Triple Bypass
C. N. Sue Abromaitis on Rhetorical Evasions of the Pro-Life Imperative
For over three decades I have watched with increasing grief and incredulity the efforts by various leaders of the Catholic Church to paper over the material and formal cooperation with evil of Catholic politicians who support the death of the innocent under the guise of a concern for women and a respect for personal freedom and the law of the land. (The principles will apply to other churches with pro-choice politicians, though they will have their own disciplinary arrangements and problems.)
The most pernicious and successful evasions of the obligations to call evil by its name and to exercise the required discipline of the church have been the mantra “personally opposed but” and the metaphor “the seamless garment.” Now there is another method for papering over the support by Catholic politicians for abortion: the transformationist alternative to either separationist or interventionist positions.
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C. N. Sue Abromaitis is Professor of English at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland.
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