On abortion, the contraceptive attitude and the culture of death . . . I fear that we see the tip of the iceberg with 20/20 vision but not that great mass of ice beneath the water which upholds it and without which it would be far less formidable. What lies beneath the frigid water is the faith, hope and love that has gone cold among Christians all over the world. Self-less love is contagious. From the all alone Jesus on the Cross in that little backwater of Roman civilization in Palestine, to the Twelve Apostles. The single “Amen” of the little Virgin Mary to the angel Gabriel. If there was enough Christian faith, hope and love in America, then that tragic travesty of justice of Roe v Wade wouldn’t matter. Abortion “clinics” would go out of business if no one used them. The Scholastic theologians said that evil is nothing positive but only the privation of a due good. We see the privation of due good in the unjust law of Roe v Wade. We see the privation is the unjust laws of President Obama. This is the tip of the iceberg. What about the privation of the due good of faith, hope and selfless love that causes millions to go along the path of the devil? This is the part of the iceberg, the 90% of the iceberg that is underwater.

We are the salt of the earth and we have gone bad. We are not just victims of evil, we are perpetrators. To say we are not makes us liars. We cannot just blame “the other guy.” By saying “yes” to the grace of God, do I bring so much faith, hope and selfless love into the world that even one doubting, hopeless, scared girl will have enough faith, hope and love to say “yes” to the little life that is growing in her womb? No I don’t. Nietzschean secular humanism doesn’t stand a chance against strong faith, hope and love. “Thy Kingdom without abortion and euthanasia come.” “Thy will that includes the sanctity of life be done on earth as it is in Heaven with the angels.” But God does His work through us. How can we prevent a woman from giving up their own children to the grave when we will not even try to climb out of the grave of sin with God’s grace, through penance and the Sacraments? We can blame Original Sin and the sins of everybody else all we want and we can go to bed at night and say: “yes, Jesus we are on your side.” But like Bishop Gracida said in another place, “Christianity is not like some spectator sport where we cheer the team from the sidelines.” Would I be willing to walk up to a pregnant girl considering abortion and say to her: “If you have that baby I will support you and him or her for the rest of your lives?” Outrageous you say. That crazy, outrageous love is what we see on the cross in Jesus.

Our cold Christianity has created a cold world where the devil is quite at home. At the Last Judgment, is Jesus going to know us? Is He going to be able to recognize us? The fetus in the womb is hungry for love and so is the mother and father considering abortion. They both thirst for the strength of hope. The womb of the unwanted fetus is not a home but a prison holding an innocent unjustly condemned to death and awaiting execution. And the mother and father are also in a kind of prison. Do we visit them and comfort them? The little unborn fetus is a stranger to the world. And in a way the parents who don’t want that child are strangers to faith, hope and love in their world. Do we bring any of them faith, hope and love?

The part of the iceberg we don’t see is the cold world which we have created and tolerated in our own coldness. May God give us the grace to warm up this cold cold world.