Giving aid and comfort to critics
Organized movements are not usually inclined to call out their own, to identify and isolate them for behavior destructive to the cause. Abortion supporters had to distance themselves from that infant murder in the Miami abortion clinic, it was so horrible even for their cause.
The pro-life movement has had problems with factions that disagree on how to work toward the goal, or even what the goal is. Catholic pro-life advocates now have an added burden: Randall Terry is an overly zealous loose cannon on deck. Not calling him out does considerably more damage than he’s managed to do already. Phil Lawler takes on the task.
Unchastened by his participation in a spectacle that drew him a public rebuke from Archbishop Raymond Burke, pro-life activist Randall Terry is now picking a fight with Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana.
There’s something very seriously wrong with Terry’s choice of targets.
Burke and D’Arcy are particularly fine bishops, and they’re trying to balance clarity with diplomacy. Terry has blindsided them both.
One might argue that Randall Terry’s confrontational tactics are more effective than Bishop D’Arcy’s quiet, methodical approach. That’s a practical question, on which loyal pro-life Catholics may reasonably differ. One might even argue that the bishop should not have discouraged participation in Terry’s protests. But to claim that the bishop’s statement was a betrayal of the pro-life cause is presumptuous, intolerant, and morally arrogant. In short, it shows all those characteristics that pro-abortion rhetoricians constantly attribute to the pro-life movement. If those traits are on public display when Obama arrives in South Bend, the resulting media coverage could be a huge propaganda victory for the abortion lobby.
Randall Terry speaks for himself, and the more he does, the more regrettable the consequences.
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“One might argue that Randall Terry’s confrontational tactics are more effective than Bishop D’Arcy’s quiet, methodical approach. That’s a practical question, on which loyal pro-life Catholics may reasonably differ.”
One might argue that John Brown was more effective than Abraham Lincoln? They certainly took different approaches.
What bothers me is that when a pro-life politician believes that a radical law ending abortion or laws regarding stem cell research are not possible given today’s public opinion, when a politician believes that moral leaders must first change that public opinion before laws can be passed, this is not looked upon as offering a “quiet, methodical approach.” In fact it is labelled “pro-death” (altho’ pro-death penalty politicians are called “pro-life”—go figure)!
Public opinion on abortion must be changed before effective laws can be legally proscribed. Yet politicians who point this out are castigated by the pro-life community. Does not the pro-life movement take the same approach in the political arena as Randall Terry takes in the episcopal one? And do both actions help to eliminate abortion or polarize the field, thus prolonging the tragedy.