Fr. Basil raises an excellent and much discussed point in his post on The Orthodox Leader: The moral and social issues affecting this country are largely (i.e. almost completely) met with silence by Orthodox hierarchs. I would go further and say the same is true of many Eastern Catholic hierarchs as well. Go look for something written by the Ruthenian metropolia, the Diocese of Newton, etc. on these issues and you will be hard pressed to see clear pastoral teaching.
There are some bright spots. The March for Life saw the attendance of OCA bishops marching with seminarian and laypeople following a keynote speech from Metropolitan Jonah on issues of life (euthanasia and abortion) televised across the world with tens of thousands in attendance. He again spoke on the importance of life from conception to a dignified death at the Diocese of the South's annual meeting. Even at a visit to a local parish this year he spoke for quite a while on abortion, contraception, care for the elderly, importance of family, premarital sex, and cohabitation ("Cut off from the sacraments. Period.").
This is of course insufficient to the day. The clarion call should be echoing from every solea. The jurisdictions need a common voice. I pray that the episcopal assembly that will replace SCOBA will provide for it, but I'm not overly hopeful.
From The Orthodox Leader:
Sadly, though, this legislation is not purely about political matters, for it has provisions for using taxes gathered from individuals, including Christians, to pay for elective abortions in all or part (c.f., here and here). Despite the scandalously equivocal language used by the Ecumenical Patriarch in discussing abortion (c.f., here, here, here, and here), the Church’s teaching cannot be misunderstood. As a best example, consider St. Basil the Great (AD 330-379), who says absolutely nothing new: “Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses” (Letter 188). Children in the womb are human beings, and their willful destruction is murder. So what about all those who will now find themselves accessories to the crime through the new legal requirement to fund abortion?
In the face of this legislation, this question, and the evil that is elective abortion, the silence from our Orthodox leaders is deafening. Goarch.org? Oca.org? Antiochian.org? ROCOR? The Serbian Church in America? SCOBA? Nothing. We are justified in wailing with grief over more than 250,000 dead in Haiti, yet over 1.2 million elective abortions are performed each year in the United States alone. All is now set to begin funding them with tax dollars, and no official word of protest or exhortation is to be found.
Worse, at least one professor at Holy Cross Seminary is reportedly elated at the passing of this legislation, and I am nearly certain he has company among the faculty at St. Vladimir’s. Is it any wonder, then, that our parishes have so many individuals – often lifelong Orthodox Christians – who think abortion is no big deal? Is it any wonder that many of our parish clergy are indifferent to (if not supportive of) abortion? If the shepherds won’t wield their staves to drive away wolves wearing power suits and lab coats, aided by the Internal Revenue Service, who will? If they won’t, who can reasonably be expected to?
To those bishops (especially those whom I have overlooked) and my brethren who are speaking against the wanton destruction of these little ones, I thank you and pray that your efforts would yield much fruit by strengthening and encouraging the Orthodox faithful to stand firm against such wanton destruction of human beings. To the others, the bigger lambs need someone to feed them (Jn 21:14-19), and the littlest ones need someone to speak in their defense. Who will do it?
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