Chaput on the Devil in Politics

Yesterday at Public Discourse , Archbishop Charles Chaput argued that we must keep in perspective the onslaught of offenses to traditional Christian life—threats to religion from the secular world, science unrestrained by ethics, and corrupted power—in relation to the most fundamental offense of them all. Being consistent, he suggests, means we cannot afford to treat abortion as a mere social woe, but should instead regard it as we would any other concrete evil in the world:

The moral and political struggle we face today in defending human dignity is becoming more complex. I believe that abortion is the foundational human rights issue of our lifetime. We can’t simultaneously serve the poor and accept the legal killing of unborn children. We can’t build a just society, and at the same time, legally sanctify the destruction of generations of unborn human life. The rights of the poor and the rights of the unborn child flow from exactly the same human dignity guaranteed by the God who created us.