If you are as concerned about the devastation abortion is causing in our country as I am, you will find Father Frank Pavone’s book, Abolishing Abortion, as helpful as I did. You can read my full book review by clicking here. Below are the first set of quotes I wanted to share with you from this book. Unless otherwise noted, the quotes are from Father Pavone.
“First among the ‘unalienable rights’ the signers pledged to protect was ‘life.’ Legalized abortion clearly violates the principles they risked all for. It is not simply a ‘bad policy’ or an ‘unjust law,’ but rather, it marks the dissolution of this nation’s most fundamental contract with its citizens.”
“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not caused for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.” —William Lloyd Garrison, speaking of slavery
“We do not look for a utopia. We look for Christ to come again. But while looking for Him to come again, we do not wait passively. We wait actively. … As we wait actively, we must also remind ourselves to act judiciously. Passion does not preclude good judgment and a measure of reserve.”
“Democracy cannot be value-neutral. It cannot fail to ascertain that there are certain things that are good, certain things that are right. … A fundamental right is a human right without which we cannot express our humanity. … To deprive a person of life is to deprive that person of liberty. It stands to reason, literally, that the very right to life has to be respected and protected. Life is an even more fundamental right then freedom. The Declaration of Independence confirmed the same—‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ in that order. The state reinforces what the Church teaches. To hold the state accountable for protecting those fundamental rights has nothing to do with imposing religious beliefs and everything to do with reason.”
“We always start with the dignity of the human person, realizing that human rights and dignity don’t come from government and can’t be taken away by government. If elected officials were the ones who decided whether people have their human rights, those wouldn’t be human rights anymore. Human rights belong to humans because they are human, not because Congress decided to grant those rights. Therefore, we can rightly exclude no one from our service, our care, our protection.”
“When a government says that some people don’t have to be protected, that is the stuff of which genocides are made. So when you hear a citizen or a candidate or a public servant or a congressman or a senator or a president or anybody say, ‘I think Roe was a good idea,’ he is not just telling you what he thinks about a medical procedure. He is telling you what he thinks about the authority of government: what kind of government he believes we have, and what kind of government he believes we ought to have.”
“The root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate—no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.” —Pope John Paul II, The Splendor Of Truth (1993)
“Human rights are not granted by political systems. They are ‘pre-political.’ They exist before government and, in fact, must be honored, served, and secured by government, not because the leaders of government say so, but because all failure to do so undermines the very purpose of government.”
“Many people are very, very concerned with children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger, and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child—what is left for me to kill you and you kill me—there is nothing between.” —Mother Theresa, in her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech of December 11, 1979
“Many friends asked me, ‘What is our first spiritual duty regarding the abortion issue?’ They think I’m going to answer, ‘Prayer.’ But actually, the answer is repentance. The first step in abolishing abortion is to examine our own hearts and to repent of the role we each have played in allowing this holocaust to happen.”
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” —Elie Weisel
More quotes from this outstanding book coming soon….
I recently read The Quotable Billy Graham (you can read my book review here), and I was struck by how relevant his words are, even 50 years after they were spoken. Here are a few quotes on faith.
