Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
Father Don Wolf, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, offers a Catholic perspective on the issues confronting each person today.
Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
December 29, 2024 | "Navigating a Post-Roe World"
The episode invites listeners to reflect on the pressing moral dilemmas regarding abortion, IVF, and euthanasia while considering our cultural understanding of life and choice. It highlights the shifts in societal attitudes and political discussions, urging a critical examination of personal beliefs and community actions.
• Reflecting on the significance of the New Year for self-evaluation and community values
• The rise of abortion as a hot topic in national conversations
• Shifts from viewing abortion as a regrettable necessity to asserting a personal right
• The moral complexities surrounding IVF and the value of embryos
• The dangerous normalization of euthanasia and its implications
• Highlighting positive developments in grassroots Church activities and engagement
• Encouragement to seek meaningful action in support of life choices
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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.
This is Living Catholic with Fr Don Wolfe. Living Catholic is a fresh look at issues confronting each of us today. This show deals with living Catholic, what that means for Catholics, as well as the impact on the rest of society. You certainly don't have to be Catholic to enjoy this show. And now your host, Fr Don Wolfe to enjoy this show.
Speaker 1:And now your host, fr Don Wolfe. Welcome Oklahoma to Living Catholic. I'm Fr Don Wolfe, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. Now that we've arrived at the end of the year, it's time to do the little reprise of where we stand as of now. There's nothing like beginning the year for all of us to take the time to think of ourselves and to evaluate what we're up to. That's why gym membership peaks at this time of year, and no doubt even libraries have a larger crowd than normal. People are interested in making themselves better, and the first of the year is the easy turning point. So why not? Did you know? We've chosen January 1st as the beginning of our year. But there's nothing special about that enumeration. Neither January nor the 1st are the special when it comes to measuring the start date for the coming year.
Speaker 1:It used to be that in England and its possessions the New Year began on this March 25th, and that lasted until 1752. So imagine when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were born, their parents celebrated the new year at the end of March Something hard to get our mind around beginning at any old time. We're so ingrained with the sense of New Year's Day as we normally think of it. But through some grand decree or some civilizational moment we could alter when our new year begins and nothing would really change except for that first year. I think it would be splendid if we began on June the 15th. Of course we'd have to decide whether on that first year the year ran six months longer or was only six months long, which is a long way to say that we can begin any project or mark our lives by any measure, as long as we want to signal a true beginning. It's all up to us. But whatever we do, it's appropriate to look back over how we've gotten here, to understand our direction and where we're likely to go from here. That's what the prophets of Israel were famous for. They weren't so much empowered to look into a crystal ball's what the prophets of Israel were famous for. They weren't so much empowered to look into a crystal ball and see the future revealed as much as they could look around and see what was happening and could draw their conclusions about what would follow on. We might do the same.
Speaker 1:There are some negative things to notice. The first to note is the astounding rise in our national conversation about abortion. I'll do an entire reflection about abortion in January, when we get closer to the March for Life. But suffice it to say abortion had a depressingly lively presence in the election this year. Rather than it becoming a less potent part of the political discussion in our national conversation, it has become even more present than in the past. It's not surprising that it has, I guess.
Speaker 1:After all, the Supreme Court decision changing the disposition of abortion took away the federal protection of the practice to make it a state issue, so all the argumentation and vitriol moved to state decision-making, at least when it came to making laws and providing access. In individual states there was a good deal of acrimony. As the proposals for laws were discussed and debated. Each state was able to decide on the legislation they deemed appropriate. While there was no national consensus about the issue as a moral choice, each legislature pursued its understanding and provided for the practice of its people according to the will of the people. This had been anticipated in the years leading up to the change brought about by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1:The Catholic position has always been that abortion is wrong because the killing of the innocent in whatever justification is wrong, and the Catholic Church in each state worked to enact its understanding in its own jurisdiction. In some cases it was successful, in other states no. But there are those states now in which abortion is unlawful, and this is progress in pursuing what is moral and just. However, the discussion about abortion has changed its tenor. For those who advocate for its legality, this year has been a change in the direction of its justification. In previous years, abortion was defended as a necessary last resort, a final possibility for those who are not able to, or who are unwilling to, sustain a pregnancy and raise a child. In this mode of justification, abortion was a sad but necessary aspect of modern life. In defense of its presence in society, it was regarded as utterly important, since there had to be some means of escape for those who are faced with the difficult choices of bringing a child into the world. It was one more tough aspect of the hard truth of our modern situation. But these days the conversation has changed. Abortion, in the national political discussion, has now become enshrined and envisioned as a personal right, one that ought to be guaranteed to every woman because of her presumptive right to the life she wants.
Speaker 1:At the moment, in this point of view, any limit on the practice is regarded as interfering with her right and is therefore thought to be impermissible. Even in states that permitted abortion, a great deal of political action was focused on resisting any limitations, whether of intent or time span, so there would be nothing to interfere in any way with the practice of this right by anyone. Abortion was described in absolute terms, with the particular laws about abortion devolving to the states. Even the rather mild limits of European nations are regarded as unacceptable. Most countries in the world that permit abortion have a 12 to 16-week limit. After that, the practice is generally prohibited. Thus, about two-thirds of the states in the United States have joined China and North Korea as the grisly jurisdictions permitting the destruction of the child in the womb up to the very moment of delivery.
Speaker 1:Perhaps the most distressing part of these discussions is that they were taking place as part of the national political conversations in the presidential elections, and none of the candidates expressed any hesitation in supporting abortion legislation. While it is indeed not a national decision, there seemed to be no national voice anywhere in any party willing to decry the awfulness of these conversations or the terrible outcomes and products of this practice. Of course, politicians saw what they must in order to mark out a path to election, and we who speak of moral choices are also not in the habit of doing the heavy lifting of enacting political agenda. But it was depressing to hear so much said so cavalierly concerning the right to destroy innocent life for any reason or no reason, with hardly any hesitation or anxiety, and this happened in both political parties, from both major candidates. Of course, I do have to note when, speaking this way, those who promoted abortion without restriction were actually validating the Catholic position in a manner of speaking.
Speaker 1:That is, our position is that abortion is the unjust killing of the innocent, no matter when it takes place. It doesn't matter whether it's in the first trimester or the third, whether the life extinguished looks like a cute baby on ultrasound or seems to be hardly bigger than a blob of cells the size of a lima bean. There is no bright line of being in which that which we all once were is not subject of our defense simply because it doesn't happen to look congenial to us or isn't as endearing as we might like. It doesn't happen to look congenial to us or isn't as endearing as we might like. Killing a baby in its mother's womb is as morally reprehensible in the first month as in the ninth, although we do also understand that there is an undeniable horror associated with those who would claim the right to destroy, legally and without penalty, that child in the birth canal who, in the next moment, having passed through it, would be regarded as an untouchable example of the glory of a mother's love. The worst part of the contemporary discussion is that the conversation has moved in the direction of the fulsome, undeniable, unhidden and frank affirmation of overt killing, without any misdirection, obfuscation or concern. That's depressing.
Speaker 1:The next negative part of the world, as we know it, also comes from the campaign trail. It was disturbing to hear of IVF, that is, in vitro fertilization, being tossed about as if it were of no moral concern. It has become popular to speak of the creation of a child in a petri dish as a valid way to assure a couple's right to have a child. In society at large. What was once considered an extraordinary appeal to technology is now spoken of as simply one more possibility for couples to consider as they face the hurdle of satisfying their hunger for offspring. It's all the more ironic that this discussion takes place at the same time and in the same space as the affirmation of unrestricted abortion rights same space as the affirmation of unrestricted abortion rights.
Speaker 1:That the moral issue of our time concerning founding life and extinguishing it happens in the context of political discussion is telling. It seems to indicate we don't mind talking about giving and taking life in empty platitudes and in mindless slogans. Pope St John Paul warned us of this aspect of our culture of death more than 30 years ago. It was hard for people to focus on, since it seemed almost universally positive in just about every way. What could have been more positive than the gift of a child? Yet Pope John Paul was concerned that using technology to interrupt the natural fruit of the relationship between a man and a woman would produce a coarsening of the creation of life and the value of child begetting. He was almost universally condemned as hard-hearted, but now we see the fruit of his concern.
Speaker 1:Couples easily turn to this practice as if it were of no moral concern at all, and yet, in its notoriety, the difficult aspects of it are ignored or simply hidden. The eggs that are fertilized but are not implanted are destroyed or stored, but with no thought to their status as unique human beings and those that are chosen to be implanted with the chance to grow into. Babies to be delivered are chosen because of their ultimate with the chance to grow into. Babies to be delivered are chosen because of their ultimate vitality and overt characteristics, which leads to anxious concerns about how we choose the value of the children to be born. We're watching an entirely new chapter of human valuing being written in front of us without anyone noticing. It won't take long to leap into going to the baby catalog and ordering the offspring off the shelf. Laugh at the prospects of such an arrangement, all you want.
Speaker 1:But it's happening now among us and this fits into the category we have the hardest time with. It's the category of that which seems perfectly adequate and even noble on a case-by-case basis, but when extended into society at large and is practiced thoughtlessly by everyone, becomes a moral quagmire. Just about everything regarding sex and human reproduction fits into this category. Artificial birth control to limit the number of children in a family that seems to make sense as a couple struggles with their future. But extend it into society at large and you get the collapse of marriage, the demeaning of women and the destruction of families. Creating a child for a childless couple seems the height of sensitivity. Extend it to the whole world and you have a series of businesses that treat women as livestock, wombs as rental property and baby as retail products. Resolving a problem pregnancy especially if it's a troubling challenge to the mother that seems charitable. Extend it to an entire population and you have our world in which no nation in the Western world cares to reproduce itself and imagines its only future to be its own extinguishment.
Speaker 1:By the way, I ran into a fascinating and depressing factoid that touches on the negativity of this issue. All of these forces are bringing us to the practice of eugenics, which is to choose only those characteristics in children that make them the most acceptable to society and the diminishment or destruction of those that are less desirable. We don't quite say things out loud yet, but it's only around the corner. Remember, 30 years ago, in an anonymous survey, young adults admitted that they would consider abortion for their child if they found out their child to be born would be obese as an adult. Eugenics is the notion that only the acceptable and the ideal have a place on our planet and in our lives. Factoid to keep in mind is that the publication, the American Journal of Eugenics, was first published in the 19th century, which means it has deep roots and a long provenance, but it was not always published under this name. This journal was founded and first published under the name Lucifer. Think of that when these issues are discussed.
Speaker 1:All of this was foreseen and warned about by the popes. It is ironic that only the most famous celibates in the world seem to be capable of warning married couples about the fragile preciousness of sex and children. But irony has proved to be the most adequate description of our civilization. It makes for a negative aspect of our year in review. We seem condemned to live out the warnings, one after the other, of one pope after the other, especially when it comes to the creation of new life and the sustainment of our world.
Speaker 1:We're also very quickly sliding into the fulsome embrace of euthanasia. Already in England, the National Health Service will begin allowing assisted suicide as an option for therapy available for those who wish to avail themselves of it. I won't say too much about it. It deserves its own separate consideration, but we must keep in mind it goes along with all of the other aspects of a culture of death, the culture we belong to. In every place this option has been enacted. It has resulted in the killing of the weak and the diminishment of the lives of the imperfect. Once we begin to kill those who request to be killed because of their sickness and pain, we'll end up killing those who are neither sick nor in pain. Just recently, canada, after only a few years of making assisted suicide available to its people, has cleared the way for this quote therapy unquote to be available to anyone who desires it for any reason. Its advance among the nations of the West becomes one more example of a society ours that cannot come up with a reason for sustaining its own existence reason for sustaining its own existence. We are in the midst of a riot of choice first to kill others and then to kill ourselves.
Speaker 1:The direst negative aspect of the last year, though, has been the saber-rattling talk of the use of nuclear weapons. This has happened most often from the pariah nations, although it has not been exclusive to them. With war in Central Europe and the loose bluster of the client states of the superpowers, politicians and generals have begun talking about using nuclear weapons as one aspect of the conflicts now going on, and we all know that talk can lead to action or preemption very rapidly. And while we don't have gigantic forces on hair-trigger alert, as we did from the 50s to the 90s, there are still tens of thousands of horrifically powerful nuclear weapons available for use. And as the talk grows more common, it grows more coarse. Coarse language has to be avoided because it ruins our appreciation of that which can only be treated delicately and with thoughtfulness and formality. Without a doubt, coarseness is the new common coin of nuclear talk around the table of the nations. That's a bad omen. Anything can happen. That's something we know from the concourse of history.
Speaker 1:I've done a great deal of reading about the decisions leading up to the catastrophe of World War I, and in each case the cascade of decision-making was both tragic and foolish. Tragic because of the horrific results it produced, and foolish because in every case and among each nation involved, including the US, it could have been different. And among the ashes of a world burnt to the ground there's the twisted and blackened girders of a society in which, had they remained in place, everything would have been better. Yet the goodness was overthrown and destruction was chosen by a succession of men who thought they had no other option, when in truth they had every other option. That's the most awful and the most anxious aspect of our future. The world we know is not all negative. However, certainly it is the case that good things are going on and the positive still fills our lives. We can begin to appreciate this truth simply by looking out at the families we know in which parents still found and nurture and love their children. My heart is always moved by the excitement parents have when they find out they are to have another child and, because I fit into this age category, I am especially moved by grandparents who delight in their grandchildren. We may have grown more cynical by far and we may have slid into the morass, evil thinking and twisted moral practice, but there's still delight among us at the potential of a newborn and the power of relationship.
Speaker 1:I think there's also a growing aspect of church life among us Catholics that's becoming more evident and much more powerful in our lives, and we should celebrate it as much as we can. It is the development of independent ministries and personal initiatives to bring the gospel to life amid the challenges of our world. This is the third phase of the growth of the church in our time, and it is bearing good fruit. We're privileged to be a part of it as it begins to take root. By this I mean those people who have taken it upon themselves to be serious about their faith and who have worked to leverage their abilities to put their faith into practice for everyone's benefit. In the past, we've looked to the administrators of the structure of the church to be the ones who initiated any new aspect of church life and practice. If, for example, there were people to be cared for, we'd strive to get the bishops or the superiors involved and direct the resources of the church in that direction. They are the ones who know what to do and how to do it, as well as the ones who can make it a part of the work of the whole church.
Speaker 1:As part of the initiatives of Vatican II, there's been a great deal of lay involvement in the life of the church, much more so than in previous ages. Bishops and superiors over the last decades have depended more and more on the willing help of lay people, who've not only been available as manpower for church work, but who have also moved into professional administrative positions to make the work of the church effective and widespread. What in previous days was done by a religious sister or a priest is now often done by a lay person. In fact, we've reached a point in which we couldn't even imagine that work being done by anyone else, but we've reached a point in which we couldn't even imagine that work being done by anyone else. But we've reached a new phase in church life.
Speaker 1:Lay people have begun organizing their own response to the needs of the church and the impulse of the gospel. They've founded their own organizations and placed themselves in the midst of the needs of people in order to make the life of the church more responsive and more robust, rather than waiting for someone else to get busy. In order to make the life of the church more responsive and more robust, rather than waiting for someone else to get busy, innumerable lay people have gone out and begun to feed the poor, clothe the naked and preach the gospel. They've organized their own support, mobilized their own resources and directed their own energies at all of the various areas they've identified as needing their contributions to the work of the Church. This is easiest to see in media production and education, but it's true in the many areas in which we see Catholics present today. While these initiatives and ministries have not always been successful, they certainly made for a greater variety of talents to be in use for the Church. In previous years, religious orders were founded to provide the needed ministries for areas of neglect or among those who were the most troubled. It took time to sort out how to establish and to sustain these groups and to keep them focused on their original concerns and direct their work in the most fruitful ways. So it's much the same in our time as concerned men and women get to work to address the concerns of the church that go wanting for lack of laborers in the vineyard.
Speaker 1:I think this is one of the most positive aspects of our age. We're blessed to be part of it as it grows among us. This new year is staring us in the face. No one knows what it'll bring. It is the greatest of all possible gifts. With the days yet to come, we have the promise that God's work among us will deepen and our understanding of God's graces will flower. This is what makes the months ahead breathlessly powerful, and we get to be part of it. The negatives and the positives are all swirled together, so let us move through this time, always remembering God waits on us to live the promises that are extended to us. The world waits to see what we will do. Back in just a moment. Welcome back to our final segment, faith.
Speaker 1:In Verse, we have a poem today called A Few Minutes of TV. In the doctor's waiting room I watched a few minutes of TV. Oh, it was the annual exam. There was nothing traumatic to see. The program had a couple of gals rebuilding a log house with the help of a couple of experts who were called out. There were descriptions of new walls, a bathroom in a different place, the chance to alter the most needed, a moment of benevolence and grace. These shows are popular. I guess they're everywhere. After all, nothing more attractive than new beginnings, a spring from fall, don't we also have this desire to find something new hidden there among the old walls, a new scene from the old view. So we can hope, whether from broad nature or refined grace, we can discover the possible promise that there within lies a new place. That's a few minutes of TV. In the weeks to come, I hope that we can together explore what it means to be Living Catholic.
Speaker 2:Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcrorg.