Judge Rosalie Abella in Viewpoint, a supplement to the Canadian Jewish News, January 4, 1990 entitled “Jews in Canada: Looking to the future,” lamented the trend of Jews “who seek more and more to be the same as everybody else.”  Except for the Jewsish Orthodox, writes Judge Abella, “many Jews in Canada…conclude that the best way to integrate (into Canadian Society) is to abandon their Jewish trademarks…I regret with sadness the eagerness with which so many…Jews have traded their uniqueness for the banality of conformity.”

The very same trend and judgment applies to the Christian community.  Over the last three decades the abandonment of Christian principles by men and women in public life has been astonishing.  There is no better illustration than the abortion issue.

Protestantism’s inherent individualism and its lack of a central religious authority left it exposed to the biblical warning that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Mk 3, 26).  Thus it always carried the seed of dissolution within itself.  Indeed, over the last 100 years many Protestants – though of course not all – actually welcomed a more secular public life, as indeed did many Jews.

Over the last three decades the abandonment of their principles by Catholic men and women in public life has been no less astonishing.

In the United States a turning point came with John F. Kennedy’s appearance on September 12, 1960, before the Houston Ministerial Association.  To his ever-lasting disgrace Kennedy allayed the gears of his anti-Catholic critics by assuring them of his docility and the promise to keep his religion in the closet!  Today, this mentality is emulated by such persons as the governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, and Ontario’s Attorney General, Ian Scott.

In Canada the turning point came with Pierre Trudeau’s declaration of December 5, 1967, that “…the concepts of the civil society in which we live, are pluralistic, and I think this Parliament realizes it would be a mistake for us to try to legislate into society, concepts which belong to a theological or sacred order.”  Shortly, thereafter, Mr. Trudeau legalized abortion.

Christians should know that they must reject this denial of Christian principles in public life.  They know it contradicts the very essence of the Incarnation, when the Son of God ‘became man’ in order to set us free from sin.  This implies that the whole order of nature, including the social order is to be “baptized” and returned to the dominion of the Father.

It was a Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, now Saint Thomas More, who summed it all up by declaring that “when statesmen forego their private conscience for state duties, they lead their country to chaos.”

Although at this moment in history secularism appears triumphant in the West, as Pope John Paul II recently told the Colombian bishops, “It is important that we do not lose faith in our ability to resolve the problems that beset us.  We must not become detached and expect others to find the solution.”

One of the first requirements for a new and just order based on the dignity of all human beings, including the unborn, is for voters to scrutinize candidates for office in the light of the basic religious principle which rejects acceptance of abortion for whatever reason.