Christ’s overturning of the moneychangers tables in the Temple was certainly not civil and neither is the necessity to confront the horrors performed daily by the abortion providers and their supporters with civility.
The proper response here is moral outrage, decidedly short of any form of violence, but way beyond civility.
In the protection of absolute and eternal right, which the pro-life forces are doing, everything, short that which is clearly evil, is appropriate for that protection.
CIVILITY-CRITICS Jan-22-2008
Group says civility call would silence pro-life, pro-family movements
By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Responding to the call last November by a group of Catholics for greater civility in American political debate, another group said some messages must never be silenced for the sake of civility.
"Though not all of its signers intend it, we believe the effect of the 'Call for Civility' would be to silence the pro-life and pro-family movements," said a Jan. 21 statement signed by nearly 100 Catholic leaders. "We oppose this effort root and branch."
Calling civility "not the highest -- or the only -- civic virtue," the signers of what they called "A Catholic Response to the 'Call for Civility'" said justice is a greater virtue and that some are asking for civility only because of the abortion issue.
"The lack of public civility comes not from pro-lifers but from those Catholic politicians who support the right to kill innocent life in the womb and those who support defining man-woman marriage out of existence," the statement said. "But some want to treat these politicians differently because they agree with them on important but purely prudential questions like health care and the minimum wage."
The statement opened by questioning whether there would be a call for civility toward politicians who supported segregation, slavery, aggressive war tactics or ignoring the needs of the poor.
"We know the answer to these questions," it said. "There would be a justified public and not very civil call for their removal from public life. Moreover, there would be a public and very justified call for the Catholic hierarchy to do something about them."
The 96 signers of the Jan. 21 statement -- who said they were speaking "not as Democrats or Republicans but as faithful Catholics" -- included university professors, doctors and nurses, authors and journalists, think-tank scholars and others, including Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life; Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute; Father Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International; and Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.