The Great Civil Rights Movement of Our Time

A national, ecumenical week of prayer and fasting for the end of abortion and the closure of Planned Parenthood began yesterday, August 22, the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and will conclude on Saturday, August 29, the feast of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist. A variety of Catholic and Christian pro-life organizations are working together to co-sponsor this praiseworthy and timely initiative in response to the recent unsavory video revelations of how America's largest abortion provider really operates behind the scenes. This is an excellent example of true ecumenism, in which Christians of different denominations can collaborate on the basis of their common faith and shared moral values (in this case, the right to life of innocent unborn children) to achieve a common goal (in this case, the end of abortion and the demise of the U.S. abortion cartel). A noble attempt was made on Capitol Hill early this month to cut off all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, and while such political action is vitally important, it will not succeed unless we implore heavenly assistance through prayer and fasting. The battle to end the atrocity of abortion is not simply a political and legal fight against a powerful murder corporation and its allies in the federal government. More fundamentally, this is a moral and spiritual campaign against the Devil and his evil angels who want the slaughter of innocent children to continue. Therefore, we must deploy spiritual weapons and obtain the assistance of heavenly powers--God, our Blessed Mother, the good Angels, and the Saints--in order to effectively combat and defeat our spiritual enemies who are the real driving force behind the abortion industry. And when millions of us unite to pray and sacrifice for the same intention, our prayers and sacrifices are that much more effective. All U.S. Catholics and Christians are encouraged to participate in this important effort. For prayer resources and more information, please go to http://prayercampaign.org.

The fight to end legalized abortion here in the United States is indeed the great civil rights movement of our time, and it has many parallels with the battles against the evils of slavery and segregation that plagued our nation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. Both were grave violations of the natural law and human dignity that remained a legal part of our society for many years. Both threatened the unity of our nation. Both stubbornly resisted numerous attempts to eradicate them even as public pressure against them continued to build over time. And both were finally defeated by church-based mass movements of millions of like-minded Americans of different denominations who prayed and took action under the unifying leadership of a respected advocate for their cause. For the abolition of slavery, that great leader was Abraham Lincoln; for de-segregation, it was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The only weakness with the current pro-life movement is the lack of a single unifying leader who appeals to everyone regardless of denomination. We do have some wonderful leaders within our movement such as Father Frank Pavone, Dr. Alveda King, and the Reverend Clenard Childress who are working tirelessly and effectively for the pro-life cause, but their appeal is mainly limited to those who are already pro-life. I think we're going to need a powerful and charismatic religious leader to rally our movement for the final push to victory. If Dr. Ben Carson were to win the Republican nomination and the presidency next year, he would fill the vacuum splendidly. In any case, after more than four decades, upwards of 55 million unborn children killed, a majority of Americans self-identifying as pro-life, more and more Planned Parenthood abortion mills shutting down each year, the glaring failure of ObamaCare to increase the national abortion rate, a substantial pro-life majority in both houses of Congress, and the enormous negative publicity generated by the Center for Medical Progress video expose, the American pro-life movement has now gained sufficient momentum that its goal of restoring Constitutional protection for the God-given inalienable right to life of all innocent unborn children in this country is actually within reach in the foreseeable future. We are winning, but we must not give up until we reach the finish line.