It is that time of year when people of good will begin thinking seriously about what should be done differently, uttered with more care, or otherwise contemplated as an action worthy of change in the coming year.
The year 2012 is ominous in quite another way: America will have the chance to change her course—moving away from “hope and change” and forward to “faith and hope in God.” After all, as we know all too well, placing our faith in a human being and his promises frequently leads to ruin. On the other hand, each one of us can do our best, fight on in truth, and be able to claim, along with St. Paul (2 Timothy 4:7-8), “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come for me now is the crown of uprightness which the Lord, the upright judge, will give to me on that Day; and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his appearing.”
But this is an individual challenge, not a challenge to the ambiguous culture or the fungible voting block or the political party hacks of the day. Each individual has to choose to be loyal to one God, understanding that this is what counts. This is so because loyalty to human beings—beings who make promises that are based on gaining votes that could lead to a powerful position from which that elected official can do as he or she pleases—is squandered allegiance.
Being someone who acts on what she believes, I recently had the chance to put my own name on the line on this very question. I had the privilege of being asked by the excellent commentator, Matt Abbott, to respond to a question about which Republican candidate I would endorse. Due to my position as leader of a nonprofit organization that does not dabble in partisan politics, I could simply have explained this and said nothing more. But I chose rather to launch my New Year’s resolution early, replying: “My endorsement is for a restoration of genuine confidence in God and His power versus the partisan rhetoric and gobbledygook that is undermining the drive toward legal and cultural recognition of the intrinsic human rights (IHR) of every person from creation to death.”
This reply is not that of a smug, self-righteous grandmother, but rather as someone who is constantly examining what can be done to turn this nation away from the hedonism that is rooted in contraception and abortion. What I have seen over the years challenges me to examine what the goal really is—to be totally political and therefore easily swayed, or to be totally focused on the human being and therefore steadfastly stubborn.
If we truly understand that every single human being is a person of remarkable, miraculous value, we must persist. The very meaning of the human being is “union with the unconditional love of God. Therefore, any being who is created for the unconditional love of God is a person. Since all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore created for His unconditional love, all human beings are human persons.”
Does each pro-life American understand this? Does each one of us want to achieve recognition in the culture and in the law of the intrinsic human rights of every person or do we want to make political hay? The former will require a lot of hard work without much public attention because we will be busy changing hearts and minds, one person at a time. Or do we want headlines, spokespeople with feet of clay, and vague statements that mean about as much as chalk on a sidewalk?
The year 2012 is the year of decision. Where will we invest our talents? How will we spend the moral currency known as pro-life principles? Who will receive our abiding confidence—the Creator or the politician?
It’s time to decide.
