Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Most Christians are familiar with this phrase; the last words of Jesus after his crucifixion.  For as long as I’ve been a Christian and studied the Bible, I’ve often wondered how it was that a man like Pontius Pilate, a powerful man in Roman occupied Palestine, could find Jesus innocent and yet condemn him to a brutal death. Pilate certainly had the power to do whatever he wanted, even if he found someone guilty.  He could have easily ordered Jesus to be released, taken him in for protection, or sent him out of the area.  But, he did not do it.  Why? 

You may be wondering where am I going with this since this is a blog on pro-life apologetics.  Well, I’ve come to realize that our current culture resembles, to a large extent, Pontius Pilate when it comes to defending or opposing abortion.  Like Pilate, we’ve found that the unborn is innocent and a human from conception (science confirms this - it is no longer just a religious claim), we know that the unborn is a baby, but we simply choose to ignore that he/she has any rights. We refer to abortion as “a woman’s health issue,” or “a woman’s choice to do with her body as she wants.” The Supreme Court in the Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973 claimed that the unborn had no legal rights.  Our politicians refer to abortion as a “Constitutional right” even though you will not find it anywhere in the Constitution. 

In a speech delivered in Atlanta over the weekend, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared that banning abortion “would have a devastating impact on poor women.” Bader’s suggestion, that abortion is a solution to the problems of poor women, is on a par with Jonathan Swift’s long-ago solution to the Irish poverty problem in his essay, A Modest Proposal. But at least Swift was writing satire. 

Back to Pontius Pilate.  I asked the question earlier as to why Pilate refused to release Jesus even though he found him innocent of all charges.  The answer is that Pilate was a politically correct man and politics itself played a part in this bizarre decision.  Pilate wanted to please the masses; he wanted not to rock the boat.  If Pilate failed to condemn Jesus he would have had to face the wrath of the local people as well as to his superiors, if the local people rebeled.  So Pilate took the easy road and went with the flow – he condemned an innocent man for political expediency.  Pilate lacked the courage to act on what he believed.  The Jews of the day took advantage of this cowardice on Pilate's part by playing on his fear of his Roman superiors.  They taunted him by saying:  “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar.”  Boy, that hurts. They played with Pilate as if he was a fine violin.  He was under their control. 

Pilate looks just like our current day culture.  He even looks like our own Christian brothers and sisters who are pro-choice or who just don’t want to “offend anyone” if they speak out on the fate of 1.5 million dead babies each year in the United States alone.  This is a hard statement and some of you may be offended by it.  It is not my intention to offend anyone.  My sole object in this blog is to speak to truth and reality. Some truth and some reality are hard.  If anything I say here are not true I would appreciate hearing from you and will correct any misstatements happily. 

Did Pilate’s strategy work with his superiors?  A few years after Jesus was crucified Pontius Pilate was recalled to Rome in disgrace.  Political correctness did not work for him.  

Reasonable people like our friends and neighbors are looking the other way.  They do not want to alienate others who think that an unborn has any rights or is not a human or not a person.  They look at the crowd and say, I better not “offend” any of these people or they will not vote for me next time or they may be mad at me for it.  I will keep the peace by saying nothing or going with the flow.  This is the biggest, most puzzling issue.  I understand why Pilate did what he did but I do not agree with it and think it is the cowardly thing to do.  But then, what do I know?  I’m sure that some of my pro-choice brothers and sisters are smarter than me.

Since the day I became pro-life in the early 1990s, I’ve continually asked a rhetorical question:  If the Church is really pro-life why is it that it does little or nothing to promote and defend the pro-life position?  By “Church” I mean the entire Christian Church, whether Catholic or Protestant.  What I write here is mainly influenced by my experience in both the Catholic and Protestant Church and our modern day culture.  I will discuss how the Catholic and the Protestant Church have failed in this respect and then I will provide, what I consider, the reason why.

 Some of you, after reading this introduction, will quickly object and question this statement.  After all, the Catholic Church is very strongly pro-life and has been since the beginning and so are many Protestant Churches. That is absolutely true.  The Catholic Church has written brilliantly and forcefully on the pro-life side.  There are many Protestant Churches and organizations, such as Focus on the Family, that are strongly pro-life.  No argument there.  So why do I say that Church does little or nothing to promote pro-life?  Let me begin with the Catholic Church.

If you look at the writings of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, for instance, you will find a plethora of brilliantly written and forcefully convincing writings defending and promoting the pro-life position - a wonderful apologetic on the dignity of life.  But here is the crux of the situation:  Although the Catholic Church teaches the pro-life message very strongly in its writings and by its bishops, you will rarely, if ever, hear this message proclaimed from the parish pulpit or promoted in the media, or for that matter, by Catholic Priests themselves. Most of these writings are unknown to regular Catholics; they are a well-kept secret, if you will.

My experience has been that most Catholic clergy treat the pro-life issue as if it was a modern-day leprosy – they will not touch it. There are a few who will speak out in church but these are rare indeed.     Many priests, as far as I know, are pro-life but few will dare speak out in church on this subject, or anywhere else.   One exception to this is, Fr. Frank Pavone, who is the Director of Priests for Life, a national organization out of Amarillo, Texas.  Fr. Pavone started a religious community called the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life whose sole mission is to preach the pro-life message.

If you look at a list of the most prominent pro-choice politicians, you will find many are Catholic: Democratic Senators Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy, John Kerry - the list is endless.  These men are openly, and brazenly defiant toward the Church’s pro-life position.  I know of not one occasion when any of these men have ever been publicly rebuked by the Church for promoting liberal abortion policies such as partial birth abortion.  I keep asking myself why not?  Why is the Church afraid of publicly proclaiming and defending its teachings regarding the dignity of life?  On more than a few occasions, my pro-life friends and I have been told by pro-choice people that  “pro-lifers” are one-issue advocates and that there are more important things to consider such as poverty and the minimum wage.  This is the mantra of the religious left.  If you want confirmation of this you must read an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal published on October 16, 2007 by Steven Malanga, called "The Rise of the Religious Left."

In the war in Iraq we’ve lost about 1,000 men per year and the country is clamoring very publicly and loudly to end the war now and withdraw all troops; at this same time 1.5 million babies are killed each year in the United States alone and only a few are concerned about this death rate and most of the country could care less.  Poverty and the minimum wage are more important than this?  How many people died of poverty in the United States in one year?  Where is the logic?

The failure of the Church to rebuke these pro-choice Catholic politicians can only be considered a tacit approval of their position and an encouragement, or affirmation to pro-choice Catholics.  In the 1970s and 1980s a Catholic Jesuit Priest, Father Robert F. Drinan, served as a Congressman from Massachusetts and was openly pro-abortion, in open defiance of Church teaching. The Church never rebuked him for this.  Pope John Paul II ordered him to leave Congress, saying it was incompatible with being a priest – not for this pro-abortion position.   Fr. Drinan went so far as to defend President Clinton’s veto of a Partial Birth Abortion Ban law passed by Congress twice in his term.  The silence from the Church was, and is still today, deafening. 

Earlier this year Pope Benedict XVI, on a trip to Brazil, condemned the Mexico City politicians who voted to approve abortion through the third trimester, saying that such politicians have excommunicated themselves from the Church.  When the Vatican was pressed for a clarification on this later, they backed down and said that individual bishops may exclude such politicians from communion – no excommunication.  Again, why is the Church afraid to stand its ground on such clearly moral issues especially when its own Catechism calls for excommunication for such evil? If you have rules that are never enforced why have them? Again, where is the logic?  

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2272) plainly states that abortion is an evil that deserves excommunication from the Church.  But the Church, to my knowledge, has never excommunicated any pro-choice advocates, even when it is done openly, publicly and defiantly as the Senators mentioned earlier have done.  Many Catholic politicians sneer at the Church with reckless abandon and wear their pro-choice position as a badge of honor.  A prominent California Catholic politician, Fabian Nuñez, went so far as to say recently that he wanted to “challenge the Church” on euthanasia and co-sponsored a euthanasia bill in the California Legislature (AB 374), in defiance of the Church opposition to this measure.  Cardinal Roger Mahony, to his credit, came out in the media to denounce him on this.   The bill eventually died in committee.  One of the Democratic politicians who co-sponsored the bill commented later that the bill failed, in part, due to the opposition of the Catholic Church.  But this is a very rare example of the Church leaders actually challenging politicians on pro-choice matters.  Cardinal Mahony, as far as I know, has never made any statements to the media denouncing pro-abortion politicians, for instance.  Many of these same politicians are his closest friends, such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  On the contrary, he has made many public statements to the media defending illegal immigrants and illegal immigration in general. 

The Protestant Church has not been a strong supporter of pro-life issues either.  It was, mainly, through the efforts of Dr. James Dobson, the founder and leader of Focus on the Family, that more Protestants have had the courage to tackle the pro-life issue.  In eight years that I attended a Protestant Church, not once did I hear a pro-life message in any service.  A prominent Protestant Minister and best-selling author, Rick Warren, who has one of the largest churches in America, has even criticized Christians whom he says concentrate too much on pro-life issues instead of the poor.  I heard him on a TV interview making this statement and sent him an e-mail asking if he was pro-life.  A staff member responded that he was.  

If you watch the popular TBN television network or other Protestant preachers on television, you never hear any pro-life messages.  They also avoid this subject like the plague.  I’ve listened to Christian radio, KKLA FM in Los Angeles, for years.  I’ve never heard any pro-life messages, other than from Dr. Dobson.  An exception would be a program dedicated specifically to pro-life such as Fr. Frank Pavone’s radio show on Sundays at 3:00 PM on this station.  So, in summary, both Protestant and Catholic Churches have failed to proclaim and teach the pro-life message publicly. 

Why is the Church so afraid of the pro-life message?  The simple answer is that the Church has caved in and adopted the ways of our popular culture which embraces moral relativism, for the most part.  Priests and Ministers are afraid to “offend” the pro-choice crowd in their churches. They avoid anything that can be considered “controversial.”  Moral issues, apparently, can now be considered controversial too.  We have also embraced modern tolerance.   In an article called “The Intolerance of Tolerance” Greg Kokul hits the nail on the head on the modern definition of tolerance:  “The tolerant person allegedly occupies neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where each person is permitted to decide for himself. No judgments allowed. No "forcing" personal views. That all views are equally valid is one of the most entrenched assumptions of a society committed to relativism. And it's a myth.” 

The decisive question today is not is it right or wrong, but “will it offend someone”?  This is the same as in our society today.  So a public school, for example, will not allow the word “Jesus” to be said at any time and in any context.  Why?  Because someone “may be offended by it".  

So, our modern day paradigm is no longer what is right or wrong, it is will it offend someone.  If this question can be answered yes, then the pro-life message will be muzzled.  Right and wrong no longer has any importance; political correctness rules the day. 

Another puzzling question is how did the other side come to hold virtual veto power over moral issues?  If a pro-life person, or a Christian, for example, were offended by something, they do not count, but if a pro-choice person or a non-Christian is offended then they have the power to shut down any discussion.  How did this come about?  You guessed it – popular culture rules. 

I started this article by asking myself a rhetorical question; if the Church is pro-life why does it do so little to defend it?  I end by asking another rhetorical question of the Church:  When it comes to defending life, whom do you want to please, man or God?