The OCA and ACROD are still putting other jurisdictions to shame by their full-throated and long-lasting involvement in the March for Life (and pro-life causes in general - see who is involved in ZOE for Life, the St. Ambrose Society, etc.). I was unable to go this year, but will be back next year for sure.
(OCA) - Tens of thousands of pro-life marchers from across the United States gathered in the nation’s capital on Friday, January 19, 2018 for the 45th annual March for Life.Complete article here.
The annual March marks the anniversary of the January 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States. The theme of this year’s March was “Love Saves Lives.”
As reported earlier, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, led the Orthodox Christian hierarchs, clergy, seminarians and faithful at the March. Other participating hierarchs included His Eminence, Archbishop Melchisedek of Pittsburgh and His Eminence, Archbishop Michael of New York. In addition to representing the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Tikhon represented the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America at the request of His Eminence, Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, who chairs the Assembly. Also present were numerous hierarchs and representatives of the Oriental Churches and other traditions.
On the eve of the March, Metropolitan Tikhon was among those who attended a Prayer Vigil at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC. Presiding at the Vigil, which was organized by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, was His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, who together with other Roman Catholic hierarchs extended a warm welcome to Metropolitan Tikhon and those accompanying him.
At Friday morning’s pre-March program, Metropolitan Tikhon led the marchers in the opening prayer.
“As life is one, all violence of any kind is of the same essence, the tearing of the one tunic,” Metropolitan Tikhon prayed. “The tearing of the tunic will take many forms, abortion, execution, war, racism, genocide, oppression, slavery, hatred of any kind, but the essence of all is one and the same. All such acts are only symptoms of one and the same illness, ‘the sin of the world,’ of which we are all part, which is self-love.”
Among those joining Metropolitan Tikhon on the stage were Archbishops Melchisedek and Michael and Timothy Cardinal Dolan...
Posts
When I was an SVS seminarian ('14-16), St Ambrose Society was at least 50% Antiochians. The Antiochians were some of the most theologically and morally conservative students there.
ReplyDeleteThat's wonderful. I hope that goes up the institutional flagpole as men graduate so that Antiochian priests and bishops are there in future, so we see it on the jurisdiction's website, and we see Antiochian parishes sending people from local parishes.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteYeah, you're right. But I can tell you that on a local level, our hierarch in DOWAMA has always strongly encouraged his parishes to participate in our local Texas Rally for Life, and other state equivalents, which we will be doing this Saturday.
DeleteI liked this from Met. Tikhon: Let us be pro-life and be against anything that injures life, against any violence, under any circumstances.
ReplyDeleteLet us be pro-life and understand the kinship of all people and even of all other creatures and all things.
Let us be pro-life and thus become unable to endure the injury done to any creature.
Kinda begs the question, where are Orthodox Christians standing up in these numbers for Dreamers or for Medicare for All, or for those suffering from slumlords, or those suffering from poverty wages? Do we not care *why* women get abortions? Why do we not adequately address the underlying causes?
I hope not. Dreamers are illegal immigrants. Govt. involved in my medical care is frightening. The rest are quality of life concerns of which none are possible if we snuff out the lives before they are born. I'm not going to subscribe to a whole-life platform where one can't be described as pro-life unless he also signs on to every pet topic someone can come up with from a state-mandated minimum wage to free access to sanitary napkins.
DeleteThen you are not pro life. You are just anti-abortion.
Delete"Then you are not pro life. You are just anti-abortion."
DeleteNope. You don't get to re-define the Christian revelation as to what a human being is into another philosophy (in this case one where political categories of equality, economics, etc. define what a human being is).
Christianly, from very early on we categorically denied abortion, while we were "ok" with slaves submitting, even to the point of "suffering punishment wrongly" (see 1 Peter) to their owners. Now why do you think that is? Hint - life is for suffering...
Without disdaining the needs of some over the needs of the many children aborted, if someone doesn't agree with illegal immigration giant scissors do not descend from the sky and cut the Dreamers limb from limb. If a child is saved from certain death, but the mother is not given a layette and diapers, it is not a death sentence for that child. If Medicare for All doesn't pass 3,000 people will not die gruesome deaths every single day. At some point, we have to be rational, in addition to being compassionate. Yes, we need to have mercy and help those in need, especially mothers and children. But we don't balance the equation by killing the baby because there is always great need in the world.
DeleteAlso, you don't get to re-define what the pro life movement is as even a worldly political effort - into yet another left wing struggle for "economic justice" and the like...
ReplyDeleteMike’s right. Just wanting to stop abortions w/o dealing with the material conditions that lead does not make one pro-life.
ReplyDeleteWe as Christians are supposed to be concerned with the material conditions of our neighbors and to improve them.
Yes, that means helping Dreamers, because no human is illegal.
Yes, that means working to decommodify healthcare.
Yes, that means giving workers the full value of their labor.
Yes, that even means giving out free tampons.
"We as Christians are supposed to be concerned with the material conditions of our neighbors and to improve them."
DeleteYes. By all means go do that. Government is not a proxy for Christian virtue. It's often in opposition to it.
Abortion is a terrible solution to a bad situation, and if one’s actually serious about ending it government is very much a proxy for virtue. That is unless we want to ignore the fact that economics is a big factor in deciding to have an abortion.
DeleteMaybe it’s just me, but finger wagging and poor shaming make for bad evangelizing.
Who is wagging a finger or poor shaming? I don't see anyone doing that.
DeleteI am afraid it is not just you Daniel Ph, but the whole modern world. You get several things exactly backwards. Christians are not pro-life (in praxis) because of the Great Commission ("evangilizing"), but for the Love of God. Even on your own own terms (i.e. material, "economic", the suffering of persons in body and soul) you are wrong, in that abortion in our absurdly rich and prosperous civilization is not "caused" by material want - on the contrary abortion is "caused" by material abundance, and the delusion of the God of Self that it enables. Do you see how you have it backwards?
DeleteSingle mother with 2 kids working a low wage job with no benefits is totally getting an abortion because America is absurdly wealthy? How does that work?
DeleteRepetition. This gospel of the material suffering was traditioned to you Daniel Ph. by your fathers in the faith (i.e. the faith of economic "justice"). If you step back and think about it for just a moment, you will see that this hypothetical women is materially wealthy - much more so than her great-great grandmother who had 8, 10, or 12 children, a third of which died before they were age 5, and almost all of whom died before 30, often by famine. You will also see that when she has 1 job, with benefits, a big house, two cars, a smart phone, and several TV's she still gets abortion(s). Turns out relative wealth has nothing to do with abortion. Your myth is just a myth...
DeleteThis is the finger wagging and poor shaming I was talking about.
DeleteThe “It’s-Better-Now-Than-It-Was-X#-Years-Ago” is just a lazy and callous excuse to not deal with ppls very real concerns now. Starvation is starvation and it doesn’t care what time you live in.
Oh no Daniel, you are the moralist in this conversation, not I. You are the one who is trying to define what pro life means, what a human being is, and indeed what Christianity is on *moral* grounds. I simply noted some facts, and Christianly say that no matter what the material/economic circumstances of any person is, a person is a person. You are the one making distinctions of who is and who is not a person based on moral (in this case an unexamined philosophy of "economic justice") and then judging me, the pro life movement, and Christianity when we don't adhere to your morality.
DeleteYour on to something though. Fear, shame, fear of suffering, lack of fear of God, lack of trust in God - all these are the actual reasons for a "decision" to kill unborn children. Of course, even in a utopia where poverty does not exist (i.e. where everyone has 1 job with benefits, a 3000 square foot house, two cars, a smart phone, 3 TV's and a $200 cable bill that does not even dent the retirement fund) abortion still happens because abortion is spiritual problem, not a moral one...
So Jake, what are your concrete, real world solutions to ending abortion?
Delete"So Jake, what are your concrete, real world solutions to ending abortion? "
DeleteThe one thing needful.
Only this (this good part) can not be taken away, and thus it is the only better than concrete, more real than real basis upon which any "solution" rests. Anything else is just rearranging the externals (e.g. "economic justice") - murder is an internal, spiritual disease and does not avail itself to material and progressive "fixing" of the world or man...
That’s a bit easy to say when it’s a cross you’ll never have to bear, but whatever.
DeleteWe have a soul and a very real physical body. We should minister to both as Christ did. Abortion, like any other sin will never go away. But to only bleat on about saving babies and doing nothing for the mother can not be called pro-life.
At Friday morning’s pre-March program, Metropolitan Tikhon led the marchers in the opening prayer.
“As life is one, all violence of any kind is of the same essence, the tearing of the one tunic,” Metropolitan Tikhon prayed. “The tearing of the tunic will take many forms, abortion, execution, war, racism, genocide, oppression, slavery, hatred of any kind, but the essence of all is one and the same. All such acts are only symptoms of one and the same illness, ‘the sin of the world,’ of which we are all part, which is self-love.”
The "doing" that you want "for the mother" is vain material tweaking-of-circumstances. (Wo)man does not live by bread alone. You want to "fix" her material situation (an impossibility in the first place because there is no limit in your economic justice worldview - there will never be enough of even tampons), which in fact is not the "cause" of her "decision". You have misdiagnosed the problem even on the level of her body. The problem is on a spiritual level and that is where abortion will be "fixed".
DeleteNot sure why you point to Met. Tikhon's prayer - it sees abortion as murder, and murder as a result of the sin of the world...ah, I see - you see sin and its symptoms (abortion, war, oppression, ignorance, perhaps even death) as something an enlightened progressive economy can fix, and thus it fixes human nature itself. Well that is central to the modernist myth...
You’re right, man can live by bread *alone*. But he still needs bread, and a rose now and again would be nice too.
DeleteI brought up Met. Tikhon because his words illustrate my main contention with the “pro-life” movement. You can’t call yourself pro-life if you aren’t willing to address ALL forms of violence. And if you’re willing to use state power to stop abortion you better be willing to use state power to end other forms of violence (and yes, I have a pretty broad definition of that)
No Martha - oops, I mean Daniel - neither I nor Christianity need subscribe to the moral absolutism of "the All". It's part of the scandal of the particular: Jesus Christ does not tell me to love ALL men, as if they are an abstraction, but particular men, namely my neighbors (which assumes a spatial relationship, one in time, one of real relationship to actual persons and not the abstraction of "mankind"). This love does not manifest itself in the rational and unreal "ALL", but rather my wife, my kids, my fellow congregants, my actual neighbors and where God actually puts me.
DeleteEven on a prudential and ethical level, your absolutism is unrealistic - it's just a rhetorical ploy in support of "economic justice". As a practical matter, any man or movement can only address one problem at a time (or at best two or three), and this is understood by the wise.
You have misunderstood Met. Tikhon's words. Actually, you have "re-imagined" them to the service of another philosophy, namely "Economic Justice"...
Martha? Huh?!? What does this even mean?
DeleteFine, I get it (I think). You don’t want to have to worry about the filthy ppl that live on the other side of the tracks, or the migrant workers picking crops outside of town. Outta sight outta mind. Or maybe you just expect the same spiritual perfection outta others as you do for yourself. But what do I know?
And lastly...No, I am not wrong about my reading of Met. Tikhon. For the umptinth time, if you’re gonna march against abortion because it’s spiritually bad, you better march against warmongering, you better march against racist policies in housing, education, policing etc, and you better march against those businesses that steal wages from there employees (which is pretty much all). Because all these things literally effect the lives of those you live around and interact with every single day.
Yep, you are wrong. For Met Tikhon, what is "spiritually bad" is MORE literal than the literal circumstances of our material lives. Those things you list only "effect". What Met. Tikhon refers to is *meaning*, the meaning of all "effects". Until you make an effort to entertain this reality, Christianity will be something merely "spiritual", unreal except in a psychological sense to you, and you will (rightly, given the logic and limits of your horizon) despairingly quest to fix the world in all its brokenness, suffering, injustice, and death...
DeleteLOL, and you seem to think that one’s material conditions have no relation to their spiritual lives. Feed the hungry, cloth the naked, yadda yadda yadda.
DeleteSo if everything Met. Tikhon listed is merely the effect of sin then why march against abortion?
Hey Jake, before you come back with more of that weird dualistic wordage of yours take a gander at what Basil the Great had to say on social justice. Heck, SVS even puts it in a little boom titles On Social Justice :)
Delete" Jesus Christ does not tell me to love ALL men, as if they are an abstraction, but particular men, namely my neighbors (which assumes a spatial relationship, one in time, one of real relationship to actual persons and not the abstraction of "mankind"). This love does not manifest itself in the rational and unreal "ALL", but rather my wife, my kids, my fellow congregants, my actual neighbors and where God actually puts me.
Delete"
This is just Gospel twisting
Well, Jake, that's what happens when you take God out of the equation. If you don't believe man consists of body and soul,I guess you could rationlise that life doesn't begin at conception.
ReplyDeleteI'm closing the comments on this post. There are so many trolls under this bridge that they have no room to move around much less do anything productive.
ReplyDelete