Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States

  https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.pdf

Introductory Letter

   As Catholics, we bring the richness of our faith to the public square. We draw from both faith and reason as we seek to affirm the dignity of the human person and the common good of all. With renewed hope, we, the Catholic Bishops of the United States, are re-issuing Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, our teaching document on the political responsibility of Catholics, which provides guidance for all who seek to exercise their rights and duties as citizens.

   Everyone living in this country is called to participate in public life and contribute to the common good. In Rejoice and Be Glad [Gaudete et Exsultate], Pope Francis writes:

    Your identification with Christ and his will involves a commitment to build with him that kingdom of  love, justice and universal peace. . . .You cannot grow in holiness without committing yourself, body and soul, to giving your best to this endeavor.

  The call to holiness, he writes, requires a “firm and passionate” defense of “the innocent unborn.” “Equally sacred,” he further states, are “the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.”

  Our Our approach to contemporary issues is first and foremost rooted in our identity as followers of Christ and as brothers and sisters to all who are made in God’s image. For all Catholics, including those seeking public office, our participation in political parties or other groups to which we may belong should be influenced by our faith, not the other way around.

  Our 2015 statement, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,sought to help Catholics form their consciences, apply a consistent moral framework to issues facing the nation and world, and shape their choices in elections in the light of Catholic Social Teaching. In choosing to re-issue this statement, we recognize that the thrust of the document and the challenges it addresses remain relevant today.

  At the same time, some challenges have become even more pronounced. Pope Francis has continued to draw attention to important issues such as migration, xenophobia, racism, abortion, global conflict, and care for creation. In the United States and around the world, many challenges demand our attention.

  The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed. At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty.

  Our efforts to protect the unborn remain as important as ever, for just as the Supreme Court may allow greater latitude for state laws restricting abortion, state legislators have passed statutes not only keeping abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy but opening the door to infanticide. Additionally, abortion contaminates many other important issues by being inserted into legislation regarding immigration, care for the poor, and health care reform.

  At our border, many arriving families endure separation, inhumane treatment, and lack of due process, while those fleeing persecution and violence face heightened barriers to seeking refuge and asylum. Within our borders, Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and mixed-status and undocumented families face continued fear and anxiety as political solutions fail to materialize. Lawmakers’ inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform which acknowledges the family as the basic unit of society has contributed to the deterioration of conditions at the border. As we seek solutions, we must ensure that we receive refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants in light of the teachings of Christ and the Church while assuring the security of our citizens.

  The wound of racism continues to fester; the bishops of the United States drew attention to this important topic in the recent pastoral letter, Open Wide Our Hearts. Religious freedom problems continue to intensify abroad and in the United States have moved beyond the federal to state and local levels. As international conflicts proliferate, addressing poverty and building global peace remain pressing concerns, as does the need to assist persons and families in our own country who continue to struggle to make ends meet. We must work to address gun violence, xenophobia, capital punishment, and other issues that affect human life and dignity. It is also essential to affirm the nature of the human person as male and female, to protect the family based on marriage between a man and a woman, and to uphold the rights of children in that regard. Finally, we must urgently find ways to care better for God’s creation, especially those most impacted by climate change—the poor—and protect our common home. We must resist the throw-away culture and seek integral development for all.

  With these and other serious challenges facing both the nation and the Church, we are called to walk with those who suffer and to work toward justice and healing.

  At all levels of society, we are aware of a great need for leadership that models love for righteousness (Wisdom 1:1) as well as the virtues of justice, prudence, courage, and temperance. Our commitment as people of faith to imitate Christ’s love and compassion should challenge us to serve as models of civil dialogue, especially in a context where discourse is eroding at all levels of society.  Where we live, work, and worship, we strive to understand before seeking to be understood, to treat with respect those with whom we disagree, to dismantle stereotypes, and to build productive conversation in place of vitriol.

  Catholics from every walk of life can bring their faith and our consistent moral framework to contribute to important work in our communities, nation, and world on an ongoing basis, not just during election season. In this coming year and beyond, we urge leaders and all Catholics to respond in prayer and action to the call to faithful citizenship. In doing so, we live out the call to holiness and work with Christ as he builds his kingdom of love.

Merciful Father,

Thank you for inviting each of us to join in your work

of building the kingdom of love, justice, and peace.

Draw us close to you in prayer

as we discern your call in our families and communities.

Send us forth to encounter all whom you love:

those not yet born, those in poverty, those in need of welcome.

Inspire us to respond to the call to faithful citizenship,

during election season and beyond.

Help us to imitate your charity and compassion

and to serve as models of loving dialogue.

Teach us to treat others with respect, even when we disagree,

and seek to share your love and mercy.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen

Guns in America: A pro-life letter to my dad

A pro-life view on guns and gun control.

By Stephen Schneck, blog Justice News

http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201510/guns-america-pro-life-letter-my-dad-30413#disqus_thread

My dad died in 2008. He joined the National Rifle Association (NRA) when he came home from Korea and was a member for the rest of his life.

Dear Dad,

I’ve changed my mind about guns. They do need to be regulated, licensed, and limited. I say this especially as a pro-life Catholic.

In America today, guns have become something that they never were for us. We wrangled about whether this or that shotgun gauge was better for ducks or pheasants. Dad, I remember how proud you were when I bested all my Boy Scout friends at an NRA rifle contest. With guns, we felt part of family history; we celebrated rituals like walking Uncle Nick’s cornrows and huddling over steaming coffee in a late November deer stand and passing along Grandpa Joe’s .410 to the next generation. Guns were several things in our home. They were tools for the hunting part of our lives and they were legacies of family traditions. As tools and legacies, they were part of the fabric of our culture and way of life.

I’m sure that for some Americans, guns are still what they were for us—tools and legacies. But, for most that’s not what they are anymore.
For many, guns are no longer a part of the fabric of their way of life; they have become the measure and purpose of their way of life. I wonder if this is related to a decline of religiosity or if it’s a reaction of people who find themselves in an America where everything seems to be eroding or in flux. Remember that kid when I was growing up who became so fixated with fire? Remember how he ended up burning down the high school? I think there are thousands and thousands of people in America who have become crazy about guns like that kid was about fire.

For others, guns are about power, both symbolic and real. If guns are about power over others then they are no longer merely tools. Guys who feel powerless and who worry about not measuring up as a man gravitate toward guns. The bigger and scarier-looking the gun, the better. I blame Hollywood and other parts of America’s culture industry for the prevalence of this fetishizing of guns.

I remember how you laughed at that guy in the duck blind who had painted his shotgun black. Scary-looking guns don’t hunt better, you said. Well, it’s the scariest-looking guns that people are buying these days—a telling sign of how guns in America today are no longer what they were for you. They are now all about having power or feeling powerful. They’re now primarily understood as weapons and increasingly as militarized weapons, designed by manufacturers and at least subliminally valued by their owners for their deadliness against human life.

You know that I’m pro-life, Dad. Over the years, as I’ve become more and more appalled at the unconscionable deaths of innocents, I’ve become pretty strident in my support for pro-life causes. You remember me marching in Washington’s annual January pro-life march. You remember my efforts to advance policies and laws that promote and protect life in all its stages. (And, you would be appalled at what Governor Jerry Brown just approved in California! You used to like him.)

In the last few weeks it’s become clear to me that one cannot be opposed to abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty and yet remain silent about guns. This year, guns in the United States will kill thousands and thousands of people. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to see it this way, but clearly this is a pro-life issue. If you are pro-life, then you must be in favor of whatever works to reduce gun deaths. Reflecting the teachings of the church, we are obliged as Catholics, as a matter of faith and morality, to address the availability of guns in public life, just as we are with other life issues. The moral gravity of gun violence is no less than for other life issues.

We know each other too well, Dad, so I know that you’re going to ask me to step down from lofty sermonizing and tell you what this would actually mean in the real world. How do we really achieve such reduction? Well, we could do worse than to take our bearings from the way that the pro-life movement has made progress against abortion: regulation, licensing, limits and, equally importantly, trying to change the culture by promoting supportive policies for families, mothers, and babies.

How would this work for guns? In many states, only state liquor stores can sell liquor. Why not ammunition? In every state, some cars are not allowed on the roads because they are potentially dangerous. In every state, cars need to be licensed, insured, and frequently inspected. Why not guns? One needs to be licensed to scuba dive, run a restaurant, have a dog, operate a ham radio, fish for trout, get married, and oodles of other things. Why not for gun ownership? Such regulations, limits, and licenses are designed to keep the public safe, while allowing mature, qualified, and appropriately healthy individuals to own and use these things safely.

You and I would surely argue about the details. It’s the bigger matter of faith and morals that’s become so compelling to me. This is a moral imperative. Don’t you see? It’s not a putdown or an effort to diminish the way of life that you loved and that I grew up in. Indeed, that way of life would surely flourish if common sense regulations and limits were in place. But if I’m pro-life, Dad, if I’m serious about my Catholic faith, then I must support advancing gun controls in contemporary America.

I know that someday we’ll be tramping through Uncle Nick’s cornrows again. I miss you, Dad.

Steve

Stephen Schneck is the Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America.

Stephen Schneck's blog, Church and state, will update every Monday. Follow him on Twitter @StephenSchneck. 
Image: Flickr cc via Michael Dorausch
http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201510/guns-america-pro-life-letter-my-dad-30413#disqus_thread

Pro-Lifers Show Massive Support for Raped Teen Who Rejected Abortion and Kept Baby

Pro-Lifers Show Massive Support for Raped Teen Who Rejected Abortion and Kept Baby
by Kelsey Monica  Fort Wayne, IN  LifeNews.com  7/11/13 6:29  PM                              
 Fort Wayne, IN (LiveActionNews) — After a long day at work as a medic, I just wanted to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep. Of course, before I could call it a night, I had to jump on Facebook and see everyone’s updates.

I saw a post with a news story out of Elwood, Indiana about a 13-year-old who was pregnant by rape and due to give birth in a few weeks. I read the story and wondered how this took place only 70 miles away from my home but didn’t make local news in Fort Wayne or national news. I decided to shut down my computer and get some much appreciated sleep.

 

Ashley and Aiden.

At 10:30 the same night, I received a call from Rebecca Kiessling, founder of Save the 1 (I’m also a member), asking if I had seen the story. I was really in no mood to discuss, but I continued the conversation. We hung up the phone, and I laid my head back down. I lay there, staring in the dark, and for some reason I got up, turned on my light, and started to do research on who this girl was. Since the girl was a minor, her name wasn’t posted with the article. In 20 minutes, I had her name and was on her Facebook profile, staring at this beautiful girl and an ultrasound picture. Little did I know, this was God working to get me moving on helping this family!

The next day, while volunteering at Allen County Right to Life in Fort Wayne, I called the phone number for this girl’s father and left a message. In the meantime, I started getting information on programs for her in her area.

Four days later, after another long day fulfilling my medic duties on an ambulance, I was in bed when my phone rang at 11:00 pm. I answered it, and it was Kristi, the young girl’s mother. We must have talked for an hour. She explained that Ashley was raped by her brother’s friend, who was 17 at the time, and how, even after charges had been filed, he hasn’t spent one night in jail for these charges. She also explained that the town of Elwood wasn’t providing any help, and Ashley had left school and never gone back because of the way she was being treated for turning in her rapist. In fact, to this day, Ashley’s school has not given her the items out of her locker! This is a perfect example of placing pressure on the victim, while the rapist gets to go on with little to no judgment.

Planned Parenthood decided to place further judgment on the victim by posting on their Facebook page a link to the original news article and this ridiculous comment: “As this article notes, heartbreaking stories like this are all too common in Indiana, which ranks second in the number of teen sexual assaults. Comprehensive sex ed can make a difference in preventing sexual assaults.” I still to this day don’t understand why they even said anything. If they are wanting to help this girl with “her choice,” then they need to become part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Kristi, Ashley, and I decided to meet a few days later to talk about how Save the 1 could help. On June 18, I met the young girl from Elwood and felt an unexplainable bond. Ashley is an amazing young woman who understands that this child didn’t deserve to die simply because his father is a rapist! She reminds me of my own birth mother’s story. My birth mother Sandy was 17 when she was violently raped and as a result became pregnant with me. I wish 40 years ago when Sandy was pregnant with me that there had been an organization like Save the 1 to stand beside her through the toughest of times! My birth mother had no support from her community. She was hidden from the outside world, gave birth to me, and never even looked at me. She placed me up for adoption, which became the greatest gift I have ever received. My mom and dad raised me to stand up for what I believe, to love unconditionally, and to always treat people how I would like them to treat me. These values have made me who I am today!

After meeting Ashley, I knew that this girl needed my help more then I could have imagined. So I started posting about her and her journey on my Facebook page. It was an overwhelming response. Allen County Right to Life started posting updates also, and we had people wanting to donate to Ashley. We decided to accept donations at our local office and allow people to drop off items for her. Within a few days, you could barely walk into Allen County Right to Life Executive Director Cathie Humbarger’s office. To date, I have taken two truckloads of donations to Ashley and baby Aiden, all of it donated by angels among us.

 

Ashley is seeing how the pro-life community has embraced her and her precious son, Aiden. I have been told that people can’t wait to see my next post on Ashley and Aiden and how they feel that they are a part of her journey! One pro-life supporter said that Ashley is just the “girl next door” and that God has big plans for them both. I am just blessed to be able to walk with Ashley on this journey and see firsthand the miracles happening right in front of me.

I wish that my birth mother could see how God is using me to help a girl who is in the same place she was 40 years ago. Sandy passed away on March 6 of this year, and what a blessing it was for me to be there for her. She was with me when I took my first breath, and I was with her, holding her hand, when she took her last. I am sure she is looking down today with a smile on her face.

Save the 1 has started a college fund for Ashley and Aiden. Ashley wants to become a veterinarian, and we are determined to do whatever possible to help her make this happen.

If you would like to donate, please contact Monica Kelsey at www.facebook.com/mkprolife, or visit her website at http://www.monicakelsey.com/.
LifeNews Note: Kelsey Monica writes for Live Action News.

Culture of Life

ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL FRANCIS TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN ORGANIZED BY THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF ASSOCIATIONS OF CATHOLIC DOCTORS
Clementine Hall Friday , September 20, 2013

 I apologize for the delay, because today ... this is a morning too complicated for audiences ... I apologize. 1. The first point that I would like to share with you is this: we are witnessing today in a paradoxical situation , dealing with the medical profession. On the one hand we see - and thank God - the progress of medicine, thanks to the work of scientists who, with passion and with no savings, are dedicated to finding new cures. On the other hand, however, we find also the danger that the doctor might lose its identity as a servant of life. The cultural disorientation has also affected what looked like an unassailable area: your, medicine! Although by their nature at the service of life, the health professions are sometimes induced to disregard life itself. Instead, as we remember the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate , "openness to life is at the center of true development." There is no true development without this openness to life. "If you lose the personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fiber and makes people capable of mutual help "(n. 28). The paradoxical situation is seen in the fact that while you give the person new rights, sometimes even alleged rights, does not always protect the life as a primary value and basic right of every man. The final objective of doctor is always the defense and promotion of life. 2. The second point: in this context, be heard, the Church appeals to the conscience, the conscience of all health care professionals and volunteers, in a particular way you Gynecologists, called to collaborate in the creation of new human lives. Yours is a unique vocation and mission, which requires study, conscience and humanity. At one time, the women who helped in childbirth called "comadre" is like a mother to the other, with the real mother. You too are "comadri" and "compadri", too. A widespread mentality of profits, the "culture of waste", which now enslaves the hearts and minds of many, has a very high cost: it requires to eliminate human beings, especially if they are physically or socially weaker. Our response to this mentality is a "yes" and decided without hesitation to life. "The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some of them are more precious, but is the fundamental good condition for all others "(Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Declaration on Procured Abortion , November 18, 1974, 11). Things have a price and are sold, but people have a dignity, worth more than things and do not have money. Many times, we find ourselves in situations where we see what it costs less is life. For this attention to human life in its totality has become in recent years a real priority of the Magisterium of the Church, particularly to the most defenseless, that is, the disabled, the sick, the unborn child, the child, the elderly, which is the most defenseless life. In the human fragile each of us is invited to recognize the face of the Lord, who in his human flesh has experienced the indifference and loneliness that often condemn the poorest, both in countries in the developing world, both in affluent societies . Every child is not born, but unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, the Lord's face, that before he was born, and then newborn has experienced rejection in the world. And every senior, and - I talked about the child: let's go to the elderly, another point! And every elderly, sick, or even if at the end of his days, carries the face of Christ. You can not discard, as we proposed the "culture of waste"! You can not discard! 3. The third aspect is a mandate: be witnesses and speakers of this "culture of life" . Your being Catholic entails greater responsibility: first of all to yourself, for the effort to be consistent with the Christian vocation, and then to contemporary culture, to help recognize the transcendent dimension in human life, the imprint of the creative work of God, from the very first moment of her conception. This is a commitment to the new evangelization that often requires going against the current, paying in person. The Lord counts on you to spread the "Gospel of life." In this perspective the gynecology hospital departments are privileged places of witness and evangelization, because wherever the Church is "the vehicle of the presence of God" living at the same time becomes an "instrument of the true humanization of man and the world" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization , 9). Growing awareness that the focus of medical care is the human person in a position of weakness, the health facility becomes' the place where the care relationship is not job - your job is not caring relationship - but mission , where the charity of the Good Samaritan is the first chair and the face of the sufferer, the Face of Christ "(Benedict XVI, Address at the University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome , May 3, 2012). Dear Friends doctors, who are called to take care of human life in its initial phase, remind everyone, with facts and words, this is always, in all its phases and at any age, sacred and is always quality. And not for a discussion of faith - no, no - but with reason, for a discourse of science! There is no human life more sacred than another, as there is a human life qualitatively more significant than another. The credibility of a health care system is measured not only for efficiency, but also for the attention and love towards people, whose life is always sacred and inviolable. Do not ever neglect to pray to the Lord and the Virgin Mary for having the strength to do your job well and bear witness with courage - courage! Today it takes courage - courage witness with the "Gospel of life"! Thanks a lot. -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 © Copyright - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Gun violence and Abortion-a letter to the President and my representatives

The only way I see to end gun violence is for our country to once again gain a respect for life.  However, it is entrenched in our country for individuals to decide on the worth of another's life.  In our culture, a person's life is not universally respected. 

I believe that abortion is the greatest contributor to the decline in the respect for all human life. I do not remember the scale of violence in our society back in the 50's and 60's before death by abortion was legalized. What is the difference between death through abortion and death through gun violence?  In my view, there is none.  In each case, someone has decided that another life should not continue living.

The only way to regain a respect for life in this country is to respect all life, from conception to natural death.  No one has the right to decide to end life for another.

Anyone who supports abortion (including those in government), performs abortions, or has an abortion is no better than those who decide with their guns that others have no right to live.  Women die from abortions and many are physically and psychologically harmed for life, just as others die and are harmed for life from gun violence.  And, the violence just spreads outwards affecting eventually all of society.

Our Bodies, Our Consciences, By Kathryn Jean Lopez

February 4, 2013 12:00 A.M.

We are not alone. We can’t afford to pretend we are.

 

 

On the morning of the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade ruling, I felt a chill. And it wasn’t brought on by the appropriate bitterly cold weather that particular January morning. After Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, some 500 or so New Yorkers walked through the streets of midtown Manhattan, in front of God, man, and Grand Central Station, praying the Rosary. Our prayers were for life and love and mercy. Our prayers were not in judgment of others but that we may do better, that women and men may see better options than abortion, that the hurt may be healed, that God may forgive us for letting anyone think she is alone and has no choice but the death of her child.

 

The chill was brought on by the knowledge that some of the commuters streaming into Grand Central knew the pain of abortion all too well. By the certainty that someone, on her morning commute, was thinking that was her only option. By the sharing in a community’s pain and guilt and sorrow.

We tend to live our lives masked in a veil of the imperial self. We pretend that we live alone. But as alone as we might sometimes feel, we make decisions that affect others. We need one another.
We do realize this, on some level. We’re decades into a welfare state premised on the idea that the government is our safety net. But the government cannot be a brother. The government cannot be a mother and a father. Where love thrives is in a flourishing civil society. That is where we flourish. Where our dreams are. Where we get the support that allows us to believe they can be fulfilled.

Our problems today run so deep. Now is the time to take a few steps back. Not to turn back the clock. But to reflect. To talk about some of the most contentious issues now that we are past the frenzy of a presidential election campaign.

Our problems won’t all be solved through legislative action. And legislative action, while it may sometimes be crucial, can’t be maximized without a fuller context. Congress may vote to defund Planned Parenthood, but we can’t assume that the political message that vote sends will cause the culture to change — that people will suddenly remember the poisonous eugenics upon which that organization was founded, that we will celebrate and protect human dignity, live chastely, and see adoption as a brilliant and generous option. A congressional vote is not a magic wand. There are so many steps that need to precede and follow it.

In a new book, Fill These Hearts, author Christopher West works on helping us with the backstory of our lives, a starting point for changing the terms of our debates and untangling our confusions. “Consider,” he writes, “the idea that our bodies tell a story that reveals, as we learn how to read it, the very meaning of existence and the path to the ultimate satisfaction of our deepest desire.”

“To call God ‘Father’ with a sincere heart is to recognize him as the ultimate origin of every good gift and to rest in his benevolent providence, trusting unflinchingly — despite life’s many sorrows and sufferings — that God does indeed have a perfect plan for our satisfaction. To call God ‘Father’ is to believe wholeheartedly that, in due time, he will provide precisely that for which we ache.” West quotes Psalm 145: “You give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.”

West makes the point that our bodies and our souls are not separate things, and that our very physical design speaks to our creation and destination. “In the biblical understanding, there exists a profound unity between that which is physical and that which is spiritual. This means that our bodies are not mere shells in which our true ‘spiritual selves’ live. We are a profound unity of body and soul, matter and spirit. In a very real way, we are our bodies.”
West writes as a Christian, but perceiving a person as an integrated whole does not depend on being a Christian, or a believer of any sort. Nor does understanding that men and women are different and complementary, and that that is a good thing. However, we can no longer take for granted that everyone understands that, let alone accepts, embraces, even celebrates it. Not when our federal health-care policy treats a woman’s fertility as a disease, a condition that she is expected to medicate away in order to achieve freedom and equality. Not when we are sending women into combat.

The world-famous former mayor of New York Ed Koch, who died just last week, was good friends with John Cardinal O’Connor. In 1989 they collaborated on a book, His Eminence and Hizzoner, in which Mayor Koch wrote: “The future of our nation depends on our ability to inculcate a strong sense of morality in our young people. That moral sense should be based on philosophical, ethical and religious teachings, which are the underpinnings of conscience. The way to oppose abortion is by challenging the conscience of those who advocate it. If the battle cannot be won at the level of conscience, it cannot be won.”

But what is conscience? What is right and wrong, and who are we and why are we? If we do not agree that there are answers to these questions — even if we don’t agree on what those answers are — we will never have a constructive debate about abortion, whether in terms of policy or of culture. That is the foundational work we need to return to. No election campaign is ever going to be better without it. Our culture is never going to be renewed without it. No lives are going to be truly redeemed without it. We won’t start making sense again without it. The dark bitter cold of winter will be warmed by the renewal that comes with embracing life, living life lovingly, supporting life, letting someone know she is not alone.

— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. This column is available exclusively through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association. She is a director of Catholic Voices USA.