July 4 is also the memorial of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian man beatified in 1990 by Pope John Paul II. Though only recently brought to the attention of the faithful in this way, Pier Giorgio has quickly taken a place as a popular patron of young people. In fact, his remains were transported earlier this summer from Italy to Sydney, Australia, to be present there for this month’s celebration of World Youth Day.

So who was Pier Giorgio Frassati, and why should you know about him?

Early Grace

He was born in 1901, into a rich and influential Italian family. His father was the owner and editor of one of Italy’s most important newspapers, La Stampa. He also served periods as a senator and as Italy’s ambassador to Germany. His parents had little interest in religion or in fostering any kind of faith in Pier Giorgio and his sister.

Somehow, by the working of grace, he managed from a young age to develop a faith and an attitude toward life that was very different from the environment in which he was being raised.

Though his family was rich and blind to the struggles of poverty, he became interested in caring for the poor. Despite his parents’ indifference to religion, even as a child, he found himself on fire with faith and love for God. At the age of 7, he was invited by his parish priest to receive Communion on a daily basis, something that was very rare at the time.

As a teenager and into his 20′s, he began to actively serve the poor in and around Turin. He joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He made visits to slums, hospitals, homes for the elderly, and jails. He took food from his family’s well-stocked kitchen and distributed it to many hungry families.

His parents responded to this mainly with irritation. They were initially opposed to his daily reception of Communion, and his mother once asked the parish priest to encourage Pier Giorgio to spend less time saying rosaries. Pier Giorgio’s sister has written that when he was 17, “at home, everyone wished he was different.”

It was during Pier Giorgio’s late teens that his father was appointed to be ambassador to Germany, so the entire family moved to Berlin. During this time, he got to know the young Karl Rahner, just a few years his senior, who was just about to join the Jesuit order. Rahner went on to become one of the most significant Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, known particularly for his work as a theological expert at the Second Vatican Council.

One might wonder whether a young man of Pier Giorgio’s faith ever considered the priesthood. In fact, he did. He ultimately rejected the idea, though, because he wanted direct and personal contact with people, especially with the poor whom he felt particularly called to help, and he believed that being a priest would get in the way of that.

Pier Giorgio’s promising life, however, was cut short when he died suddenly in 1925, at the age of 24, from polio. But his death provided a remarkable moment of evidence for the holy life he had been leading.

Dramatic Witness in Death

As word spread around Turin that Pier Giorgio had died, crowds of people, mostly the poor and the sick whom he had spent so much of his time helping, began to gather at the Frassati home, where his body lay. They asked permission to enter, and soon a line of mourners, all of them strangers to his parents, began filing into the house, wanting only to touch his body. They lined the street, too, when his body was transferred from the home, and crowded into the church as his funeral was celebrated.

His parents could only watch in awe at this testimony to the service he had been doing almost under their noses, but of which they had barely been aware.

Since his beatification, devotion to this young prophet of charity and justice has grown quickly. Frassati Societies, groups intended to help Catholic young people grow in faith and witness to it in their lives, have popped up in Catholic parishes, high schools, and college campuses. (See http://www.frassati.org/.)

Pier Giorgio is one of ten patrons for this summer’s World Youth Day, but the only one whose remains will be on site for the veneration of the young people present. And Pope Benedict XVI has publicly pointed out his important witness on several occasions during his pontificate.

Spirituality of Pier Giorgio Frassati

So what does Pier Giorgio have to offer Catholics today? What would be the most important parts of a spirituality based on his life and ministry? I’d suggest three essential ones.

God in the Poor

Pier Giorgio takes his place among a unique group of holy men and women who seem to have had the grace to encounter Christ in a particularly intense and literal way through the poor. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Dorothy Day are two other examples of such an experience.

On one occasion, one of Pier Giorgio’s friends asked him how he could walk into the homes of so many poor people, when there was so often such an unpleasant smell inside. Pier Giorgio said that approaching the poor was approaching Christ. “Around the poor I see a special light, one that we do not have,” he said.

God in the Eucharist

Pier Giorgio’s apostolic life and prayer life was fueled by an intense love of the Eucharist. He made frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament when he was able, and these visits sometimes lasted entire nights. He wrote in a letter to a friend of being “consumed with eucharistic fire” that brought a happiness that nothing else in the world could offer.

God in Creation

Pier Giorgio was an enthusiastic outdoorsman, so much so that he has sometimes been proposed as a patron of the environment and environmentalism as well. He went on bicycle rides — up to 50 miles long! — and mountain climbing trips with friends.

But his love with the outdoors was not just about the beauty of nature. He wrote once in a letter to a friend that he enjoyed the mountain climbing expeditions because they were an opportunity for “contemplating the Creator’s greatness in that pure air.”

As we celebrate Pier Giorgio’s feast on July 4, and World Youth Day July 15-20, it’s a great opportunity to become better acquainted with this remarkable witness of faith, justice, and love.

After all, we are called through our baptism to share our faith with others.  And while most folks we know probably become uncomfortable with anything that seems like “proselytizing,” here are a couple of people literally asking to talk with us about faith.  Why not respond with a generous spirit? 

The Initial Approach

If we want to engage them in a productive conversation, we must be aware of their strategy.  Mormon missionaries will talk about their faith in very familiar language and very general terms, especially in the beginning.  You’ll hear about the importance of faith in God, salvation in Christ, and family life.

This encourages hearers to become more comfortable with what they have to say.  They would not get far, after all, if they opened with, “Hi, we’re Mormons.  That means we reject the notion of the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Christ, but do, on the other hand, embrace the potential divinity of all people, the idea that God the Father has a physical body, and a book besides the Bible that contains God’s revelation to humanity.”

Don’t be fooled, then, by the familiar language.  Recognize up front that many of their beliefs are radically different from essential teachings of orthodox Christianity.  This will not be like talking to a member of, say, a Protestant denomination.

Given the opportunity, the gentlemen at your door will most likely lead you into a discussion that includes the following topics.  You need to be familiar with their thinking and the important responses that Catholic history and teaching can offer. 

Religious Experience

First is what we might call the argument from religious experience.

Mormons will tell you that the satisfaction and peace they experience when they read the Book of Mormon and live its teaching is how they know it to be true.  This is always accompanied by an enthusiastic invitation to you to read the Book of Mormon, with the promise that if you do, you will surely know for yourself the same truth that they know.

We’ll talk about the Book of Mormon in a moment.  But this insistence on personal religious experience as primary evidence is a problem. 

Martin Luther had a profound religious experience on which he based his thinking (but Mormons would deny it was a real one).  So did St. Augustine.  (They would deny that one, too.)  And so, presumably, did the terrorists who flew airliners into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001 (and almost everyone, including many Muslims, would deny the authenticity of that “religious” experience). 

Obviously not all religious experience is equally valid.  So how do we judge the validity of our experience?

Explain that this is why God gave us the Church from the very start, and why He protects the Church from errors of faith.  Certainly God can move in us, speak to us, and teach us in a very personal way.  But our inner experiences are also open to the influence of things like self-interest, wishful thinking, or just plain confusion.  Examining these experiences in the light of the Church’s teaching and the discernment of her pastors is an essential step in judging their truth and value. 

The Book of Mormon

Second, the missionaries will focus on “The Book of Mormon.”

The subtitle on the cover of the Book of Mormon calls it “a second testament of Jesus Christ.”  Mormons place it on the same level as the Bible as an authoritative revelation of God.  As we’ve noted, your Mormon visitors will want to give you a copy and invite you to read it.

Their request provides a good opportunity to discuss the question, “Why read the Book of Mormon?”  When they tell you that it’s God’s message to the world, just as the Bible is, ask them, “But how do we know it is?  How can we be sure?” 

After all, would we trust anyone who hands us something and says it’s the Word of God?  Ask them, “If I wrote out something right now and handed it to you and said, ‘Read this, it’s the Word of God,’ would you believe it?” 

Then explain that the reason we know the Bible is the Word of God is that it comes to us through and from the Church.  The Bible’s table of contents was not written in stone by the finger of God. 

Rather, as many early Christian writings began to be recognized for their importance, it was the teaching authority of the Church, exercised through bishops and popes, that discerned which represented God’s unique and authoritative Word to humanity and which did not. 

Those bishops are the successors of the apostles.  They form a chain that goes all the way back 2,000 years to the men whom Christ himself appointed to lead the Church and to decide such matters.

Point out to your visitors that when they pick up a Bible and believe it to be the Word of God, they’re trusting in the judgment of these Catholic Church leaders from many centuries ago.  In fact, the decisions were actually made by these leaders at a time, according to Mormon teaching, when the authentic Christian Church had disappeared from the earth.

It’s inconsistent, then, for them to accept as Scripture a book designated as such by men they believe were not authentic representatives of Christ and His apostles.  On the other hand, the Book of Mormon does not carry this indispensible seal of approval. 

The Great Apostasy

Third, Mormon missionaries will speak of the Great Apostasy. 

They won’t mention it right away, but this topic will come up sooner or later.  Like Catholics, Mormons believe that Jesus founded a Church and entrusted to the Apostles the authority to lead and teach in his name. 

Unlike Catholics, however, they believe that the Twelve were unable to pass on this authority to others, because it was necessary for all of them to be together, forming a “quorum,” for that to happen.  According to their teaching, after Matthias had succeeded Judas (see Acts 1: 15-26), no one else received that apostolic authority before the Apostles dispersed and later died. 

Consequently, Mormons believe that the authentic Christian faith as it was originally taught by Christ and understood by the Apostles was soon distorted, contaminated, and lost from the earth.  They call this development the Great Apostasy. 

That’s the reason, they say, Christ had to appear to the founder of Mormonism, young Joseph Smith, in upstate New York in the early 19th century.  Mormons believe that through Smith, Christ restored the Church, authentic Christian doctrine, and the authority to teach it to the earth.

The problem with this belief, of course, is that Jesus promised Peter that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church (see Mt. 16:18).  For the Church to disappear from the earth for almost two full millennia would surely seem like major victory for Satan.  

The New Testament also speaks of the Church as “the pillar and foundation of truth,” (1 Tim. 3:15).  Could that statement be considered even close to the truth if the Church were unable to withstand even the initial challenges to passing on its sacred teaching in the first century?

Finally, the Apostles themselves, who were in the best position to know what Jesus taught and intended for his Church, did not share this conception of the passing on of apostolic authority.  We know from authentic historical records that they laid hands on people, that the “quorum” was not an important consideration, and that the Apostles themselves, the men they laid hands on, and the wider Christian community all recognized in this ritual the passing on of apostolic authority to lead and teach the Church.

Other Teachings

Other significant Mormon teachings are worth considering as you craft a Catholic response — for example, the idea that a group of Israelites made their way to the Americas in ancient times, or the teaching that each of us existed in heaven with God long before He decided we were ready to be sent to earth for our lives here. 

Nevertheless, these teachings typically come up only in later conversations with Mormon missionaries.  The ideas we’ve outlined here are more foundational to their faith. 

Accentuate the Positive

Your Mormon guests will almost certainly be genuinely respectful and kind.  They seek to win converts not by demolishing the beliefs of others, but by introducing what they understand to be a better alternative.

So be respectful in return.  An aggressive verbal attack will arouse the same kind of response in them that it would in almost anyone: either defensiveness or a desire to make a quick exit. 

Several aspects of Mormon thinking and living are indeed admirable.  Above all is their willingness to engage in courageous methods of evangelization.  They knock on doors.  If we Catholics were more convinced of the “good news” of our own faith, we might well be doing the same.

Mormons appreciate the importance of truth in a way that most people today, even many Protestant and Catholic Christians, do not (but should).  Few Mormons would make insipid comments such as this: “What’s important is that we’re all sincere in our beliefs, and what’s true for one person may not be true for another.”

They are acutely aware that we can’t all be right in what we believe (because no truth can be contrary to another truth).  They know that if the content of their faith is true, then it is vitally important that others come to understand it.

A final reminder: Don’t expect missionaries to come suddenly to their senses and renounce their Mormon faith in your living room. 

The goal is to plant seeds, offering thoughts that they might consider and perhaps investigate further after they leave your home.  Then leave it to the Spirit to do the cultivating.

(This article was originally published in The Catholic Answer, January/February 2008 issue.)

The Synthesis of All Heresies

The encyclical addressed a heresy known as modernism.  With roots in Protestant biblical scholarship, the key idea of modernism was that the Christian faith had to be understood according to modern ideas about truth and knowledge.  The Church, it suggested, was not as much in the role of teaching truths as it was in the business of providing meaning to people's lives. 

The modernist movement was driven by a group of well-known European thinkers of the late nineteenth century, including the priests Alfred Loisy and George Tyrell, and the layman, Friedrich von Huegel.

"These men were concerned with the question of how to function in a European culture that was increasingly pluralistic and secular," Dr. Russell Reno, professor of theology at Creighton University, recently told Our Sunday Visitor.  "Modernism solves that by separating the inner world of our personal religious experience from the outer world of science and truth.  It says religion provides meaning, but science deals with real truth."

Applying this to doctrines about God, scripture, Jesus, and the Church resulted in a drastic watering down of Church teaching.  If religion is about meaning disconnected from truth, then individual believers are free to invent their own religious concepts.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, modernism had become increasingly influential.

A Papal Response

On July 7, 1907, the Roman Inquisition (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) published Lamentabili Sane with the Pope's approval, a list of 65 modernist ideas that it condemned as "very serious errors." 

Two months later, on September 8, Pope Pius X published the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, subtitled "On the Doctrine of the Modernists."  Condemning modernism as "the sythesis of all heresies," the Pope insisted that modernism "means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion."

The Pope also called for some strong remedies to root out modernist thinking.  Catholic seminary and university teachers were to be investigated and anyone "found to be tainted with Modernism … removed."  All theological study was to be centered around scholasticism, based on the thinking of the great thirteenth century philosopher and theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas.   Starting in 1910, every priest was required to take the Oath against Modernism (a practice which continued until 1967).

"Some rather draconian measures were taken," Reno said.  "In the first half of the twentieth century, anti-modernism became within the Church what anti-Communism was in the United States in the 1950's.  Any theologian who made an effort to explore the idea of faith in the modern world was labeled a modernist." 

As a result, several prominent theologians came under the suspicion of Church authorities.  They included Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Joseph Ratzinger.  Some of them were forbidden to teach or publish their works for several years.

This suspicious atmosphere changed with the opening of the Second Vatican Council.  The same men whose work had been questioned by the Vatican were invited to serve as theological experts at the Council, which explored ways that the Church might interact with the modern world in positive ways.  Congar and de Lubac were eventually made cardinals, and Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI.

"Viewed from a hundred years distance, we can look back and say it was providential that the Church put the brakes on this false solution.  Most alive today didn't live through the period of intense scrutiny and constant suspicion.  But there's a generation of priests, who are retired today, who tend to remember the harsh methods."

Meanwhile, some observers have argued that modernism was never completely defeated and that it is still influences the faith of Catholics today.

"If modernism means everyone gets to make their own definition of God, then there are a lot of modernists out there today," Reno said.

"The spiritual life of the faithful can greatly benefit from a better appreciation of the richness of the anaphora [another term for the Eucharistic prayer]," writes the Pope.  "Its importance deserves to be adequately emphasized." 

Because they hear this prayer every time they attend Mass, Catholics might easily take it for granted or even ignore it.  But the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the Church's official instruction manual for the celebration of the Eucharist, calls the Eucharistic prayer "the center and summit of the entire celebration."

So what is the Eucharistic prayer?  And why does the Pope believe that all Catholics need to understand it better?

The Church's Prayer

The Eucharistic prayer is prayed from the altar by the priest celebrating Mass.  It begins immediately after the prayer over the gifts, with a familiar dialogue between priest and people ("The Lord be with you."  "And also with you."  "Lift up your hearts."  "We lift them up to the Lord.").

It concludes with the doxology ("Through him, with him, and in him…") and the "Great Amen" of the people.  In between are the preface, Sanctus, prayers of thanksgiving, an epiclesis, the consecration, a prayer of offering, and prayers of intercession.  (See below.)

The entire prayer has crucial significance to the worship, spirituality, and identity of every Catholic.  The Eucharistic prayer, though prayed aloud almost entirely by the priest alone, is truly the prayer of the whole Church — meaning Christ and his body of which all the faithful are members.

That's why the entire congregation joins into the three acclamations — the Sanctus, memorial acclamation, and "Great Amen" at its conclusion.  It is also why the words the priest prays are addressed neither to the people nor to Jesus, but to God the Father.  In the Eucharistic prayer, the Church prays and offers itself to the Father with Christ and in Christ.

"Christ is presented once more to the Father, together with the prayers which we as Church offer alongside his infinite sacrifice," Father Edward McNamara, LC, professor of liturgy at Rome's Regina Apostolorum University, told OSV recently.

"In doing this we renew the covenant sealed in his blood and continue to establish the community of those who form God's people through participation in this sacrifice."

With this understanding of the Eucharistic prayer, the real meaning of participation at Mass, so strongly emphasized in recent years, becomes clearer.  To participate at Mass is never simply to pay attention, to sing and respond, or to make a financial offering.  Rather, true participation at Mass means offering ourselves with Jesus to the Father.

Hence the Second Vatican Council, in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, could speak of the participation of the lay faithful at Mass in this way:

[B]y offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all (section 48).

"Someone who enters deeply into the spirituality of the Eucharistic prayer is learning to pray as the Church prays," Fr. McNamara said.  "The prayer contains almost every form of Christian prayer: praise, thanksgiving, confession of faith, petition for the needs of ourselves and others.

"It also encapsulates the fundamentals of our loving relationship with God — creation, redemption, covenant — which in turn inculcate the essential attitudes of a Christian life, humility and charity."

A Rich History

Priests have the option of using four main Eucharistic prayers when they celebrate Mass.  In the Sacramentary, the book of prayers used at Mass, they are numbered I, II, III, and IV.

Besides these, there are also two special Eucharistic prayers on the theme of Reconciliation, three more intended to be used in Masses for children, and four others "for various needs and occasions."  But such variety has not always been the case.

Of course, the first Eucharist was offered by Jesus at the Last Supper, on the night before his crucifixion.  As a Passover meal, that Eucharist included important prayers to be prayed and meanings to be conveyed.  So the Eucharistic prayer has roots that go back many centuries before even Christ.  At the Last Supper, Jesus gave the words new meaning and a central place in the life of the Christian Church forever.

In the first centuries of the Church, there was no official "script" that had to be recited by priests who celebrated Mass.  The Eucharistic prayer was prayed spontaneously, though certain themes and words were always expected to be included.

Our first record of a written Eucharistic prayer is one composed by St. Hippolytus around 215 AD.  But Hippolytus introduces his prayer by acknowledging that priests in his day ad libbed their own; his concern was that they did so according to the tradition form, rather than aberrations that apparently had begun to appear.

This same concern for avoiding what was not traditional led to a written Eucharistic prayer which the priest was required to read verbatim, as is the case today.  Though a variety of prayers were used in various places at first, one prayer was preferred above all others by the fifth century.

Known as the Roman Canon, this Eucharistic prayer soon became normative throughout the entire Church.  For more than 1500 years, it was the only Eucharistic prayer used throughout the world, right up until the Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969.

"[The Roman Canon's] stability and sacredness in a way marked the lives of generations of priests, allowing them to feel in a special way the entrance into the communion of saints," Fr. McNamara said.

"It also gave a certain stability to society.  It was something constant and recognizable.  Even if the laity did not hear or understand the prayer, they knew they were before the great mystery of faith."

Changes after Vatican II

The Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Liturgy did not call for new Eucharistic prayers or even a revision of the Roman Canon.  But as the work of liturgical renewal progressed following the Council, this became one of the topics under consideration by the Consilium, the Vatican committee entrusted with the task of reform.

Though initially hesitant, Pope Paul VI gave the Consilium permission in 1966 to compose new Eucharistic prayers to be considered for use.  (In truth, dozens of unauthorized new prayers were already being illicitly used in many countries throughout the world, particularly in Holland, France, and the United States.)

One new prayer that the Consilium presented to the Pope was a revision of Hippolytus' ancient Eucharistic prayer.  In the new Missal, it became Eucharistic Prayer II.  It is the shortest and simplest of the four main prayers in use, and certainly the one most often heard at Catholic Masses today.

Two other new prayers drew on different aspects of the Church's liturgical history.

Eucharistic Prayer III is the most modern composition, though it draws on several elements of Eastern rite liturgy.  Since it can be used with any of dozens of different prefaces, it is well suited for the various Sundays and feast days of the year.

Eucharistic Prayer IV draws even more strongly on Eastern traditions.  This is especially evident in the prayer's beautiful summary of salvation history.  This is the longest prayer of the four, and probably the one least often heard in parishes today.

The Roman Canon was retained almost exactly as it had been and, like the others, could now be prayed in the vernacular.  Among its many noteworthy aspects, its invocation of the prayers of many saints is particularly distinctive.  It became known as Eucharistic Prayer I.

"The different Eucharistic Prayers contained in the Missal have been handed down to us by the Church's living Tradition and are noteworthy for their inexhaustible theological and spiritual richness," the Pope wrote in Sacramentum Caritatis. 

It should be no wonder, then, that he insists, "The faithful need to be enabled to appreciate that richness."

The Parts of the Eucharistic Prayer

Though the Eucharistic prayers used at Mass today are different in many ways, they all share eight basic parts in common.

THANKSGIVING:  The Church offers praise and thanksgiving to God.  Thanksgiving is so important to Christian worship that it became known by that name very early: the Greek word for thanksgiving is eucharistia.

ACCLAMATION:  Joining into the song of the angels themselves before the throne of God (see Isaiah 6:2 and Revelation 4:8), the people sing, "Holy, holy, holy Lord!…"

EPICLESIS:  The priest asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit, so that the bread and wine may become the Body and Blood of Christ. 

INSTITUTION NARRATIVE:  The priest repeats the words of Jesus ("This is my body…. This is my blood"), and the consecration of the gifts takes place.

ANAMNESIS:  The Church recalls the suffering, death, and Resurrection of Jesus for our salvation.

OFFERING:  The faithful offer Jesus, as well as themselves, to the Father in heaven.

INTERCESSIONS:  The Church asks for the prayers of the saints and prays for the dead who are in need of prayers.

FINAL DOXOLOGY:  The Church glorifies the Holy Trinity, concluding with the great "Amen!" of all the people.  

Don't get me wrong.  My students could not be characterized as a group of staunch pro-life advocates. Truth be told, most of them, when asked, will tell you that abortion should be legal. Even the ones who say they would not personally choose to have an abortion are unwilling to deny other people the right to choose one.

In a society where tolerance is the most important virtue (and sometimes the only one), the only moral outrage many of them are willing to express is against the suggestion that we can make objective moral judgments about the choices that someone else makes.

But for partial birth abortion, they've been willing to make an exception.

During our unit on abortion (one part of an entire year of eleventh grade Religion class dedicated to the topic of morality), I describe to my students the various methods of abortion.  My research for this segment is intentionally drawn from objective medical and explicitly "pro-choice" resources, in order to avoid the criticism that I present the information so as to intentionally make abortion sound horrible.

The students' response to learning about partial birth abortion is always a strong one. Even the most jaded, pro-choice students are rattled by the reality of partial birth abortion. Almost all students find it almost incomprehensible that the procedure could be legal in our nation.

That's because it's a grisly procedure and never done for medical reasons. No mother's life or health is saved by partial birth abortion. No teen is spared the humiliation of pregnancy, no woman able to avoid carrying an unwanted baby in her womb throughout a long pregnancy, by partial birth abortion.

Not even the dry, legal, morally neutral language of the United States Supreme Court is able to veil the horror of partial birth abortion (or, you will notice, that of any other abortion for that matter). The April 18 ruling, referring to partial birth abortion as "intact D&E," describes it in this way:

[In most abortion procedures,] [t]he fetus is usually ripped apart as it is removed, and the doctor may take 10 to 15 passes to remove it in its entirety…. [I]n intact D&E a doctor extracts the fetus intact or largely intact with only a few passes, pulling out its entire body instead of ripping it apart. In order to allow the head to pass through the cervix, the doctor typically pierces or crushes the skull.

That's why Congress was able to pass, with bipartisan support, several bans on partial birth abortion in the 1990's. But President Bill Clinton vetoed every one.

That's also why, given Clinton's vetoes, some states passed bans on the procedure around the same time. But in 2000, in Stenberg v. Carhart, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that to ban partial birth abortion was unconstitutional.

To be fair, the Court's ruling was consistent. If U.S. abortion law makes sense, so does legal access to partial birth abortion.  The editors of National Review put it well: "There is indeed something irrational about concluding that a method of killing a seven-month-old fetus should depend on the location of his foot."

In 2003, despite the Court's ruling, Congress passed another partial birth abortion ban, and President George W. Bush did not veto it. This provided a bit of contradiction in U.S. law. The Supreme Court had said you can't ban it, and then Congress banned it.

Last year, the Court agreed to take another look at their 2000 ruling, and the result was the April 18 Gonzales v. Carhart decision. Partial birth abortion is now illegal in the United States of America.

I'll tell you one more thing about high school students, even in a Catholic school.  It's sometimes difficult to get them to quiet themselves and be attentive to even a brief moment of prayer at the beginning of a class session.

On April 19, I opened class by telling them about the Supreme Court's decision.  After the applause and some discussion, I suggested a moment of prayer that included thanksgiving to God for the ruling.  I saw several students nod at the idea.  What followed was one of the most cooperative moments of prayer I have had all year.

It's a prayer we should all offer this day.  There is still far to go in the struggle for the full recognition of the right to life of all persons in America.  Still, a significant victory has been won.

Abortion is currently illegal in Britain after six months' gestation, except where there is substantial risk of fetal abnormality or to save the mother from death or permanent injury. In a June meeting with Britain’s health minister, Murphy-O’Connor proposed that the legal limit be drawn back even earlier.

I’m not familiar with political discourse in England, but I know the kinds of objections to such thinking that pop up immediately in the United States: “There is a separation between Church and state, which means that the Church has no business trying to impose its religious beliefs on people through civil laws.”

As someone memorably said to me once, while explaining this: “This is America, not Jesusland.”

In a nation where the line between Church and state is sharply drawn, it might sound compelling. Who, after all, wants to be accused of forcing their faith on someone else? But it’s not a legitimate argument, and we should understand (and be able to explain) why.

Opposition to legal abortion is no more a “religious” position than opposition to slavery or rape or murder. It is, rather, promoting human dignity and human rights. We are all obligated to respect these, not because they are part of any church’s doctrine, but because they are part of what we call natural law. That is, there are certain truths that every person can and should understand, simply by being human and living among other humans.

Civil law exists in order to make sure (to the extent that it’s possible) that people respect these rights, to impose upon them the obligation to respect them, if you want to put it that way.

Immediate objection #1: “Yes, but not everyone agrees that abortion is wrong. You can't even think about laws against abortion in the country where we don't all agree it's a human rights issue.”

Common sense answer: Balderdash!

Fergus Bordewich’s recent masterful history of the Underground Railroad, Bound for Canaan, reports that some nineteenth century slave-owners objected to abolishing slavery because doing so would deprive Americans of one of their fundamental rights, that is, to own a slave. (It sounds a lot like pro-choice arguments about “reproductive freedom.”)

Should we have waited to outlaw slavery until everyone agreed it was wrong? If we had done that, it probably never would have happened, or at least would have happened decades or centuries after it did.

A thing is wrong if it offends human dignity and tramples human rights, regardless of who thinks it does or does not. And if you're the one whose rights are being trampled, it really does not matter how many people “agree” that it's happening.

Common objection #2: “Even if we outlaw abortion, some women will still want them. So instead of abortions being performed legally and safely, you’ll have unsafe abortions. We must at least protect women who will seek abortions.”

Common sense answer: Murders of all kinds happen frequently. Sadly, we can say the same for rape, child abuse, and domestic violence. We don’t seriously want to eliminate laws against these actions because “people are going to do them anyway,” do we?

The fact that something will happen despite our laws is no justification for eliminating the laws against it. Laws are intended to deter people who might otherwise fail to respect our rights and dignity, and to punish those who insist upon it anyway.

There will continue to be plenty of women (and men) in desperate situations if we limit legal access to abortion. These are people who need and deserve the help of society, government, and churches. It is certainly within our means to continue to develop positive solutions, ones that do not involve the killing of innocent and helpless “bystanders.”

This is America, not Jesusland. But America’s greatness lies in its tradition of profound respect for the rights and dignity of all its people. We have, when we’re at our best, stood as a beacon and a challenge to other nations in this regard. Our most tragic moments have come when we have forgotten that high calling.

© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange

Barry Michaels is the author of Eucharist: The Church's Treasure (Pauline, 2004) and At the School of Mary (Pauline, 2004), both prayer and study companions to documents of Pope John Paul II. His third book, New Novenas for New Saints, will be published by Pauline Books in spring 2007. Barry's blog, Cloud of Witnesses, can be found at www.barrymichaels.blogspot.com.