Our Nation has a history of treating certain groups of people as second class citizens, or worse, considering them to be not human at all. Between slavery and segregation, this has been especially true of African Americans. And even after the abolition of slavery and the end of legal segregation many blacks in America still feel discriminated against and disadvantaged as a whole in society because of the color of their skin. That is one reason why the victory of Barack Obama in this year’s presidential election has been met with so much enthusiasm and celebration. It certainly is historic and I congratulate President-elect Obama on his victory and becoming the first African American president. But is it really the “civil rights” advancement that many think it is?
A priest friend of mine shared with me his frustration with the praise that is being heaped on Obama for being the first of his race elected president because “his stand for killing innocent babies is no honor to his race.” As one blogger put it the other day:
It is lamentable that for one group of people once considered non-human to move forward, another, the most innocent, had to be sacrificed
Indeed, given his record of supporting the murder of innocent human beings in the womb, in a petri dish and even shortly after birth in some circumstances, not to mention his admitting that, if he could, he would take back his decision to let Congress intervene and save Terri Schiavo from being starved to death, I would hesitate to call this a great advancement towards recognizing the equality of all human beings. This would be equally true, of course, if our new president happened to be a white man/woman sharing these same beliefs. But specifically regarding his own race, I would dare say that his election even less of an advancement for blacks considering that abortion is the leading cause of death within the black community and President-elect Obama wishes to expand its practice throughout the Nation by enshrining abortion-on-demand into American law through FOCA.
A black President is not the only milestone in this election. It seems congratulations to Joe Biden are also in order for, as AmP reminds us, becoming the first ever Catholic Vice President. Again, given his blatant disregard for basic Catholic teaching on the sanctity of all human life, I don’t think we can really call this much of a “victory” for Catholics either.
To me this presidential election is yet another reminder that we must always have in our hearts a zeal for souls and a genuine love for those we fundamentally disagree with. They are not exempt from the love and mercy of God and they should not be exempt from ours. Loving and caring about the salvation of our enemies is perhaps the most difficult aspect of our Christian calling (how do you love those who approve of, even advocate for, the murder of innocent human life?), but it is what sets us apart from the world.
Because of this I was very pleased to see that the initial response from dedicated pro-lifers to the election of such a radically anti-life President was to immediately offer prayers for our newly elected Commander-in-Chief – not just that the damage of his administration to our country be minimal, but for his own personal conversion.
“we cannot forget the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God, which reaches to the depths of a person’s soul and can work extraordinary change.” (JPII)
The effort may at times seem futile, but time spent for souls is never wasted.
As for those of us in the pro-life movement, we will persevere. It is not in our nature to give up and, in fact, our resolve tends to strengthen when we are faced with adversity. Our earthly battles may not always succeed, but we remain faithful knowing that in the end we have the promise of not only the joy of eternal life, but the ultimate triumph of truth and justice which will reign for all eternity.