Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 314

"Catholic politicians can't have it both ways on sensitive moral issues."

From an interview with George Cardinal Pell in the May 2011 issue of Catholic World Report:

In regard to marriage and family, would you say that the passage of time since 1968 has further vindicated Pope Paul VI's restatement of Catholic teaching in Humanae Vitae?

Cardinal Pell: Certainly. Recent research suggests that 50 years of the contraceptive pill has changed the marriage market irrevocably by creating two markets—one for transient sexual relationships or one-night stands and another for child-rearing.

This has made it easier for men to delay commitment, has undermined marriage, and has triggered a redistribution of wealth and power from women and children to men.

This is reinforced by what many say is a new front in the sexual revolution, the modern "hook-up" culture in which young people have expanded the quaint concept of monogamous relationships to include "sex buddies and late-night booty calls."

This new sex paradigm is ultimately destructive to the Christian concept of encouraging life-long relationships to produce children for the benefit of society.

One of the roles of people like myself and Christians and those who believe in family life is to say to young people, "You're encouraged to minutely examine the Christian position, and sometimes you examine it minutely from a hostile perspective. Be as discriminatory and as careful to examine the alternative just as closely and see what works."

I say to young people, "Look at the adults you admire who seem to be happy and productive, then find out what principles are inspiring those people."

What is your view of those avowedly Catholic politicians who adopt public stances in clear opposition to Church teaching on key moral issues like abortion or same-sex marriage?

Cardinal Pell: Some politicians like to dine at the Catholic cafeteria—picking and choosing Church teachings that suit their political views while claiming to be defenders of the faith. While they fly under the Christian or "Captain Catholic" flag, they blithely disregard Christian perspectives when they vote in Parliament on moral issues.

If a person says, "Look, I'm not a Christian, I've a different set of perspectives," I disagree but I understand. If a person says to me, "Look, I'm nominally a Christian but it sits lightly with me," I understand that.

But it's incongruous for people to be Captain Catholics one minute, saying they're as good a Catholic as the Pope, then to turn around an regularly vote against the established Christian traditions.

In England, if you're anti-Catholic—say, writing for The Guardian or The Independent—you wear that anti-Catholicism or anti-Christianity as a badge of honor. Here in Australia, politicians who regularly espouse anti-Christian positions—whether on euthanasia, abortion, same-sex marriage, or funding for religious schools—won't concede that they're anti-Christian.

Catholic politicians can't have it both ways on sensitive moral issues.

Read the entire interview, in which Cardinal Pell also talks about the new missal translation and global warming (and other topics), on the new CWR website.

Did Abp. Fulton Sheen predict—in 1942—the suicide of Adolf Hitler?

The evidence seems strong. Dave Pierre has the details. And, hey, it comes via The New York Times, which we know is infallible or all-knowing or something along those lines. But, seriously, rather intriguing.

UPDATE: A reader sent me the PDF of the March 9, 1942 Times article (p. 16); here is a key part:

"Hitler kisses with the kiss of betrayal," [Sheen] averred. "A few years before he died, Pope Pius XI said, 'Hitler is another Judas.' May we not expect one called by such a name by the Vicar of Christ will end his life in the same way?"

Mgr. Sheen likened Americans today to Simon of Cyrne, who was called upon to carry Christ's cross to Calvary but was at first reluctant to bear the burden.

Thanks, C.E.F.!

Dr. James Hitchcock on the failures of liberal Catholicism

If you've not read Dr. James Hitchcock's essay, "The Failure of Liberal Catholicism" (part one of two), in the May 2011 issue of Catholic World Report, here's a taste:

Liberals lament "extremists" and the absence of civility in both political and religious life, but it is only conservatives who are found guilty of such offenses. The priest-theologian Richard McBrien insists that he knows of no "progressives" who have a divisive agenda.

Few conservative Catholics defend the way in which clerical sexual abuse has been dealt with by the hierarchy. Indeed, given the importance they place on sexual morality, conservatives are, if anything, even more appalled than are liberals. But the scandal was quickly (and predictably) turned into a partisan issue. Voice of the Faithful—founded for the purpose of demanding official action—soon became merely one more liberal lobbying group.

Readers of the NCR repeatedly express outrage that Cardinal Bernard Law, former archbishop of Boston, has not been punished enough for tolerating sexual abuse. But liberals have little to say about Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who has been openly defiant in covering up scandals, and when other liberal episcopal heroes—Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, Cardinal Godfrey Daneels of Belgium—were found to have been equally complicit, liberals made no agonizing reappraisals.

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, a former editor of the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal, admitted that, despite the fact that Weakland took no action against predator priests and used diocesan funds to pay off his blackmailing male lover, he remained for her an almost ideal bishop. McBrien and the feminist nun Joan Chittister both praised the wisdom of Weakland's published memoirs, and an NCR reader identified him as one of the few "faith-filled bishops." The NCR does not remind its readers that one of the most egregious clerical offenders, Paul Shanley (whom Law protected), was praised in its pages at least three times, even after he had been exposed.

In their incessant excoriation of "the bishops," liberals ignore another group of individuals who are equally culpable—superiors of religious orders. No one has investigated how clerical misconduct was dealt with by, for example, the liberal Timothy Radcliffe, the former master general of the Dominicans, or by the liberal superiors of the Society of Jesus, although those orders dealt with the abuses no more forthrightly than did most of the bishops.

It is liberal dogma that a female hierarchy would deal with clerical abuses in the proper way, but the reality is otherwise. The LCWR curtly refuses to meet with people claiming to have been abused by religious sisters, refusing even to put the issue on its agenda.

Liberals routinely identify themselves as "thinking Catholics," a category that seems to exclude, for example, the late theologians Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean Danielou, Henri DeLubac, and Avery Dulles, as well as the two most recent popes. Orthodox theologians, according to the NCR, merely "regurgitate the party line," and the paper's "theological giants" include the late "post-Christian" ranter Mary Daly, but none of the above thinkers.

There are orthodox Catholic professors at prestigious universities, but their existence has to be ignored, since by definition to "think" means to dissent. Elizabeth Anscombe was perhaps the most important woman philosopher of the 20th century, but liberals cannot acknowledge her, since she strongly supported Catholic teaching about contraception and other things.

Part of this liberal conceit is the claim that those who dissent do so only after long and careful study. But, as the pages of the NCR also demonstrate, dissent is often reduced to jeering slogans. Few liberals seem even to have read Humanae Vitae, much less could they offer a careful critique of it.

In fact, for liberal "thinking Catholics" feelings often rule, and they employ a kind of emotional blackmail to make their case—justifying their demands on the grounds that they have suffered so much.

Read the entire piece, available now on the new CWR website. As I've noted on a couple of occasions, during the 1970s, Dr. Hitchcock wrote some of the best works of learned polemics in defense of Catholicism against dissent and destruction, including The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism (Herder and Herder, 1971) and Catholicism and Modernity: Confrontation or Capitulation? (Seabury, 1979).

Gallup Poll: More than 9 in 10 Americans believe in God. But.

From the Gallup Poll site:

More than 9 in 10 Americans still say "yes" when asked the basic question "Do you believe in God?"; this is down only slightly from the 1940s, when Gallup first asked this question. ... Despite the many changes that have rippled through American society over the last 6 ½ decades, belief in God as measured in this direct way has remained high and relatively stable. Gallup initially used this question wording in November 1944, when 96% said "yes." That percentage dropped to 94% in 1947, but increased to 98% in several Gallup surveys conducted in the 1950s and 1960s. Gallup stopped using this question format in the 1960s, before including it again in Gallup's May 5-8 survey this year.

But:

Belief in God drops below 90% among younger Americans, liberals, those living in the East, those with postgraduate educations, and political independents.

And:

However, past Gallup surveys have shown that not all Americans are absolutely certain in their beliefs about God. Given the ability to express doubts about their beliefs, the percentage who stick to a certain belief in God drops into the 70% to 80% range. Additionally, when Americans are given the option of saying they believe in a universal spirit or higher power instead of in "God," about 12% choose the former. Still, the May 2011 poll reveals that when given only the choice between believing and not believing in God, more than 9 in 10 Americans say they do believe.

Also noted is that at "some points in the 1950s, almost all Americans identified themselves with a particular religion. In recent years, more than 1 in 10 Americans tell survey interviewers they have no formal religious identity."

(The poll did not ask how many people believe that the New York Times is God or is a mouthpiece for God.)

It is rather easy to say, "I believe in God", just as it is easy to say, "Love is the answer", "Let's build a better world together", or "I prefer two shots of espresso in my latte", as these statements are open to a wide range of interpretation (except for the latter, as "two shots" and "latte" are fairly recognizable entities, even to the most non-dogmatic java junkie). Vague talk about "God" and "love" only goes so far, and that's not very far in the year 2011, when a fair number of people believe that they are God (or part of God) and that homosexual acts express love just as truly (if not more so) than the marital embrace.

That said, the numbers still surprise me in a good—if also cautious, qualified, and muted—way. After all, recent polls in Britain indicate that some 30% or more of Brits (perhaps even a majority) don't believe in God. This trend (in England) and some of the social, cultural, and religious reasons for it are examined in depth in Hugh McLeod's book, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (Oxford, 2007), which I've been reading recently in bits and pieces. McLeod (who acknowledges his liberals views, but whose analysis and insights are usually quite excellent) traces the roots of the upheaval of the 1960s back to the Sixties: the 1860s. He notes that "since the 1860s and 1870s agnosticism had fashionable in sections of the intelligentia. The pioneers of this movement had attacked Christian doctrine while largely accepting Christian morality." By the 1920s, however, influential thinkers such as the atheist Bertrand Russell were attacking "convential morality" openly and with growing success. McLeod details how liberal Angelicanism was at the forefront of the eventual collapse of long-held beliefs about morality, God, and the importance of Christian faith. One aspect of this trend was that morality was increasingly seen as necessarily distinct—even radically separate—from the sphere of law:

The other important development at this time was the increasing respect by Anglican leaders for 'experts', such as doctors, psychiatrists, and sociologists, leading to the view that Christian ethics, rather than being autonomous, had to take account of the latest evidence coming from these other disciplines.

This set the stage for the acceptance by the Anglican hierarchy of contraception, which was increasingly believed to have a vital role in making marriages more happy and successful. McLeod places much emphasis, notably, on the role of changes in law (what he terms the "legislative revolution"), concuding that "the legal reforms of the 1960s and 1970s mark an important state in the decline in Christendom, and thte move towards a pluraistic society, in which a range of contrasting moral standpoints have an accepted standing." But he notes that while the religious trends of the U.S. and western Europe were very similar from 1945 to 1972, those paths "began to diverge" around 1972. While church-going continued to plummet in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, it stabilized in the U.S. There is much more to McLeod's analysis, which is quite illuminating, but he writes that the

differences between Europe and the United States are not so much therefore between the 'secularity' of one and the 'religiosity' of the other, as between different ways of being 'secular' and of being 'religious'. ... The biggest difference between the United States and most parts of western Europe, I have suggested, lies in the degree to which religion continues to be embedded in American popular culture, in spite of the secularization of many elite groups. A second difference is that professions of piety are required of American politicians in a way that seldom happens in Europe, and this probably has done more than anything else to shape perceptions of Americans as an unusually, and perhaps excessively, religious people.

What to make of all of this? I'm not entirely sure, but it seems fairly obvious that the polarization in the U.S. between "liberals" and "conservatives" has as much to do with religious beliefs as it does with policy, perhaps even much more so. In other words, it seems to me that many Americans inately recognize, however imperfectly, that politics are rooted in ethics, which is grounded in morality, which in turn comes from God (however vaguely "God" is defined), whereas those with a more secular or liberal bent see politics as more foundational, informing notions about religious practice and belief. Also, I think the growing trend of believing in God while refusing to be a member of a particular church or denomination will grow, as evidenced in part by the increased talk among many Protestants of a "post-denominational church" (as opposed, I suppose, the pre-denominational Church founded by Christ). And I think that the talk about "God" divorced from substantive doctrine and some sort of meaningful tradition leads fairly inevitably to either practical agnosticism/atheism or wholesale rejection of Christianity.

Thoughts?

For an interesting perspective from some eighty years ago or so, see this piece from Monsignor Ronald Knox:

A "valuable resource" about the history and future of the Anglican Use

From the "Seward's Folly" blog, which offers "Reflections of an Episcopalian Reconciled to Rome", this note about a recently published Ignatius Press book:

With the publication of Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church: Reflections on Recent Developments (Ignatius Press, 2011), a collection of essays on the subject, those of us who have been laboring to explain the origins of Anglicanorum coetibus to whomever is willing to listen have a valuable resource at their fingertips.  Many of the contributors are former Anglican priests who have been ordained into the Catholic priesthood through the Pastoral Provision.  One of them, Bishop Peter Elliott, was not married and so was able to become a Catholic bishop.  Another is a woman who relinquished holy orders in the Episcopal Church to enter the Catholic Church. The essays are grouped into four categories, explaining the historical, canonical, theological and liturgical aspects of the relationship between Anglicans and the Catholic Church.  Most were written before the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus, and they provide a telling picture of just how precarious was the future of the Anglican Use before November 4, 2009.

Here is more about the book, which is available directly from Ignatius Press in paperback and electronic book formats:

The twelve essays in this book discuss the reasons Anglicans have sought reconciliation with the Holy See, while retaining elements of their own liturgy and traditions. They explore the history and scope of Pope John Paul II's Pastoral Provision and Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Constitution and examine the needs of the new ordinariates if they are to flourish. Also considered are the changes to the Roman liturgy since the Second Vatican Council and the specific patrimony that Anglicans bring to Catholic worship.

Many of these essays have been written by erstwhile Anglican clergymen who have been ordained into the Catholic priesthood (and one into the episcopate). A few are by Catholic experts on this topic. There is also a contribution from a woman who had been an ordained Episcopal priest before becoming a Catholic.

Here is a wealth of information for anyone interested in the Anglican communities within the Catholic Church, the "reform of the reform" of the Roman liturgy or the testimonies of Anglicans who have become Roman Catholics.

Read the Introduction on Ignatius Insight:

"A Time for Clarity": George Neumayr on the Vatican's removal of Bp. William Morris

A Time for Clarity | George Neumayr | Catholic World Report

The Vatican's removal of Bishop William Morris

"Here I stand," said Martin Luther as he challenged teachings of the Catholic Church. "I can do no other." The Australian Bishop William Morris sounded a similar note as news came in May that the Holy Father had removed him from his position. "You have got to stand in your truth," he said to the press.

At the same time, Bishop Morris expected the Holy See to let him stand in his own truth and continue to serve as a trusted teacher of the Catholic faith. He and his defenders have protested his removal as an act of mystifying injustice by the Vatican, a complaint that would only make sense if bishops enjoyed an inviolable right to misrepresent Church teaching.

What is his own truth? One of them is that the Church should be open to ordaining women as priests. In 2006, Bishop Morris wrote to his flock in the rural Diocese of Toowomba,

Given our deeply held belief in the primacy of Eucharist for the identity, continuity, and life of each parish community, we may well need to be much more open towards other options for ensuring that Eucharist may be celebrated. As has been discussed internationally, nationally, and locally the ideas of:

·         Ordaining married, single or widowed men who are chosen and endorsed by their local parish community;

·         Welcoming former priests, married or single, back to active ministry;

·         Ordaining women, married or single;

·         Recognizing Anglican, Lutheran, and Uniting Church Orders.

This, among many other dissenting moments of his tenure for which he refused to answer, finally prompted the Vatican to send US Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver to the Toowomba diocese for an apostolic visitation.

Bishop Morris has said that his views have been "misinterpreted" and that they never got a hearing, even as he acknowledged to the press a private meeting with Pope Benedict XVI: "You don't get much debate. He has a view and you have a view and you kind of part on those views."

Continue reading this editorial at www.CatholicWorldReport.com...

And you thought Christians were poster children for "blind faith"?

This revealing glimpse into the mind of secularists brought to you by The New York Times, reporting about Jill Abramson, the new editor of The New York Times, who ardently proclaims the gospel of, well, The New York Times:

Ms. Abramson, 57, said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like "ascending to Valhalla."

"In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion," she said. "If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth."

It's no shock to hear that secularism finds substitutes for religion; that, in fact, is a big part of the story of the past century. But I, for one, am somewhat surprised that a disciple of secularism admits to believing in absolute truth. And, yes, I am aware that Abramson is using a figure of speak and employing some hyperbole in expressing her enthusiasm for her new position as Pope—er, editor of the Grey Lady. Still, it is revealing, even if not surprising...

On the Ascension and Presence of Jesus Christ

First, here is a short excerpt from "The Ascension: The Beginning of a New Nearness," from Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts (Ignatius, 2006):

You are surely familiar with all those precious, naïve images in which only the feet of Jesus are visible, sticking out of the cloud, at the heads of the apostles. The cloud, for its part, is a dark circle on the perimeter; on the inside, however, blazing light. It occurs to me that precisely in the apparent naïveté of this representation something very deep comes into view. All we see of Christ in the time of history are his feet and the cloud. His feet—what are they?

We are reminded, first of all, of a peculiar sentence from the Resurrection account in Matthew's Gospel, where it is said that the women held onto the feet of the Risen Lord and worshipped him. As the Risen One, he towers over earthly proportions. We can still only touch his feet; and we touch them in adoration. Here we could reflect that we come as worshippers, following his trail, close to his footsteps. Praying, we go to him; praying, we touch him, even if in this world, so to speak, always only from below, only from afar, always only on the trail of his earthly steps. At the same time it becomes clear that we do not find the footprints of Christ when we look only below, when we measure only footprints and want to subsume faith in the obvious. The Lord is movement toward above, and only in moving ourselves, in looking up and ascending, do we recognize him.

When we read the Church Fathers something important is added. The correct ascent of man occurs precisely where he learns, in humbly turning toward his neighbor, to bow very deeply, down to his feet, down to the gesture of the washing of feet. It is precisely humility, which can bow low, that carries man upward. This is the dynamic of ascent that the feast of the Ascension wants to teach us.

And this from "The Threefold Presence of Christ", from You Crown the Year With Your Goodness: Sermons Throught the Liturgical Year (Ignatius, 1989), by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar:

[Christ's] disappearance from the world begins with his Passion and ends with his Ascension. For since he was laid in the tomb, no worldly person, no one who lacks the Spirit of Christ, has seen him anymore. His coming to us, however, starts on Easter morning, where he meets one disciple after another; it continues throughout the Forty Days and is brought to its fulfillment at Pentecost, when he pours out his Spirit over the Church and thus fills her with his own innermost being. It is not that his presence changes into his absence; what changes is the mode of his presence. ...

As Catholics we can try to view this new presence from three angles: from God's point of view, from Christ's point of view and from the Church's point of view. ...

The Lord shares in God's mode of presence, but he is not only God, he is also man for all eternity, with a human body and a human soul. Now this humanity explicitly n the new mode of his presence and indwelling. And this is the really astonishing and baffling thing: that this finite soul and this limited body can share in the limitless omnipresence and intimacy of God. His wisdom and love have brought this miracle about: it is called "Eucharist". It is not only a spiritual being-together in which the parties think of one another, nor is it simply the kind of presence whereby man is in God: it is an indwelling of the divine-human being of Christ, soul and body, in the whole person, body in body and soul in soul. "He sho eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me and I in him." ...

[Christ] is with us not only as God, not only as the eucharistic God-man, but also, essentially, as Church. What we mean by "Church" comes into being as a result of his Eucharist, from the outpouring of his Spirit; the Church lives in the power of his being-with-us all the days, to the end of the world. ...

Love is heaven on earth. Only thus is the mystery of the Ascension complete, in which the Son comes to us so that we may be where he is. He is with God, and God is love. And if we love, says John, we are with God and in God.

Finally, from my article, "The Image of Man Has Been Raised Up: On the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord":

At the Ascension the crucified, risen Son of God returns to His Father. Having descended to dusty earth, He now returns to heavenly glory. Having conquered death, He ascends to eternal life. But He returns to the right hand of the Father not just as the Word, but as the Incarnate Word. The doors of heaven are now open and humanity can now approach the throne room of God, the way having been paved by the life, death, and resurrection of the God-man. Pentecost, finally, is the manifestation of the God-man's Church, which is both human and divine. The Church was revealed to the world on that day—fifty days after Easter—by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All of this theology is nice enough, but what does it mean for us? It means the Feast of the Ascension is a celebration of salvation won. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that "in the Eastern Church this feast was known as analepsis, the taking up, and also as the episozomene, the salvation, denoting that by ascending into His glory Christ completed the work of our redemption." The tendency is often to think of the Resurrection as the culmination of Jesus' salvific work, but it is the Ascension that places the final stamp of approval on the sacrificial and victorious work of our Savior. This is beautifully expressed in the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might: which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens ... (Eph. 1:17-20).

Now that the Incarnate Son of God has ascended into heaven and sits in the throne room of God, mankind can follow. United to the Son through baptism and deepening communion with Him through reception of the Holy Eucharist and the other sacraments, the hope of heaven is ours.

"The ascension of Christ is our elevation," declared Leo the Great in a sermon on the Ascension, "Hope for the body is also invited where the glory of the Head preceded us. Let us exult, dearly beloved, with worthy joy and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. Today we not only are established as possessors of paradise, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ." Where the sin of the first Adam closed the gates of Paradise, the righteousness of the new Adam has opened them wide.

Read the entire piece.

CWR: New site, new blog, and lots of news from an orthodox Catholic perspective

The new Catholic World Report site it now up and running—it looks wonderful!—and it comes with a new blog and a number of other features, as managing editor Catherine Harmon explains in this post:

We are pleased to present our brand spanking new Catholic World Report Blog, featuring news and commentary from CWR's editorial staff. We hope you'll make it a part of your daily Internet diet. We also hope you'll take a minute or two and peruse our new website – in addition to a complete design overhaul, we've also added a Video News section, breaking news updates from Catholic News Agency, and, of course, this blog.

We're also pleased to make entire issues available online to CWR subscribers. In addition to the current issue, subscribers will also have access to our back-issue archives (we're still working our way back – right now we've got everything as far back as 2008 uploaded). We'll be making content from each issue available to the public on the homepage, but the only way to get all our coverage of Catholic world news and events is to become a subscriber.

So take a look around the new site, pardon our dust (and the inevitable bugs), and let us know what you think!

Visit the new CWR site and the new CWR blog, and also check out the  new, July 2011 issue of CWR.

The Contraception Contradiction

The Contraception Contradiction | Daniel Allott | Catholic World Report | June 2011

Growing evidence suggests that the "more contraceptives, fewer abortions" theory is flawed.

New York City is the abortion capital of America. More than 40 percent of pregnancies in New York City end in abortion (excluding miscarriages), nearly twice the national rate. The abortion rate among the city's black residents is a jaw-dropping 60 percent. In 2009, New York City saw more than 87,000 abortions—one roughly every six minutes.

Not surprisingly, New York City also has one of the country's most pro-abortion political establishments. When the New York Post interviewed the City Council's 51 members in 2010 about the city's abortion rate, only five would allow that it was too high. One council aide even fretted that a lower abortion rate might bankrupt the city.

Asked to comment on how her city could best lower its rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion, Council Speaker Christine Quinn told the Post, "We can reduce the number of unintended pregnancies…by expanding access to contraceptives and increasing sex education."

A similar analysis was offered in 2008 by Deborah Kaplan, deputy commissioner of New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Responding to questions about the city's high abortion rate, she told Crain's business journal, "To me, the problem is access. If we improved access to contraceptives, there would be a reduction in abortion."

Quinn and Kaplan were echoing the conventional wisdom about the relationships between contraception, unintended pregnancy, and abortion. The theory holds that since most abortions are the result of unintended pregnancies, efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies will reduce the number of abortions. And since contraceptives can reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, expanding access to contraceptives will lower the abortion rate.

But that logic has not worked very well in practice. If New York City is the abortion capital of America, it is also the contraceptive capital of America. Free or low-cost birth control is available through dozens of publicly-funded programs at more than 200 places throughout New York state, most of them in New York City and its suburbs.

Read the entire article at CatholicWorldReport.com...