BUILDING A CULTURE OF LIFE

By Mary Deutscher

I was recently pondering the best way to defend the culture of life, when, looking up at the giant picture of the Death Star in my five-year-old nephew’s bedroom, I realized the fight against the evil empire in Star Wars has many parallels to the fight against the culture of death. We have a lot to learn from the rebel rebellion, but essentially it boils down to three simple rules. First, stay in formation. Second, stay on target. Third, don’t be afraid to trust your instincts.

Staying in formation is relatively simple. This is a reminder that we all have different roles to play and that while some people will be on the political front pushing for laws which reflect a commitment to life, others will be busy changing one heart at a time through work at food banks, women’s shelters, care homes, etc. In fact, this rule is actually just a restatement of St. Paul’s analogy of the Body of Christ, but you can bet he would have said “stay in formation” if he had been talking to a group of five-year-old boys today.

This rule is wonderfully illustrated by the work done by charitable organizations. For example, the men and women volunteering at Birthright, a crisis pregnancy centre, are asked to avoid being seen at political rallies and similar events. At first, this might seem odd. Why wouldn’t we want as many people as possible shouting from the rooftops about the evils of abortion? However, when a young girl enters Birthright, it is essential that she be met by someone with whom she can connect.

Unfortunately pro-lifers have been labeled as judgmental and pushy, making it difficult for any young mother to fully trust someone she has seen involved in the public face of the pro-life movement. By removing themselves from the political debate, Birthright volunteers place themselves in the perfect position to help mothers by first ensuring that there are as few obstacles to establishing trust as possible.

Now, staying on target is considerably more difficult for most people to do. When Catholics use the phrase “life issues,” it generally brings to mind topics such as abortion, birth control, end-of-life treatment and euthanasia.
This is a very broad scope and, while all of these subjects are interconnected (especially in terms of Catholic ethics), it is important not to muddle them together too much during public debate. Targeting a single goal is effective because it enables us to fight for life one precise step at a time without the need to abandon the principles on which we stand.

This rule was well respected during the most recent Canadian political battle against euthanasia. Although many of them were against abortion, the organizers of the anti-euthanasia movement realized that if they insisted on mentioning abortion every time they entered into a discussion about euthanasia, they would risk losing support from both those who identify themselves as pro-choice and those who do not wish to take a stand on abortion.

Choosing one topic allowed them to bring people from many different groups and mindsets together by focusing on what they have in common, and ultimately this enabled them to defeat Bill C-384.

The final lesson to be gained from Star Wars is that we must not be afraid to trust our instincts. Our society increasingly insists that spirituality, along with anyone who follows a major world religion, has no place in public debate. This leads many of us to downplay our spiritual side, when we should really be embracing it.

Bioethicist Margaret Somerville often stresses the importance of acknowledging that we come to understand the world through different ways of knowing, including our spiritual, emotional and intellectual faculties. We gain a deeper appreciation for our fellow human beings by combining all our ways of knowing and so we cannot be afraid to let ourselves be influenced by our well-examined emotions and instincts.

This ties in quite nicely with the Catholic Church’s teaching on faith and reason. The church has long held that these two faculties are not in opposition, but rather compliment each other in order to help us arrive at a more complete understanding of the truth. Through our faith, the Holy Spirit illuminates our reason, which in turn enables us to find solutions to the problems that are dragging many people away from a life of love. Our struggle to build a culture of life will be a long one, but if we are open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit we will be successful.

If you are having trouble understanding why these rules are important, I suggest that you ask any Star Wars fan the following questions: Where would Luke be without Han Solo? What would have happened if Luke had gone after Dearth Vader instead of aiming at the main power reactor? And what exactly did Obi-Wan Kenobi do? Oh, and make sure you have a lot of time on your hands because its going to be a long night.

Deutscher has recently returned to Saskatchewan from Ottawa after completing a master of arts in public ethics at St. Paul University and working with the Catholic Organization for Life and Family.