Wisdom For Today
The Number One Priority

Fr. Frank Pavone
From the Jan/Feb 2004 Issue of Lay Witness Magazine

Disciples of Jesus are called to renew the face of the earth. As Pope John Paul II recently wrote in his encyclical on the Eucharist, “Certainly the Christian vision leads to the expectation of ‘new heavens’ and a ‘new earth’ (Rev 21:1), but this increases, rather than lessens, our sense of responsibility for the world today” (no. 20). Faith does not disengage us from the culture; rather, it impels us to renew and transform it.

Accepting that task, however, leads to the obvious question, “Where do I begin?” There are so many problems to fix, falsehoods to correct, needs to fulfill, and issues to address. There are projects to promote, bridges to build, and relationships to mend. And each one of them at times seems like the most important priority.

The Church does not simply present to us a multitude of problems and issues; the Church also gives us guidance regarding what deserves our primary attention. Just as there is a “hierarchy of truths,” there also is a “hierarchy of values.”

The “hierarchy of truths” does not mean that some teachings are truer than others, but simply that the truth of one derives from or depends on the truth of the other. For example, we believe that Baptism regenerates us; we also believe that Christ is risen. In the “hierarchy of truths,” the Resurrection is certainly more foundational, because if Christ is not risen, Baptism and faith have no power.

When it comes to moral goods that we possess, and the rights we have to possess them, the foundation is the right to life. No other rights, either actually possessed or promised for the future, do us any good if our life itself is not secure. It is because the human being has the right to life that he or she also has the right to food, shelter, health care, education, and conditions of living that correspond to human dignity.

Moreover, the right to life flows from the very fact that we are human, not from the fact that other humans want to give it to us.

The philosophy behind abortion says that others set the criteria for our right to life. Those criteria may be legal (“Roe v. Wade is the law of the land”), philosophical (“The unborn are not persons because they can’t talk or think”), or theological (“I don’t know when the child receives a soul”). Whatever the criteria, if someone’s right to life depends on what somebody else says or thinks, then every right is in danger. The foundations have been destroyed, and no human right can ever be guaranteed again.

The reason is simple. Either human rights flow from the fact that you are human or from some other fact. If the former, then you can never lose them, because you can never become non-human. But if your rights flow from some other circumstance, then you can lose them as soon as that circumstance changes—or someone makes it change.

No country has lasted longer under the same founding documents as America, because those documents speak of “inalienable rights”—rights that nobody can destroy, not even the one who possesses them. Our government was founded on a clear awareness of the limitations of the government in regard to our human rights. As the Declaration of Independence states, people are “endowed” with rights “by their Creator,” and governments are instituted “to secure these rights.” Government makes secure something that is already there.

When governments depart from this framework, and see themselves as the granters of rights, the seeds of holocausts are planted. And Roe v. Wade is one such seed. Those who agree with Roe v. Wade do not simply agree that a medical procedure called abortion should be legal. They also acknowledge a new kind of government that departs radically from the kind our Founding Fathers instituted. Supporters of Roe necessarily support the idea that government has authority over the life and death of the innocent.

For this reason, abortion is not merely an “issue.” It is, rather, a major crisis of the very foundations of civilization. Ending it is our number one priority, as a nation and as individuals.

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