By the time of publication, many readers of the Southern Nebraska Register will have made plans to attend the Nebraska Walk for Life in Lincoln, and some will have already participated in the National March for Life in Washington, D.C. Both events have been held annually since the year after Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
Roe has been overturned—thanks be to God! But we continue to walk, and we must.
The Roe decision has resulted in the death of tens of millions of unborn children in the United States—including two hundred thousand babies in Nebraska—since 1973. We walk and march for life not only to demand our laws be changed to protect these babies, but also to commemorate their short earthly lives—no less real for their brief duration—and to bear witness to their dignity. They count. They matter. We remember them!
We also cannot rest content, as Catholics and therefore people of prayer and action, after Roe’s demise. Our nation is no longer burdened with the heinous fiction that abortion is a “constitutional right.” But abortion is still mostly legal in this country, women are still being abandoned to it, and unborn children are still being unjustly deprived of life.
All times and places are haunted by evils particular to them. In our time and place these evils have to do with very basic issues of relationship, identity, and responsibility. Who we are, why we exist at all and why it matters, for whom we must live and sacrifice, and for what and whom we are responsible are questions left unanswered for people without strong family relationships and the answers and tools afforded by faith and strong friends. And so we have a society characterized by extreme isolation, loneliness, aimlessness, confusion, and anger. We seek short-term gratification and run away from accountability—people are trying to fill the emptiness at the center of themselves. When consequences come due, many do not believe they have a single true friend they can bank on to help them recover their integrity or face up to big and long-term responsibilities. Contraception and abortion are seen as absolute necessities in a society suffering these illnesses.
I have alluded to this idea many times in recent columns: despite how bleak things are in many respects, that bleakness is itself a cry and an opportunity—as every personal, family, or civilizational crisis is—to reflect and to act.
It is well-known that taking the time and energy to be a present, devoted, and attentive spouse and parent pays enormous dividends for marriages and for children. So do that. But the next step toward healing the wound that exists in your own life, family, and parish is something only you can answer after prayer and serious thought. How is your relationship with your parents and siblings? Could your friends call you if they’ve made a terrible mistake? (Could you call them?) What if a friend is considering abandoning his family, his faith, or life itself? Is your parish truly, in the words of Pope Francis, “an island of mercy in a sea of indifference?” (How poignant is that image in our age!) What needs to happen for that image to be real, or for people to know the truth of it?
This is a column about the work of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, which focuses primarily on public policy—the making and improvement of laws. The law is important. It protects people and influences public behavior and the way people think. But all by itself—standing alone without the backing of cultural strength and personal example— it is a weak teacher and disciplinarian. The law, standing all alone, is a temporary wall that is liable to eventual collapse.
To prevent collapse—and to make the wall strong so that it stands not only as a defense of last resort but as a foundation for a new and stronger city—I am asking you to pray, and to ask God boldly and with a full heart for the grace to begin renewing yourself, your marriage, your family life, and your friendships. As Catholics and as stewards of our time and place, we need to spend more time together and to make that time truly face-to-face or shoulder-to-shoulder in common worship, work, and play. The more we do this the better our times and the stronger our foundations—and therefore our laws—will be.
Let our Marches and Walks for Life be an occasion for three things: to remember the departed unborn and bear witness to their lives; to pray that we might start becoming who God wants us to be; and to begin recruiting others for a campaign of families and individuals determined to live fully human lives in faithful solidarity and friendship. You need that. So do your friends. Your spouse and your children do too, and so does the whole society in which we live.
