Pridefully Pro-life!

               Prolife Musings of a Prideful Priest or Prideful Musings of a Pro-life Priest

Fr. Frank Pavone once called Holy Apostles Seminary, “the most active pro-life seminary in the world.” At the time, I was the President of the Holy Apostles Life League (HALL). We were being blessed by Jesus with incredible miracles at the time and everyone was giving us a lot of praise and attention. Each time we were praised, I was mentioned by name. At one point I asked the Rector to continue to give due credit to HALL, but that I prefer he not mention my name. Well lo and behold, he honored my request and for the next three years, he never mentioned my name relative to any of our pro-life work. My reaction? How dare he! After all, I didn’t really mean what I said!

What a great lesson Jesus taught me about myself. For three years I reflected on why I was doing pro-life work…for me? For the babies and the moms? Or for Jesus? Monsignor Reilly often said, “If we are doing pro-life work to save babies and help moms, we will always be disappointed. If we are doing pro-life work (living the Gospel of Life) for the salvation of souls as Jesus taught and lived, we will always be blessed and we will never fail.”

Recently, I was reminded of all of this through an article about the efforts of our local pro-life group, ProtestABQ, and the statewide and national successes it had through our “national protest, national strike” efforts. I was mentioned in the article seemingly as an afterthought. I experienced the same twinge of pridefulness I felt those years before in the seminary and I immediately smiled and said, “thank you, Jesus.”

I have always struggled with the whole pridefulness issue in the many years I have done pro-life ministry. It makes sense since the evil one will always use pride to ruin us, discourage us, and divide us in all of our endeavors regardless of our state of life or ministry. Pride leads us to hell. Humility leads us to our salvation and the salvation of others. Unfortunately, I see this pride everyday in the national and local pro-life movement and honestly, I have to say, it is not getting better. It takes no deep or long, honest reflection for anyone who does pro-life work to admit the obvious pridefulness, which, thank God, is a sign of humility in itself and a great start to changing our perspective, attitude, actions, and reactions.

Let me relate another story about my seminary days. I was invited to sit on this advisory board to the Board of Directors to promote the Seminary. The Rector invited me on this board because he saw pro-life charism as a means to attract serious Catholic men discerning the priesthood to Holy Apostles. I was doing a lot of “abortion victim imagery” protests even back then and this “tactic” was not fondly looked upon by many of the regular seminary board members. In one discussion, really a debate, a doctor (Phd) directed her critical comments toward me, prefacing them with her long list of pro-life credentials. I admit they were quite impressive and I told her so in my response, “Doctor, you obviously have done great things in your years doing pro-life ministry. As for me, I have only done one thing I can attribute to myself. I let my girlfriend down many years ago and it caused the life of my two unborn children. Anything else that appears I have done, Jesus has done in spite of my sin.” After I said that, I thought, “where did that come from, Lord, because I never thought it before much less ever said it.”

From that day on, I have tried to recall those words. Yes, I am forgiven and yes, thank you, Jesus, for healing me. But I never want to forget that on my own, I do nothing, but sin. In communion with Christ, He does good things through me.

In the pro-life movement, we see many manifestations of pridefulness. Division and competitiveness is an obvious one. A lack of unity is also manifest and yes, it is different than division and competitiveness, but fruit of the same tree. Putting ministry before unity is another problem. This is often evident in fundraising efforts.

Celebrity in the pro-life movement is always a serious danger. Pray for anyone in pro-life ministry who desires to speak about how long they have done the work (serious problem of mine), or what they have done or how many people they attract to their events. I shudder anytime I hear anyone referred to as a pro-life “hero.” Recently, over the course of a few weeks, I heard more than one pro-life person referred to as a “rock star.” Yikes, as in Hebrews 12:4: “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

I am always amazed at how much some pro-life people charge for speaking appearances and some of the other “requests” that come with the package. Yes, fundraising is necessary, but it is a necessary “evil” insofar as it potentially causes ministry to come before unity or even our mission of saving souls.

Finally, pridefulness in pro-life politics is beyond description and is evident in not only pro-life politicians, but also lobbyists who often compete to have their bill or their personal pro-life political agenda be in the forefront. On another level, this type of pride is evident in many pro-lifer who lift up their particular strategy as more important or more effective than others (again often seen in fundraising efforts). For instance, I raise my eyebrows when so many come front and center during election cycles and then expect everyone else, including daily pro-life street activists, to focus on some political (but necessary) agenda.

I could go on and on with many other examples of pridefulness. Maybe at some point I will. I could name names, but never will (although I could be at the top of any pride list). Suffice it to say, that pre-born child killing has been going on for 40 plus years and the case could be made that it is mostly because of pro-life pridefulness in all of its manifestations. Until all of us doing “the work” get over ourselves, put Jesus and the salvation of souls first, the babies and moms next, followed by our ministries, and then lastly ourselves, pre-born child killing will go on for another 40 years or maybe even until Jesus comes again. At that point, Lord have mercy on us!