Priests for Life thanks the United States bishops for their statement "A
Matter of the Heart," issued in observance of the upcoming thirtieth anniversary
of Roe vs. Wade (see
www.usccb.org/bishops/heart.htm).
The statement is filled both with hope and determination, declaring that "Roe
vs. Wade must be reversed," and also pointing out many signs of progress.
The word "heart" is used often in the statement. It speaks with special
emphasis of the loving and hopeful hearts of the young. It speaks of the hearts
of children broken by abortion. It speaks of the hearts of those tempted to
abort, and broken by having aborted their child. The bishops point out that we
must strive to know these hearts. We are no strangers to evil,
temptation, and sin. We have all aborted God's will in our lives. We will know
the hearts of the women and men ensnared by abortion to the extent that we
strive with honesty and courage to know our own hearts.
The statement calls us to reach the hearts wounded by abortion, and
give them hope. Abortion, indeed, is not only a sin against life, but a sin
against hope. It says there is no future, no reason good enough to strive for
life. To affirm life, on the other hand, is to say there is room for
hope, and room to welcome the unwanted. Welcome opens the door to hope, and hope
opens the door to life.
In calling for a ministry to the heart, the bishops also exercise it by their
promise in this statement that the Church is ready to assist all who are
pregnant and in need, and to accompany all who need repentance, healing and
forgiveness.
The fact that the defense of life is "a matter of the heart" obviously does
not exclude matters of the law, because this statement calls for a reversal in
the law. The things of the heart and the things of the law affect each other in
profound ways.
Yet evil, as our Lord told us, flows from what is in the heart. Nobody has
to choose or tolerate abortion. No nation or public official should feel
bound to uphold a "law of the land" that turns God's law upside down. The heart
is free when it recognizes truth, and chooses what is good, despite the
superficial attraction of evil. The heart is pure when it belongs to God, and
thereby belongs to life.
The most fundamental sense in which the pro-life effort is "a matter of the
heart" is that to end abortion, our hearts must be broken. This evil
cannot simply be something we know about or debate. We have to allow it to
grieve us, to bring us to tears, to bring us to our knees. "Blessed are
those who mourn," for only when our hearts are broken can they open wide enough
to receive the victory which has already been won, the victory of truth over
lies, of hope over despair, of life over death.
Indeed, this is a matter of the heart.
