Articles > Status Ecclesiae, February, 2006: "33 Years: The different dimension of Political Correctness"

Status Ecclesiae
February 2006

33 Years

The different dimension of Political Correctness

- by John Mallon, Contributing Editor, Inside the Vatican

Political Correctness exists to support the Culture of Death. It exists to run interference for the Culture of Death and introduce red herrings wherever necessary whenever the discussion starts to approach the truth.

I first heard the terms “diversity” and “multiculturalism” as a theology student at Boston College, “a Catholic University in the Jesuit Tradition.”

These shibboleths were thrown around, and I remember thinking, “Who is not diverse? Who is not multicultural? This is a university, and a Catholic university, at that, and all people are welcome. Catholic means universal.” Then I caught on. It was not about race, ethnicity, national origin or creed, but about ideology — radical feminism in its intense advocacy of abortion, and the “gay agenda.” Quite naturally both by implication and in rhetoric, the Catholic Church was portrayed as an “oppressor.”

It was deliberately blurred that the Catholic Church accepts all of God’s children with love, because of what they are: God’s children. Matters of ethnicity and race are part of what they are. Abortion and homosexual activity are acts: things which people do, acts which they have a free will to do or not do.

Homosexual acts and abortion are acts which the Church condemns as contrary to God’s law and harmful to those who commit them and to society in general.

Political correctness deliberately attempts to blur this distinction and conflate opposition to certain immoral activities with unjust discrimination against people of various races and cultures.

Political correctness attempts to argue that apples and oranges are the same, and anyone who disagrees is called a bigot.

I have contended for years in my own writing that this movement has all the potential for tyranny and destruction of life as Nazism and Communism if allowed to continue on its current track. In terms of sheer numbers, 45 million lives have already been lost through abortion. Some people are offended by these sorts of comparisons, but simply look at the body count.

In this culture of radical leftism, owing to its Marxist roots, there is a certain status and cachet in being a victim. Campus radicals, easily among the most privileged people on earth, long to consider themselves oppressed.

SO HOW DOES THIS PLAY OUT?

As I write, the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate is completing its confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel Alito for his appointment as Associate Justice to the United States Supreme Court. Pro-abortion senators on the committee were falling over themselves in their attempts to portray Judge Alito, a Catholic, as “racist, sexist, anti-gay” as the chant goes. It was a shameful charade of attempted character assassination, especially from Senator Edward Kennedy, a Catholic, provoking emotional responses from more rational members of the committee. Senator Dianne Feinstein asked questions regarding how far outside the “mainstream” Judge Alito was, by which she meant how pro-life was he.

Surely Senator Feinstein knows this is propaganda because if abortion were truly “mainstream” its proponents would have nothing to fear from leaving it to the people to decide in a vote rather than the courts.

It was a shameful display of the self-righteousness — and desperation — of inverted morality.

It is now 33 years since Roe v. Wade came down in the United States establishing the artificial right to kill an innocent child in the womb. Times have changed in that period. Every serious Catholic knows the life of the child overrides any misguided shame placed on the woman over the circumstances of her pregnancy and that love, understanding, and compassion are needed. Meanwhile, abortion proponents still portray the Church as harsh and judgmental.

Medical science has all but eliminated any need for a so-called “therapeutic abortion.” The psychological sciences have shown that abortion traumatizes a woman for life, doing far more harm than bringing the child to term.

In an inexplicable line of questioning, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont (a Catholic) asked Judge Alito if there was any provision under the U.S. Constitution in which an innocent person could be executed. Judge Alito, looking surprised at such an odd question, said, “That’s the ultimate tragedy that could possibly occur in our criminal justice system. We should do everything we can to prevent that from ever occurring.”

As Leahy persisted, Judge Alito finally said, “The Constitution is designed to prevent that.”

Watching this, the irony struck me that the answer to Senator Leahy’s question was yes, there is a provision in the Constitution under which an innocent person could be put to death, and that provision is that such a person may be put to death only so long as he or she is still in the womb.

Nevertheless, Judge Alito’s reply was correct in real terms: the Constitution is designed to prevent that. It is the ultimate tragedy that could possibly occur in our criminal justice system. We should do everything we can to prevent that from ever occurring.

ROE V. WADE IS AN ABERRATION

One wonders if Senator Leahy realizes that in his attempt to show up Judge Alito as callous, he was chopping down the tree in which he and his other pro-abortion colleagues were perched. One also must wonder if Leahy, Kennedy and company also caught their irony of grilling Judge Alito on whether he would be an advocate for the “little guy” while they campaign for the continued legalized killing of the “littlest guy” of all: the little boy or girl in the womb.

The Father of abortion is also the Father of Lies. As Jesus said, “He was a liar and a murderer from the beginning.” The lies are legion: that “Political Correctness” is at all concerned with justice and tolerance, that it is “caring and compassionate” to help a woman kill her child in the womb, that being an “oppressed minority,” i.e., a woman, trumps laws against murder, and that anyone has a “right” to commit murder, i.e. abortion.

Opposition to abortion will never go away. Abortion will never be accepted in a civilization worthy of the name. If abortion were a morally neutral act like a tonsillectomy, the discussion would not still be going on, much less going on at this fever pitch 33 years later.

The notion of 33 years has great meaning for Catholics as the number of years of Christ’s earthly sojourn. We must pray and redouble our efforts to see that the continued crucifixion of today’s Holy Innocents will soon cease, and that “Kindness and truth shall meet, Justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, And justice shall look down from heaven.” (Psalm 85: 10-11)

John Mallon is a Contributing Editor to Inside the Vatican magazine. He also has regular columns on the website Catholic.Org. An archive of Mr. Mallon's work also appears here: http://www.petersvoice.com/mallon/index.html. You can reach Mr. Mallon at johnmallon@insidethevatican.com.

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