In the spiritual life – as we are overcoming sins and perfecting ourselves – we often discover that in fighting against a particular fault, the fault we are attacking is actually an effect of a deeper root cause. At first, we may be unaware of the deeper root and begin attacking the fault with little or no lasting success. It is not until we discover – by God's grace – the deeper root cause of the particular fault, and begin to attack it, that our true victory is gained. Just as in our personal spiritual lives we often discover a deeper root cause for our sins, similarly in other areas of life there is often a deeper root cause that has produced the manifest evil. This work will focus primarily on the cause that produced legalized abortion and our "culture of death," and show what must be done to correct the situation.
Abortion is surely a most heinous sin; not only is it murder, but it is murder of the most innocent. These innocent babies are created by God and for God, yet their lives are snuffed out before they are even born. Many people, whose eyes are open to the evils of abortion, fight for the lives of these unborn babies with truly heroic courage, yet the abortions continue. In 1997, the CDC reported that there were just over 1.18 Million abortions in the US alone; it was reported this year that during 2000 there were a total of 1.37 Million abortions, which is slightly higher than the average yearly abortion rate since 1985. With all of the Rosaries, Masses, and sacrifices offered to God, why is the number of abortions not decreasing? Is the fight being waged on the wrong front? Is the symptom being attacked while the disease goes undetected? In the fight to end abortion, we must seek to find the root cause that has produced it; and after finding the cause, we must "take the ax to the root."
So, what is the deeper root cause that has led to abortion and our culture of death? Abortion is a moral issue; our objective moral values are based on our religion, and our religion on our faith. A person with little or no religion usually has weak moral values. Similarly, when faith is weakened, the logical effect will be a lowering of morality. Pope Leo XIII tells us, "when the mind has... become poisoned, the moral character becomes at the same time deeply and substantially corrupt." He further tells us that "it is the light of Christian faith which is the principal and foundation of all righteousness." It follows, then, that if the Christian faith, which the Pope calls the "foundation of all righteousness," is diminished, the effect will be a lessening of moral values; and it is logical to conclude that until the faith is restored, the morality it upholds will not return.
If we look back over recent history, we see that this indeed is what happened: First the faith was attacked and weakened; the weakening of faith then resulted in a lowering of morality; finally, the lowering of morals paved the way for our culture of death. Therefore, to end our culture of death, we must fight the effect at its cause; that is, we must restore moral values by restoring the faith.
As was stated above, abortion is surely one of the worst of all sins, however, according to Catholic theology, heresy is the greatest of all sins: "The sin of unbelief [heresy] is greater than any sin which occurs in the perversion of morals." (St. Thomas Aquinas) This is because murder (abortion being one of the worst forms) is an attack on a creature, while heresy is a direct attack on God Himself. What is heresy? Heresy is the rejection of a truth revealed by God; that is, the rejection of a truth contained in the "deposit of faith" handed down by Tradition, and proclaimed true by the Church. If a person rejects even one truth of the faith, that person is objectively a heretic. "He who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all faith," said Pope Leo XIII in
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