OPINION:
President-elect Joe Biden said he wanted to unite the country. But if he really means it, he might reconsider his threat to codify abortion by federal legislation through all nine months of a pregnancy — and beyond — as has become fashionable lately. This follows a trend of individual states formulating more restrictive abortion laws.
The effects of abortion’s divisiveness on a society has been remarked upon by no less a figure than Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
He referred to the emergence in society of a “new totalitarianism” resulting in a “social excommunication” of those who oppose the state-sanctioned murder of the innocents.
An article, translated from the Italian and published by LifeSiteNews.com on Nov. 17, tells of a book-length interview with Benedict by Peter Seewald, who published a similar volume with Benedict — then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger — in the 1980s book titled “The Ratzinger Report.”
The new book has recently been published in Italian from the original German. The title is rendered “Benedetto XVI. Una vita,” or “Benedict XVI. A Life.”
In this new volume, Pope Benedict says, “Modern society intends to formulate an anti-Christian creed: whoever contests it is punished with social excommunication. Being afraid of this spiritual power of the Antichrist is all too natural, and what is truly needed is that the prayers of entire dioceses and of the world Church come to the rescue to resist it.”
The pope said, “[This totalitarianism] comes … from the universal dictatorship of apparently humanistic ideologies. Anyone who contradicts this dictatorship is excluded from the basic consensus of society.”
One need not look far to see evidence of this statement. Consider the ferocity and hostility of a Washington mob focused on a Catholic high school boy, Nick Sandmann, two years ago after the National March for Life.
One wonders if Mr. Biden recognizes which side of this divide he is on, after announcing his plan to ingrain abortion even more deeply into American culture. Indeed, he has made himself its champion. Not a good place to be for a man who frequently mentions his Catholicism. He is now inline to preside over and cheerlead the Culture of Death. One wonders if it gives him pause to be working with the spirit of the anti-Christ.
About Benedict, the LifeSite article says, “Here is the point. That a man of great culture, profound spirituality, and recognized authority would speak of the ‘threat’ of a ‘universal dictatorship’ cannot leave anyone indifferent.”
An American churchman, the late Francis Cardinal George of Chicago was quoted near the end of his life as saying, “Fifty years from now when the inner contradictions of our national policy governing life and death have been resolved in either a change or our laws or the destruction of our nation, people will look back in horror and ask if anyone tried to stop the horror of abortion.”
He also said, “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”
It is wise for any leader to listen to the prophets of his time. But it seems Mr. Biden has not even been paying attention.
For the next four years, the unborn and their defenders are “facing a very dark winter.”
• John Mallon is a former contributing editor for Inside the Vatican magazine. His personal website is https://johnmallon.LIFE.
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