Praise the Lord for our Catholic schools, and thank you to the Catholic News Herald for coverage of our Catholic high school graduations.
It’s heart-breaking to hear what our sister public school students have endured during the pandemic. Our Catholic school leaders – with courage and clarity of thought – opened at the beginning of the school year for face-to-face instruction with measured safety protocols. The overall welfare of students and other stakeholders was obviously paramount in their decisions and actions.
The same cannot be said for our public-school brethren. Imagine the disruption parents encountered. They were often unable to balance the conflicting demands of working outside the home in order to financially support their children while simultaneously having to supervise their children’s learning via computers. This predicament was dropped into their lap. Some students thrive in a self-learning environment, but many need the personal attention of a teacher.
While Catholic school students enjoyed social interactions with fellow classmates, the public schools prevented this contact, lashing children to inferior digital mediums of communication that resulted in loneliness. We are social beings, and isolation drains the will, intellect and memory.
The latest encroachment on our public school children (under the guise of social justice) focuses on sexual orientation. Again, praise the Lord that Catholic school students are taught the truth that God made us male and female, and that feelings are forever fickle. In fact, the Church recently celebrated the martyrdom of St. Charles Lwanga and his 22 male companions, recognizing their purity against homosexual acts.
Our Catholic schools are islands in a sea of culture turmoil. We are being assaulted on all sides, creating the chaos which is the necessary element to build a tyrannical world. By maintaining our allegiance to God, our schools can continue to be as a city set upon a hill (Mt 5:14).
Bill Fountain is a member of St. Mark Parish in Huntersville.
Abortion is a wedge issue because it separates a mother from her child. Abortion, at its core, is a destruction of the family, the “cell of society” as St. John Paul II described it in his “Letter to Families.” The family is a cell in the sense that it is where life begins and is nurtured, and these cells comprise the body of society. Systematically destroy the cells, and the body dies.
Opposition to abortion is part of seeking true social justice simply because laws that allow abortion allow injustice to be perpetuated against the most defenseless members of society. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass frequently reflects on the effects that slavery had on the entire United States.
Even though this evil practice was legal only in the South, the whole country was affected by the brutalization and dehumanization of the human person. We see the lingering effects today. In the same way, abortion teaches society that human life may be snuffed out as a matter of choice and convenience. No other issue has the same weight or the same effect. It is a rejection of truth, of beauty, and ultimately of God.
Pope Francis, following his predecessors, encourages Catholics to work for and love the common good. There are some things that prevent the common good from ever being attained. An unjust law, especially one that allows violence against the weak under the guise of “freedom,” is one of these things.
Because of its nature, its effect, its frequency, and the fact that the law celebrates it as “liberty,” abortion is the preeminent issue of our day. And as we would not compromise with slavery, we must never compromise with abortion.
Matthew Bosnick is a member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Charlotte.