltimore Catechism 2 question 6).  Without a purpose, suffering becomes meaningless and unbearable; but without suffering, purpose becomes bland.  If our purpose in this life--knowing God, loving Him, and serving Him--is done easily and without any suffering, then it hardly incites the kind of heroism of which our saints and legends are made.  A cog in a machine fulfills its purpose without suffering--and for that matter without pleasure or satisfaction--but we must struggle to fulfill ours.  We are not cogs nor machines but men, and we value little which is won cheaply.  We must therefore also bear our sufferings patiently, and even joyfully (see James 1:2).

As for the domestic virtues, they may not be the cause of conversions amongst the old pagans. However, the new pagans may yet in a few years be impressed even by these. A divorce rate of 0.2% becomes impressive in a culture in which roughly half of all marriages end in divorce. Thus, while a happy marriage and a good family life takes plenty of work, it is also a very powerful witness to a cynical culture which has all but given up on marriage as a life-long commitment.