Standing on principle

Not much to say here other than a note to our Congresspeople. This is what is called principle, core, a belief system. Read and learn.

Mary Ann Glendon has announced that she will not accept the Laetare Medal– the highest honor conferred by the University of Notre Dame– at this year’s commencement exercises.

Glendon– the Harvard Law professor who recently stepped down from her post as US ambassador to the Holy See– has indicated that she decided to decline the Laetare Medal because of her concerns about the commencement address that will be delivered by President Barack Obama. In an April 27 letter to Father John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, she wrote that a prospect “that once seemed so delightful has been complicated” by the Obama appearance and by Notre Dame’s response to criticism from the American bishops.

Editorial: A note to those of you who may not understand why she would take this stand and why I blog so frequyently on this. We believe that life begins at conception and as such we believe that this is not a Republican or conservative stance, a political stance, but a moral one and as such cannot be compromised. We see it not so much a defense of life position but defense of a helpless and defenseless human being. For some of you, that it is difficult to understand I know. For others, it is a stance sure to drive you away. But I and others have little choice. We either belive or we don’t and if we do, then it is incumbant upon us to speak up, never to berate or condemn the opinion of others, but rather to change the opinion of others so that we create a culture of life across the spectrum of humnanity allowing people to change thier outlook and attitude toward life.

I cannot speak for others, only myself. Changing laws does little to change attitude. It only drives people into the underground. It is my hope that attitudes on both sides of this argument will change so that those who are pro choice will come to naturally choose life and those who call themselves prolife will understand that the argument does not end in Congress but only when there is a full acceptance and understanding of those who may find themselves having to deal with what they might consider to be a very difficult and very personal matter.

Unless those who are prolife extend themselves in a truly loving way to help, until attitudes about pregnancy are changed in society and until we all come to truly accept pregnancy as life and not a political football, no change in law, no legislation, no edict will end the practice of terminating a life. It will only force women to hide in shame or worse … react in defiance, dangerous for the mother and child.

As Mother Theresa often said, here more than anywhere else. love is the answer. It is.