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Moloch, Mammon, and Western Society

Moloch, Mammon, and Western Society

Last updated on: June 1, 2018 at 2:11 pm by Jack Quirk

Moloch, Mammon, and Western Society 2018-06-01T14:11:13-05:00 Jack Quirk

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It’s not as if the outcome of the Irish abortion vote was ever really in doubt. In the neo-liberal world, the value of both women and men is measured by how much they contribute to the gross national product, a basis of valuation internalized by most Westerners, and pregnancy has a tendency to interfere with the production capabilities of women. It is advertised as a women’s rights issue in the hopes that no one will notice that abortion has been with us for centuries, long before so much as allowing women to vote was widely considered a rational aspiration.

In the United States, of course, the question is complicated by the fact that impoverished women cannot rely on sufficient social supports for their offspring, such as medical care, or even so much as affordable daycare as they perform their duties enhancing the national GNP. Meanwhile, enjoying the fruits of the new dominant paradigm that prohibits sexual restraint, many fathers abandon their children and their mothers and practice the nuanced art of evading child support.

So of course we allow the killing of offspring, providing moral shelter with the euphemism “abortion.” It’s good for the economy. Besides, to do otherwise would offend the chief gods of the Western pantheon: Sex and Money.

One thing that can be said for it is that it is probably more humane than the ancient practice of exposing infants. Yes, humans have been killing babies for a long time. Sometimes we have done it to make a sacrifice to our deities (which, come to think of it, is pretty much what we’re doing now).

Now since the recent vote took place in Ireland, and the results of the vote were overwhelming, we can surmise that there might have been Catholics who voted to legalize abortion. It may be of interest to them, and to some American Catholic politicians, that it is Catholic teaching that abortion must not be permitted by the state. The Catechism goes into great detail about this. It says,

“The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

“’The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.’

“’The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), §2273) [1]

But we should not flatter ourselves that opposing abortion, as horrible as it is, completes our Catholic civil duties. For it is also true, that the “political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure…in keeping with the country’s institutions, the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits….” (CCC, §2211) [2]

The state may not permit abortion. But it also has a duty to ensure that children who are brought into the world will be properly cared for. Right now, neither of the major political parties in the United States are calling for this holistic approach. Yet if only the Catholics in those parties can serve as the salt of the earth, as they are called to do, we might see a change.

The icon of St. Joseph the Worker is by Daniel Nichols.

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