Most Reverend Jerome E. Listecki
Archbishop of Milwaukee
 

I’ve been listening to Carl Sandburg’s audio book, Abraham Lincoln. It’s a monumental work, and gives great insight into the iconic figure of Abraham Lincoln and his times. There is little doubt that the “slave issue” was multifaceted. There were those who opposed the Union because they were States’ Rights advocates, those who saw an economic disadvantage to abolishing slavery, and some who merely denied the supremacy of the Union. Even Lincoln himself had different intellectual layers to the slavery issue. In the end, the final analysis was that slavery was a moral evil that needed to be abolished.

Slavery denied a truth that a human being cannot be treated as a piece of property. Human beings have inherent dignity, which must be recognized. The Civil War cost the country the lives of 750,000 soldiers, as well as the additional lives of some civilians and slaves. When we justify actions without the lens of moral scrutiny, we are bound to pay the consequences – and our country did, as it continues to battle issues of racism.

On January 19, I will be joining a number of brave souls in Washington, D.C. who will be marching for another obvious truth – the protection under law of the unborn. Like slavery, the abortion issue is multifaceted. There are those who claim the rights of women are involved, that the child in the womb is not a human being, but merely a conglomeration of tissues, or that unwanted children create an economic burden on society. Some proponents of life will suggest that a different evaluation should be given when rape, incest or the life of the mother is involved. However, in the end, abortion is a moral evil that needs to be abolished. It treats the unborn child as a non-entity.  Like slavery, some even consider the unborn child a commodity – even going as far as the potential sale of tissue or body parts. 

We will march and pray that the American public begins to understand the seriousness of the issue. In the past, mainstream media has ignored the Right to Life march. I remember being in Washington, D.C. and viewing the media as they covered an anti-gun protest of 2,000, while ignoring the 500,000+ marchers for life. Pro-life does not fit into the secularist agenda of the mainstream media; they are just not interested. They are also not believers (most studies have placed many of the public media figures and managers as atheists or agnostics), which accounts for the embarrassment when God or Jesus is mentioned.

We have lost an estimate of 60,000,000 lives since abortion was legalized in the Roe v. Wade decision. Think of what those lives would mean to our nation. It took 750,000 soldier deaths to abolish slavery. I pray that a Civil War will not be needed to correct this most recent moral evil, but the more this evil is ignored, the greater the frustration builds.

We will continue to protest in front of abortion clinics. We will support our Women’s Care Centers. We will March for Life, and we will teach the moral truth that life is sacred and possesses an inherent dignity that must be respected. We do this because the motivation of our moral truth is founded on the command to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Note: This blog originally appeared as the January 16, 2018 "Love One Another" email sent to Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of Milwaukee by Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki. If you are interested in signing up for these email messages, please click here.