http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/

JC,

This is simply not true. A pluralistic society has no compulsion to obey the natural law. After all, who is going to command the United States to stop being a pluralistic society? No one.

The vast majority of people who advance the cause to protect the unborn do not exhibit “harsh rhetoric.” To most, harsh rhetoric is unacceptable. A small but vocal minority use such language. But their purpose is to excite fear.

Fear cannot for long advance a cause proportionately. Why? Because fear’s inertia will create an impulse to treat the end as a way of justifying the means. Then all hell breaks loose and the strategy becomes self-defeating. This is what has defeated the pro-life movement.

Reason will prevail and the cause will prevail. But it will not readily move from darkness into the light through a barrage of accusations and counteraccusations. Calm is needed.

Truth will emerge in radiant splendor too. But first, caricature will have to be found wanting. As caricatures are unmasked as the impediment they are, truth will finally reign.

Do you know what Elizabeth Tudor did with those who felt that way? And do you think that the recusants and the Gunpowder Plotters prevailed? The Vatican has become far more sophisticated in its diplomacy since Pius V, and I truly do suspect that too many more threats to withhold the Eucharist from members of the Obama Administration will see some bishops being quietly “retired.”

All those advances you talk about on the grassroots level are done by the very groups who use the “harsh rhetoric” and call for an immediate end to abortion.

NRLC doesn’t help anyone but the Republicans.

The people who went to Notre Shame last weekend are the same people who run the crisis pregnancy centers, etc.

A “pluralistic” society must still obey the Natural Law, and the Catholic Church still has the right to intervene in any government, since Jesus is the King of Kings. These are the clear teachings of Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X, not to mention the entire patrimony of the Church, which were *not* repudiated by Vatican II.

To say that the Natural Law must take a back seat to “pluralism” is the very heart of the heresy of Americanism.

The outcome is not your fault. The decisions for this strategy were centered in Washington. But now there is frustration everywhere.

What IS working is the effort in local communities to help women in need. I believe this effort needs to be reinforced. This is where things are moving.

Is it a silver bullet? No. Only the Lone Ranger had a silver bullet. But it is making a difference. In four years, I predict the abortion statistics will look much different.

There are other hopeful signs. More women are pro-life, even though many remain pro-choice. They won’t adopt the pro-life position, but they look upon the unborn in ways that are consistent with a respect for life. This is positive.

This should read:

“establishment of a moral police state”

Without fear, the Ogre has no clothes! So it is imperative to generate fear. Harsh rhetoric serves the Ogre’s strategic need.

The legal strategy of the pro-life movement failed in large measure because it was predicated on fear. Why was fear necessary? Because American secular society is resistant to the establishment of a moral policy state. A pluralist society needs pluralist solutions on matters where there is no consensus.

So harsh rhetoric is strategically significant. It is not merely bad manners. Being central, it is difficult to let go. For decades, it has served as a strategic device to generate fear and force decisions that otherwise would not be made in a pluralistic society.

On occasion, harsh rhetoric can provide limited success. But what happens when fear subsides? Well, what happens is what has happened. The hapless measures enacted under a cloud of fear are rescinded and allowed to pass into history.

Its tragic. So much wasted energy.

Then when we complain, “Why doesn’t the Church do more to stop abortion?” “Why doesn’t the Church do more to stop teaching of heresy at Catholic universities?” “Why doesn’t the Church do more to stop GIA Publications?”
When we conservatives ask *those* questions, the very people who scream about abuse say, “The Church believes in prudence.”

You say the “strategy of the past” hasn’t worked.

But the “strategy of the past” that hasn’t worked is incrementalism: “Let’s change hearts and minds, and outlaw abortion later.” That is what the pro-life movement, except ALL and HLI, has been preaching for 35 lousy years!

When NRLC was founded, they claimed it would take at least 35 years to overturn _Roe v. Wade_. They said they had a “long-term strategy.” They preached “steps.” So, 20 years later, they tried their “first step,” so-called “partial birth abortion”. They spent 10 years and millions of dollars getting it outlawed. They spent another several years to get a Supreme Court decision that said a) abortion is a woman’s right, but b) this one procedure is “gruesome” and c) there are other ways to kill a late-term baby.

And the NRLC still has “partial birth abortion” as one of its top issues!

At this pace, the “incrementalist” strategy will outlaw abortion somewhere around 2865.

And one of the main reasons that abortion is *not* outlawed is that everyone in power realizes abortion is “necessary” as a back-up to contraception (see _Planned Parenthood v. Casey_; see the Kissinger Report).

The problem is that Catholics “dropped the ball” on fighting _Griswold v. Connecticut_.

Now, ever since then, it’s been “sell out” “sell out” “sell out” on everything the Masons send at us: no-fault divorce, abortion, insurance benefits for gays, “National Health Care” (i.e., eugenics repackaged), “assisted suicide,” forced starvation, and now gay marriage.

No one in the Early Church or the Medieval Church would have stood for such compromise.

Read the life of St. Martin of Tours. He did a lot more than just cut his cloak in half for a beggar.

I never said all abortions would stop. I merely said the notion of such is contained in the logical notion of choice. Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion. Pro-choice can mean anti-abortion. Or not. Its meaning is contingent on the woman’s decision. Period.

It is a new strategy. You are speaking of activities in your local community. The national debate has been consumed by name-calling over legal measures for over three decades. That discussion will no longer consume all the oxygen. The approach is new.

If you want to pursue the legal front go ahead. No one is stopping you. Move to Washington, D.C. where you can have a stronger voice. Be fully committed, if you want. But you’re not going to have as much company as you might hope.

The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach:
The Ogre cannot master speech.

About a subjugated plain,
Among it’s desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.

–W.H. Auden