Monday 26 May 2008

The Future



Since my post on John Smeaton and Division there has been a lot of comment. I would like to draw your attention to this artcle over at Holy Smoke which was originally published in Octover 2007.

I'd like you to consider this carefully. If we do not consider the future of the pro-life movement, we might as well shake the hands of those who support abortion and say go on, keep going, keeping killing babies, keep destroying womens lives. We need to get real here; the government are not going to make abortion illegal anytime soon.

Interestingly in the debate about the purpose and use for the All Party Parliamentary Pro-Life group, I wonder how many people actually know what goes on at those meetings; certainly not SPUC as they do not attend those meetings itself 'out of principle'.

If anyone has seen the film 'Karol - the man who became Pope' which is the story of John Paul II recalls a young bishop, just appointed, who sees the need for a seminary for the many vocations that were springing up. The stance of the Polish Church was 'we do not negotiate with the communist party'. And the communist party did not want to allow men to train for the priesthood. The young Bishop Wojtyla met with the party and got his seminary. It took longer to get rid of communism, but they did it in the end, only by changing the culture, only by engaging in a cultural debate, only by the grace of God. Maybe a little story for the pro-life movement too.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And when Poland outlawed abortion in almost all cases in the 90s, with huge public support, it was after a massive campaign of education on the culture of life, and an unapologetic drive for a complete ban, by the Church. Not a sensible, realistic request for a compromise.

John Paul said...

Yes, with a 90% Catholic Majority for a Catholic Population and where most of the politician's are Catholics that's easy. Your comparison is flawed.

On the Education part, LIFE educates and speaks to more students than most pro-life organisations. And in Scotland were SPUC Scotland and LIFE work in partnership, that programme flourishes even more so.

Anonymous said...

Okay, if you are feeling cheerful enough, point out and describe the flaw in what I said :-)

You can tell I am wasting too much time today, too many blog comments ...