Author: Pia de Solenni

‘Roe’ + 40

January 22, 2013 5:39 am January 22, 2013

4 min read

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Today marks 40 years since the Supreme Court decisions Roe and Doe which allowed for abortion at any time during gestation for any reason. I’ll be on CNN “Newsroom” just…

Today marks 40 years since the Supreme Court decisions Roe and Doe which allowed for abortion at any time during gestation for any reason.

I’ll be on CNN “Newsroom” just after 9 a.m. ET to discuss some follow up ideas to my piece from last week. No, I don’t agree with Time magazine. I don’t think abortion advocates are losing. Witness the most recent elections and the annual report for Planned Parenthood. As long as there are more than a million abortions a year, more than 4,000 every day, I cannot say that pro-lifers are winning.

However, the pro-life movement in the US has done an exceptional job of keeping the fight alive. Nowhere else has abortion remained the issue that it is here. In fact, pro-life activists in other countries look to the U.S. for inspiration. Some of them will be here for our national March for Life on the 25th. The pro-life movement here is a global inspiration, particularly because of the heroic efforts of many unknown heroes.

So here are a few of my thoughts for moving forward in the next phase[s] of our work here in the U.S.

1. As we move forward, we need to rethink our political alliances. By this, I don’t mean that people should jump ship from a particular political party. I think we need to start being more strategic. We are an important demographic. But for too long, we have been considered a given and we’ve been told to keep quiet so as to gain political candidates who will support our policies. Well, the past two presidential elections have shown us how that doesn’t work. Instead of being a given, we need to make candidates work to show that they support our interests. This includes knowing how to speak about pro-life issues without looking like a Neanderthal.

2. After 40 years, it’s time to broaden our agenda to include more of the social justice issues. The dignity of the human person has to be the principle that guides all of our activities. If we truly believe this, then we can also be pro-life activists in any of our day to day activities. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to support every social justice government program. But if we’re pro-life, then we do care about how people are treated and we want them to be able to live good lives, with their basic needs met.

3. Communicate and develop more empathy. I don’t know of a single pro-lifer who is motivated because of mean spiritedness. But sometimes this is not well conveyed in our work. We don’t have to approve of specific lifestyle choices in order to love and serve those individuals. People on both sides of the abortion debate tend to see ideologies instead of people. By the very principles of our beliefs, we see the person, not the policy. We have to tell that story and allow it to be told. This is what happens every day in pregnancy help centers across the nation and around the world.

4. Speaking of communication, our movement is 40 and we need to enter a new phase, maybe become a little more sophisticated. Perhaps ironically, I think it’s the younger leaders who will be able to lead us in this direction. I hear it from young leaders on both sides of the abortion debate: things are different now. It’s not just the development of social media. There’s a whole different social environment in which people are living and making decisions, particularly those for whom abortion is an extremely relevant decision.

5. Build communities. Abortion is a symptom that communities have failed, whether we’re talking about the family or broader context. I sincerely believe that the first pro-abortion messages that people hear are not from Planned Parenthood and the like, but from those closest to them who communicate in one way or another that they have no time for them, that a particular person is a bother and a drain. You don’t have to join a pro-life group to be an activist. Just live the principle that every human life has dignity. People need to feel as if they belong and are loved for who they are, as they are. If we build and strengthen our communities, there won’t be a “need” for abortion because there will be a place for every human life regardless of how it came to be and its socio economic status. [If you want a quirky example of this, check out the TV series “Raising Hope.” Just be sure to start at the very beginning.]

The pro-life movement is holding its ground, probably even gaining in some areas. We’re a long way away from a culture in which abortion is unthinkable. But if we hold strong and smart, I think we could see some significant advances in the near future.

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‘Time’ makes me laugh.

Pia de Solenni

January 15, 2013 7:32 am January 15, 2013

1 min read

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Bitterly, that is. Pro-abortion activists are losing? Really? If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Cheap. After the election, I wrote about how the campaign had…

Bitterly, that is. Pro-abortion activists are losing? Really? If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Cheap.

After the election, I wrote about how the campaign had in fact been about values, just not values that I and other pro-lifers hold. In fact, we’d been too silent. For at least the second cycle of national elections, we – as part of the family values movement – bought in to the conventional wisdom that we should temper the values talk and focus on the economy. Look where that got us. The other side, however, was outspoken about their values on abortion and against traditional marriage. Hardly heard anything about the economy. They got the White House. We all got the fiscal cliff. [maybe we should call it a canyon since it seems to contain a lot of cliffs?]

Read my latest at National Catholic Register to see just how misleading the Time article is, especially considering the annual Planned Parenthood report that was released just days after.

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“All I want for Christmas is a family.”

Pia de Solenni

December 26, 2012 9:35 am December 26, 2012

2 min read

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The Telegraph, a UK news publication, reports that the top ten things that children put on their Christmas lists, included siblings and a dad. The number one gift children requested…

The Telegraph, a UK news publication, reports that the top ten things that children put on their Christmas lists, included siblings and a dad. The number one gift children requested was a baby brother or sister. But it’s their number ten request that speaks volumes: a dad. In my book, that’s something that a child shouldn’t have to put on a Christmas list. That should be a given, no pun intended.

And yet, the fact that a sibling and a dad ranked so high on wish-lists gives me great hope. Even though we can see many sociological indicators that suggest all is not at all well with the world, these children seem to suggest that they know it should be better, starting with their own families.

In his homily for Midnight Mass, Pope Benedict, reflecting on Mary and Joseph as they are turned away from every inn, asks, “[W]hat would happen if Mary and Joseph were to knock at my door. Would there be room for them?” He ties the situation of Mary and Joseph to our own lack of willingness to open the doors of our hearts to God, including “children, the suffering, the abandoned, those who are excluded and the poor of this world,” in whom God is reflected.

While these children may not all be writing the type of Christmas letter that the Pope wrote when he was a boy of 7, I find at least two of their requests to be profound and a hopeful indication that their hearts are very generous. And without wanting to suggest that children cast off all their lessons on stranger danger, I think they would open their doors to Mary and Joseph. They’d know a family when they saw it.

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What does Sandy Hook have to do with abortion?

Pia de Solenni

December 17, 2012 11:54 am December 17, 2012

5 min read

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On Friday, we were all shocked and stunned to hear of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. It was an unspeakable crime. Every time I see a headline of human tragedy,…

On Friday, we were all shocked and stunned to hear of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. It was an unspeakable crime.

Every time I see a headline of human tragedy, particularly involving large numbers of innocent people, I can’t help putting it in the context of abortion. There’s a noon Mass that I sometimes frequent and one of the attendees, when asked to share additional prayers for the faithful, always reminds us to pray for the 3,000 innocent, unprotected, unborn babies who will be aborted that day and to pray for their mothers. It chokes me up. These children have lives full of promise and hope before them and they are killed in their mother’s womb, what should be the safest place they will ever experience.

Ben Stein has a good piece reflecting on Friday’s tragedy. He asks a provocative question which reinforces my focus on the abortion discussion:

[Why] are these killers always men? What is it that we teach our young men in this world that makes them think it’s a mark of manliness to kill the unarmed and innocent? Whatever it is, it’s disgusting. It’s not manly to kill any unarmed human. It’s miserable, crawling cowardice.

What is it that we teach them? Mo. Teresa answered this very question in 1994 when she spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. She stood before President Clinton and the First Lady, both outspoken supporters of abortion and she said:

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?…

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. [Full text here.]

Almost as soon as the news of the shootings broke, there were calls for increased gun control.

I suggest, instead, that we look at our broader cultural experience. Not only do we, as a nation, protect the so-called right of women to kill their unborn children; but we glorify random violence. The perpetrator of Friday’s massacre was an avid player of violent video games. Surely, his thinking had to have been shaped by countless hours spent in front of a screen where he mindlessly murdered human looking forms.

And then, there’s also the family. I’ve yet to hear of anyone involved in a killing spree like this who didn’t have some serious family dysfunction at home. Yes, having divorced parents is a form of family dysfunction. Sometimes a divorce may be necessary, but the point is that there are hundreds of thousands of children experiencing family breakdown or “incomplete families” as John Paul II put it. I’m not suggesting that we blame the family of Adam Lanza; I’m assuming they did the best they could. I am suggesting that we examine what we can do to strengthen families.

The family is a child’s first experience of reality. If the family cannot offer that foundation, the child is already at a disadvantage, especially if the child is also suffering from a mental illness. Then put the child in a world where he learns at an early age that the most innocent human beings are not protected. Add to that a steady diet of violence, particularly in video games where he himself commits the violence, and you’ve got a recipe for destruction and dysfunction that has little to do with guns. It’s about evil. And evil will use whatever means necessary to accomplish its goal.

For the record, the internet abounds with all sorts of instructions on how to wage mass destruction without guns. Are we going to call for a ban on the internet?

Abortion has created a society with multiple personality disorder. On the one hand, we proclaim that every person is created equal and has equal rights under the law, unless of course that person has not been birthed and is not wanted. However, if that person’s mother wants him, then many states will protect the right of that person to be free from harm even before birth.

We are a society that places our hope in its youth, as long as we allow them to be born, meeting some arbitrary standard.

If one doesn’t have a strong personal grounding, things can become very confusing and that’s all that evil needs to take root: confusion.

It is my hope and prayer that the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary will at least teach us to better love and protect innocent human life. However, it’s a lesson that comes at a dear, dear price.

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It’s NOT the economy, [stupid].

Pia de Solenni

November 7, 2012 9:45 am November 7, 2012

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For several years, the conventional wisdom has been that conservatives who are Republicans should keep quiet about social issues since their positions are not mainstream enough. Instead, they have been advised to talk about the economy. Well, for the second presidential election in a row, we see where that got us.

In 2000 and 2004, it was widely acknowledged that value voters drove the election results. They turned out like Ronald Reagan was running for office. In 2008, they clearly stayed home. I’ll leave it to the experts to analyze what happened this year, but values were not front and center.

When we suffer defeat, we can always learn from our opponents. They did something better than we did. As Tom Peters and others have noted, they ran on social values: abortion, contraception, and gay marriage. Those “in the know,” i.e. those of us who tend to be more of the activist type, got the message that Romney was running on our issues, cloaked under the assumedly more palatable guise of the economy. But we activist types are the minority.

Unemployment and the fiscal mess that we seem to be heading into did not do enough to move voters.

I have supported Republican candidates because I believe that the social values issues, as set forth by the Catholic Church, are core to our society and the most prominent Democrat candidates have been explicitly opposed to the most fundamental of these same values. I don’t think that a society/government/economy will function well if human dignity is not respected at all levels. Looking back at history, I have yet to see one that did.

As Catholics, we have just begun the Year of Faith. If anything, this election tells me that we need to proclaim the truth that our faith teaches, particularly as it concerns the dignity of the human person. Let’s not try to sanitize the values issues with talk of the economy. It hasn’t worked. At the same time, there are a lot of Catholics voting who don’t understand or accept the Catholic Church’s consistent teaching on social values. That’s a great place to start our Year of Faith. As a church, we need to teach. As citizens, we need to voice our opinions, even when we fear that they might be unpopular.

Playing it safe just got us four more years of unprecendented support for the victimization and destruction of the least among us. It just guaranteed us a long, uphill battle to protect our freedoms of religion and conscience. What better way to start this next four years than with the Year of Faith?

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Catholics in Washington State Defend Traditional Marriage in The Seattle Times.

Pia de Solenni

November 1, 2012 12:32 pm November 1, 2012

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If you live or have lived in Washington state, particularly the western side of the state, you know what’s it’s like. You’re warned that we are the least churched state…

If you live or have lived in Washington state, particularly the western side of the state, you know what’s it’s like. You’re warned that we are the least churched state in the nation (a positioning we may have recently lost), that unless you’re using NARAL talking points there’s no place for your voice in a state that voted to make abortion legal before Roe v. Wade, and then voted at least two more times to confirm that vote. Despite the fact that you meet wonderful people both of faith and not of faith, who all share common human values, the secular progressive values are so pervasive that it can be daunting to even consider speaking out with a divergent view.

One of my favorites from the local Corgi Halloween Parade.

In my three years living in Seattle (yes the city where there are rumored to be more dogs than children) I’ve met enough people to realize that this conventional wisdom denies the reality.

This week a group of us, all lay leaders from across the state, decided that it was time to respond to a group of Catholics speaking out against the Church’s teachings on marriage. Sure, they have a right to voice their opinions; but it’s our responsibility to make clear that they don’t speak for us.

So here’s our op-ed in The Seattle Times. I expected the negative comments, but I wish we could have a civil conversation despite the disagreement on some very big issues. However, that problem is not particular to Seattle or Washington. It’s rampant just about everywhere.

We have a FaceBook page where you can see the list of leaders and sign on to show your support. We are joined by several groups including the Knights of Columbus for Washington State (17,000 members) and the Seattle Archdiocesan Council of Women.

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“We have no king but Caesar.”

Pia de Solenni

November 1, 2012 11:26 am November 1, 2012

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Bishop Jenky of Peoria has an excellent letter that will be read at all the Masses this weekend in his diocese. It’s too good to just cite one part so here…

Bishop Jenky of Peoria has an excellent letter that will be read at all the Masses this weekend in his diocese. It’s too good to just cite one part so here it is in toto:

Dear Catholic Believers,

Since the foundation of the American Republic and the adoption of the Bill of Rights, I do not think there has ever been a time more threatening to our religious liberty than the present. Neither the president of the United States nor the current majority of the Federal Senate have been willing to even consider the Catholic community’s grave objections to those HHS mandates that would require all Catholic institutions, exempting only our church buildings, to fund abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception. This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system. Contrary to the guarantees embedded in the First Amendment, the HHS mandates attempt to now narrowly define and thereby drastically limit our traditional religious works. They grossly and intentionally intrude upon the deeply held moral convictions that have always guided our Catholic schools, hospitals, and other apostolic ministries.

Nearly two thousand years ago, after our Savior had been bound, beaten, scourged, mocked, and crowned with thorns, a pagan Roman Procurator displayed Jesus to a hostile crowd by sarcastically declaring: “Behold your King.” The mob roared back: “We have no king but Caesar.” Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord. They are objectively guilty of grave sin. For those who hope for salvation, no political loyalty can ever take precedence over loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his Gospel of Life. God is not mocked, and as the Bible clearly teaches, after this passing instant of life on earth, God’s great mercy in time will give way to God’s perfect judgment in eternity.

I therefore call upon every practicing Catholic in this Diocese to vote. Be faithful to Christ and to your Catholic Faith. May God guide and protect His Holy Church, and may God bless America.

Most Reverend Daniel R. Jenky, CSC

Catholic Bishop of Peoria

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Presidential Debates Reveal Two Clashing Views Of Women

Pia de Solenni

October 18, 2012 7:01 am October 18, 2012

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Just before yesterday’s debate, a USA Today/Gallup poll showed Gov. Mitt Romney taking the lead over President Barack Obama. The lead was largely attributed to more women giving their support to…

Just before yesterday’s debate, a USA Today/Gallup poll showed Gov. Mitt Romney taking the lead over President Barack Obama. The lead was largely attributed to more women giving their support to the governor. As I wrote yesterday, this suggests that maybe, just maybe, women care about more than “pelvic politics” (abortion, contraception, abortion and abortion).

The debates gave considerable evidence of each candidate’s view of women.